It’s here! It’s finally here! My day has come!

Pardon me for a moment while I jump up and down and flap my arms around like a crazy person, but the concert I have been waiting for ALL SEASON has arrived!

It’s on Thursday, April 8 and Friday, April 9 at 8 pm at the Meyerhoff and Saturday, April 10 at Strathmore (that one’s pretty much sold out). Hannu Lintu (no Wikipedia page) will be conducting, and they’ve brought in Scottish percussionist Colin Currie (yet another Wikipedia entry-less orphan; what is wrong with these publicists?). The program starts with Sibelius‘s Finlandia, always a favorite, and then it’s the U. S. premiere of Incantations, a piece by a modern Finnish composer whose name I couldn’t pronounce properly if you held a gun to my head: Einojuhani Rautavaara.

AND THEN.

AND THEN.

BEETHOVEN’S SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

Is there a more achingly perfect slow movement in the pantheon of classical music? Is there a more uplifting final movement? Do I sometimes play the last minute of the fourth movement four or five times in a row just to listen to that fantastic set of harmonies in the horn section? While waving my arms around conductor-style, assuming said conductor is having a grand maul mal seizure? (Answers: no, no, yes, afraid so.)

To whit: Beethoven is a bloody genius, and in his seventh symphony he covered the whole human experience, from lows to highs.

Perhaps you think I’m overselling. Perhaps you, too, consider it little more than a “joyful symphonic treat” per the brochure. You think what you like. I hope your snobbery gives you comfort. Meanwhile I will be at the Meyerhoff Thursday, practically jumping out of my skin for the sheer beauty of it all.