whole lotta Schubert going on

Last week I attended and reviewed two all-Schubert concerts from the Menlo Festival's current Schubert extravaganza.

The first one, which was the second to appear, I'd volunteered to cover mostly for the chance to hear the Octet live. It's not a piece I'd ever realy come to terms with, and this concert helped. Then there was the "Wanderer" Fantasy, which I couldn't remember if I knew well enough to recognize or not. Turned out that I did. Oh, and there are too arpeggione players.

The second concert, which was all about Death, was more of a challenge, for incidental reasons. I like to be well-rested before a concert, but this time I wasn't, so my mental absorbtive capacity was limited. And I had to write most of the review longhand on an airplane flight the next afternoon, and then type it up on a strange computer once I got where I was going.

Upcoming, the non-Schubert concert, or the one with a Schubert-shaped hole in the middle of it.