New York Diary

Philharmony

I went with LRand, DJ, and a few others to Central Park this evening to listen to the New York Philharmonic play on the Great Lawn, to an audience of at least a couple hundred thousand (I'd guess). People were spread out, picnicking, bantering, and listening.

This is a very populistic event, a civic and public event. Music in the park is the kind of thing that anybody and everybody goes to. And we go to listen, sure, but also to chat amongst friends and to sit on the grass and enjoy a New York summer evening. The songs chosen are crowd-pleasers; there are fireworks at the end.

All of this makes it very different from a night at the symphony, perhaps, but it also makes the evening fabulous in its own way. We were sometimes straining to hear the music, and sometimes annoyed, and all few hundred thousand of us were amused when the heavens broke forth with a rainstorm of epic proportions just after the last of the fireworks had gone off to good effect--but music in the park is first and foremost a very lovely thing. It is, I think, a very democratic thing. Certainly, it is a social and cultural unifier; it is familial (what with all the kids dancing through the opening strains of bum-bum-bum-BUMMMMMM it can't help but be); it is friendly.

I must say, I liked especially the fact that the best seats in the house for the music (in the north) were the worst for the fireworks (in the south, over the city skyline)--and even more than that, I liked the way that everybody was out running through the driving rain afterwards, soaked to their bones, screaming and laughing in a very unusual shared social pleasure. I've never seen anything like it before. We were all laughing together.

posted by Skay @ 9:38 PM