i had the opportunity, today, to attend a piano concert held at UWO's own small recital hall. Sometimes I wonder why UWO made that recital hall so small...and so strange - the front seats are SO close to the stage, and the stage is at least 5.5 feet high off the ground, making for a lot of neck straining. I always tend to compare to the U of T, but their concert hall in the edward johnson building is big but intimate - this UWO one is kinda squished, like those second rate "rainbow" theatres, vs. vampy-neon Colossus or Silver City. The new Ettore Mazzolini at the RCM is beautiful too...anyway, my point is this - when you build, when nice and big. think forwardly. actually - my other beef with the western campus - is that there aren't many buildings where you can just go and sit somewhere. i'm not talking about that nasty brown and orange place they somehow decided to designate for eating - i mean, spaces and rooms with couches and tables and benches - where food and drinks and talking are not restricted, as in the libraries - just empty rooms where you can go and be alone with other strangers, or take your friends to go and chat. i haven't really been to the colleges here - there is a university college, apparently - but a hart house equivalent would be such a great addition and provide a kind of a gathering/discussion/old school kind of an atmosphere. sometimes what makes the university experience so great is not sitting in lecture halls, or making jokes with your friends in the cafeteria - but just sitting around (without starbucks ringing in your head, without the smell of manchu wok hanging heavy in the air) and discussing things. ideas, the news, whatever you want.

anyway, the piano duo i heard today - i had seen their posters around the dental building the last little while, and their double (?) sonata by brahms was what had originally caught my eye - and that was wonderful - the dances by barber were cute but still dense and by no means easy to perform, but what caught my heart was their last duet - a valse by Maurice Ravel. The Mister of the duo gave an introduction to this piece - from his manner of speaking, he strikes me as a highly sensitive, thoughtful person - one who is silently and inwardly affected when he sees bad things in the world and reacts gently - as opposed so someone who barks out in anger, or seethes. he told the audience that ravel had been an ambulance driver in the war, and after the war ended, he was never quite the same, mentally. this valse that he had written - you are supposed to imagine (these are ravel's instructions) a swirling cloud of fog, and out of this fog, come viennese waltzers, who waltz beautifully, and suddenly you are transported to the imperial ballroom - but then the fog comes again, and the waltzes start up again too - but the themes are shorter, and they are played on top of each other, and the themes become more grotesque and grotesque until the very end where everything comes crashing down. and then, although subtle, he said "I think...." and told us that he believed that this was ravel's way of expressing his before and after feelings of the war - from beauty and standard form and some classicism and more romanticism to a vulgar, grotesque, horrid thing. i'm so glad i went - after debating my in head about whether i should study more and listen less - because i discovered another great piece that makes my....heart swell! i hope next year they'll do souvenirs de bayreuth.

i missed the national ballet's Monument performance because i didn't go back this weekend - i really wanted to see evelyn hart and rex harrington dance in whatever they were going to do (gazebo dances?) so there goes another weekend of missed performances....