Then this evening I did something soooooooo civilized you'll probably puke (vomit on the ground, in Kritzer lingo) when I tell you about it.
There is a local chamber music society called Southwest Chamber Music. Each summer, they hold a series of concerts at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, which is all of three miles, if that, from my house.
The concerts are held on a loggia adjoining what once was Mr. Huntington's home, and a fancy beaux arts mansion it is, now used to display his considerable collection of art and antiques. (The best known piece in the collection is Gainsborough's "Blue Boy.")
There is seating for about 250 people on the loggia, which is surrounded on three sides by 32 classic Greek columns, which support a coffered ceiling. Through the columns one can see the elaborate lawns and gardens of the estate and, as the concert begins, the dwindling daylight that transforms itself to dusk. There is a real sense of this being a salon concert, as if the 250 guests had just finished dining with Mr. and Mrs. Huntington and we all moved from the dining room to the loggia for the evening's entertainment. Adding to this sense is that the lighting is provided by antique-style floor lamps that one might find in an elegantly decorated home.
The Huntington has just opened a small but rich exhibit on Christopher Isherwood, in celebration of his centenary next month. (The Huntington acquired Isherwood's papers, letters and other ephemera last year from Don Bachardy, Isherwood's longtime partner.) In recognition of the exhibit and centenary, Southwest Chamber Music is programming music in each of its four concerts this summer that tie in some way to Isherwood.
Tonight the Isherwood-related piece was the Suite from "The Soldier's Tale," by Igor Stravinsky, who was a close friend of Isherwood's. The second half of the program was comprised of Mozart's Divertimento No. 17 in D, K. 334.
