Sunday, Nov. 3

After eating too much and exercising not at all last week while we were in Branson, I hit the treadmill both yesterday morning and this morning to try to make up for lost time.

Once I was ready for the day, I spent most of the rest of the morning on the computer, posting blogs about our trip. Lunch was easy today...various leftovers from last week.

This afternoon, we attended a concert performed by members of our state's symphony orchestra. As it usually is each year for the concert, today was very warm. So it was hard to decide what to wear. I settled on a lightweight, brown suit jacket and tan slacks. Mother opted for black and gray, and Hubbie wore his usual uniform...khaki slacks and short-sleeved knit shirt.

In bygone days, everyone dressed up for the symphony. Anything less would have been inappropriate. These days, though, it doesn't matter what one wears. Some dress up, some dress casually, some come in jeans and t-shirts, or, in the case of teens and young adults, even shorts and t-shirts.

I should have checked the calendar before we left, because we arrived before 2 p.m. for a 2:30 performance. Hubbie was anything but pleased that the orchestra's conductor was scheduled to give a lecture on the two featured composers...Dvorak and Schumann...during the 30 minutes prior to the concert.

Basically, the lecture reiterated program notes on the composers. The 1800s composer, Dvorak fell in love with an aspiring 16-year-old actress, his piano student. But she rejected him, and so he married her younger sister. Dvorak retained a powerful affection for the preferred sister, though, and when she died, he quoted a melody from one of his songs in the second movement of Cello Concerto in B. Minor, Op. 109, performed by the symphony today.

Schumann suffered symptoms of a nervous disorder that became severe enough to lead to "profound depression, ringing in the ears, memory loss, trembling and irrational fears of heights and sharp metal objects." He couldn't even bear to hear music, and by the end of 1844, he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Today, we heard Schumann's Symphony No.2 in C. Major, Op. 61.