Back at Music Hall

Friday
One of the many things I’ve really missed over the last year is going to Cincinnati Symphony concerts at Music Hall. Back in the Fall, they were streaming concerts with a small, well-spaced orchestra, then in January they started doing live concerts, while maintaining the livestream, with an audience of no more than 15% of capacity, widely-spaced and masked. The concerts are shorter than usual, 70-80 minutes, with no intermission, so there is no mingling. This was the first one we had been to, but with the numbers having come down as they have, and having had our first shot, it seemed quite safe. It was a strange experience, with the orchestra so spaced out, and such a limited audience, but it felt so good to get dressed up and go out for a change. There was just one piece of music on the program, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. Mahler’s one of my favourite composers, though I wasn’t that familiar with this particular work, but I really enjoyed it. The big screen over the orchestra was pulled up before the concert started, the smaller screen above was for the English translation from the German.
The day until then had been sunny though cool. I spent much of the morning sitting in the corner of our breakfast room in the sunshine, knitting and doing my Italian. In the afternoon, we decided to make a change from walking/hiking, and went for a swim - 56 lengths today.
Step count: 6,098