" As you sit here, contentedly awaiting a pleasant lunch hour concert of music by a great composer you probably know and love, imagine being in a considerably more apprehensive audience 210 years ago, about to hear Beethoven's Septet for the first time..."
Wah! Who expects to read something like that in the program notes! It quite put me off. Firstly, I do not know-and-love Beethoven. He is merely an acquaintance.
Secondly I felt obliged to imagine the dratted thing.
So I'm listening to the music, which is nothing to be apprehensive about by the way, and I'm trying to imagine what I'm wearing. It's 1800, and I'm at a soiree in the Royal Imperial Court Theatre In Vienna.
This is mental! What did ladies wear in 1800? I know what they used to wear in France before the Revolution. Big crinoline dresses ! And I know what they used to wear in England in Jane Austen's day. Diaphanous high waisted dresses. But 1800 is just in between.
And here I am, trying to imagine that I'm at this freaking soiree, in an unspecified sort of dress, possibly with large feathers in my hair, or possibly jewels, and I'm sitting behind row after row of people wearing jumpers. Not only that but on the very front row, I can see this chap with greasy grey curly locks and an orange jacket with a thin polyester hood askew about his shoulders.
Aren't we all imagining we're in Vienna?
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