I went with my girlfriend to see the Dallas Symphony last night. I managed to get cheap student tickets for a bunch of concerts this year. We saw them play Mahler's First Symphony (which I'm currently playing in orchestra at school) last fall which was amazing. If you have the chance to see a good orchestra play this you should take it.
Last night they played Smetana's "My Fatherland" with a European guest conductor. I have to say it was not the best I've heard the orchestra play. The strings seemed out of touch and had no dynamic range, the horns played too loud, and the ensemble wasn't together at times. Hopefully the next concert will be better (Shostakovich 7 which is a pretty sweet piece).
This is a video of the third movement which they played well yesterday (though not as well as this video which is the Czech National Orchestra playing a Czech masterpiece). It portrays in a very followable fashion the story of a girl (Sarka) who becomes a raging manhating feminist after being betrayed by a lover. She fake ties herself to a tree and a prince appears with his army and "saves" her. You can hear the dialogue between clarinet (Sarka) and the cellos (the prince). Then they have a party (dancing music). Sarka then starts slipping stuff into the drinks that makes the army fall asleep (slowing music, snoring by the bassoon). Then Sarka calls out to her Amazonian women army (horn calls and clarninet again) and they slaughter the male army.
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