I could even make eye contact with the musicians. Unexpectedly they stumbled at the very beginning and I could see their embarrassed faces saying "oh no...we've done it..." between the first and second movements.
Other than that, it was flawless.
Yesterday early afternoon after I cleaned my place spotlessly with Dyson's top-of-the-line vacuum cleaner and a swabbing robot, I was curious what the Suntory Hall might have that night and checked out their website -- turned out they had day-of-the-performance tickets of the Berlin Phil. Because of a change of the pianist, they offered refund of the tickets for those who had purchased them, and as a result there were some eighty tickets available.
No kidding. Even thought the S ticket was a bit too expensive -- JPY45,000 (USD 400), it is certainly much cheaper than going over to Berlin. I decided to treat myself with a belated birthday present as I was too worn out to do anything that day after an administrative nightmare.
The organizer hosted a perfectly fair lottery system to sell the tickets in order to avoid the simple first-come, first served option. One needed to queue between 15:00 to 15:59 in front of the box office to draw the lottery that assigned a number by which one was to queue again for the purchase. For example, if one drew the number one, s/he was the first to purchase. One person was assigned to buy only one ticket. In doing so, they avoided a scenario like a new iPhone going on sale; people come and start to queue as early as three days before.
I arrived around 15:45 and there were over two hundred people by 16:00. A person who came at 16:01 was rejected to draw the lottery.
It took about half an hour until I did -- the number was 222...virtually no hope. Nonetheless, I was still curious how things were going. Interestingly, some people who drew really good numbers, such as five or seven, did not show up for the purchase queue. So I thought I still might have a chance, but once people queued again, everybody bought a ticket, and the organizer warned that those whose number was above one hundred, there was almost no chance for the purchase.
So, I decided to go home, got myself champagne and some snacks to see the concert on the Berlin Phil digital concert website by using a free seven-day coupon they sent me (because I used to be a subscriber, they send me the coupon every now and then to encourage subscription again.) But apparently they were not going to televise the concert. For this Asia tour, only one in Hong Kong of November 11th was available.
It was good, particularly the last movement, but another concert in Berlin on November 4th far outshined it in a different dimension. I'm not sure if that was because the sound acoustics might be better in Berlin; or the players' physical condition might have been understandably better than after a long flight and in an exotic climate.
The great depth; nuanced transition between the bright side and the dark side which really is the life of Brahms's fourth symphony; and the overall precise organization like a fine tapestry would be best achieved at home in Berlin, I imagined.
