A Western Classical concert by the Galatea String Quartet was held at the Hyder Mahal, ITC Hotel – Kakatia. Yet another event arranged in association with Goethe-Zentrum, who were kind enough to hand out free passes to all interested. Some links -

• Swiss Arts Council Link
• Hindu Link

Events like this one are actually meant for people who understand and appreciate classical music. Being an ardent fan of “weird” metal (read : power, symphonic, metal-core, industrial) I am not much for Classical music, western or otherwise. Even if you do not appreciate, or know anything about Classical music, events like this one have two major things going for them-

• There is free food served before the event. Which is usually quite nice.
• It happens to be one of the very, very few places in Hyderabad where good looking women can be seen

String Quartets are a music ensemble of four stringed instruments, as should be fairly obvious from the name. The last time we had gone for a concert by a string quartet it was, for lack of a more appropriate phrase, quite shit. That probably had something to do with the fact that we know next to nothing about the music, and that they seemed to play a lot of “modern” compositions, but thats beside the point. Everything they played seemed to have far too much “noise“.

One moment, you can hear the faint breathing of the guy 10 rows ahead of you. All is quiet. The next moment, the four people on stage start shaking like epilepsy patients having a seizure (as politically incorrect as it may sound). Your ears are assaulted by random strains of noise from not just one, but FOUR stringed instruments – squealing and squeaking in a fairly random manner. Quite frankly, it was audio terrorism. But not all Western Classical concerts by string quartets can be that bad…. or CAN they?

About 10 of us decided to attend this concert. I suppose, to some small extent, we all wanted to hear their music, just to make sure that not ALL string quartets played terrible music. But for the most part, it was the free food and a the chance to gawk at hot women.

The Galatea String Quartet

They all seemed hugely skilled despite being below 30 years of age. That was a given, I suppose. For one thing they had been asked to perform in an event like this one, and for another – they had won loads of awards. The first two pieces they performed were not very pleasant on the ears, imo. The third one on the other hand, was actually pretty good. Things got much, much better after the interval, when they played some of Beethoven’s compositions. They ended the performance with a piece by Tagore.

On the whole, the concert was quite all right, with the second half being much better that the first. The crowd at the event? That is something which requires another post.

-> Badrinath.S

P.S.: Next post will probably include a more detailed write up of the event. All posts from this point on will be somewhat hurried.

P.P.S.: Wanted to write a review on the India Ocean concert, which was quite good. But its already been done. Same irritating blogger who keeps pestering me to post. Indian Ocean live performances are far better than their studio albums. When listening to their studio albums, notice the difference in the way the words are sung. Very bland when compared to the live concert. Link of the review below -

P.P.P.S.: On a completely different note, its quite shocking how people react when their preconceived notions about something are put to test by a third, neutral party. Surprising what they do to prove to themselves that their previous, ill conceived view was correct. Human psychology is bloody interesting.