321. Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto at the Sydney Opera House

I’m not much of a fan of classical music but to say that my parents hand a very narrow spectrum in their tape, vinyl and CD collection would be an understatement. As a 10 year old the only music I’d ever heard at home and in the car was Abba’s Greatest Hits, The Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, The Best of the Shadows and, unfortunately, everything ever written by Cliff Richard – I think I sang “Wired for Sound” for about 6 months solidly with the odd rendition of “Devil Woman” thrown in for good measure and I’m sure it can’t be healthy for a young male growing up in the West Coast of Scotland to know all the words to Phantom’s “Music of the Night”.

Despite the above there was the occasional smattering of the classics and several years later after watching the movie Shine I realised that I did actually enjoy some classical music in particular the works of Chopin and Rachmaninoff. So when Mum asked if there would be anything on at the Sydney Opera House during their stay in Australia and a brief internet search revealed that Garrick Ohlsson was going to be playing the Rach 3 conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy I frantically booked tickets.

On the night in question we managed to get some seats in the lower concourse of the Opera House which gave Mum and Dad a chance to enjoy the views of the Harbour that we had upsettingly become so used to and after a couple of glasses of lovely chilled wine we made our way into the main concert hall. I must confess to not knowing the first thing about how to do the interior decorating for something like the Opera House but it was all pine panelling and beech wood ergonomic seating and was befitting of the exteriors iconic design.

As I said I’m no expert on the design of the concert hall, but when the music started and I closed my eyes it wouldn’t have mattered if I had the IQ of a fish and I was sitting in a squash court, a fool could tell the acoustics were phenomenal and the rendition was awe-inspiring. Every note was momentous and the orchestra performed as admirably as the impressive Ohlsson.

Apparently, Ashkenazy is one of the worlds most famous conductors and I’m sure his contribution to the performance was invaluable although to me it seemed that none of the orchestra were watching him and his sole job was to jump around on his little platform in a way that reminded me of the “Bug” creature in Men in Black when it wears the skin suit of the farmer after crashing it’s space craft into the farmer’s trunk. Oh well, what would I know?