Esa Pekka strikes again

Another glorious evening (with one dry spell: badly rehearsed Haydn with a very dull first violin) at Avery Fisher tonight as Esa Pekka drew a stunning performance of Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle out of the enormous orchestra, along with a radiant Michelle de Young and a brooding Gabor Bretz.  Yes, these are cliches when applied to a soprano and a bass, but in this case, they were realized on stage with real power.  De Young was seductive, playful, frightened, repulsed, intrigued, hopeful, and loving in turns -- not only in her expressions, but in her voice; and Bretz was tragically woeful, anxious, and sexy, violent bass version of Tony Leung.  (I'm a fan of Wong Kar Wai, and I'm reading "Three Kingdoms," so I have wuxia films on the brain.)

Though I'm exceptionally busy teaching, writing a proposal for the American Philological Association, and preparing two lectures to give in Canada this Thursday/Friday, the few hours of listening at Lincoln Center were exemplary of the kind of otium Cicero finds most refreshing:

Quaeres a nobis, Grati, cur tanto opere hoc homine delectemur. Quia suppeditat nobis ubi et animus ex hoc forensi strepitu reficiatur, et aures convicio defessae conquiescant. An tu existimas aut suppetere nobis posse quod cotidie dicamus in tanta varietate rerum, nisi animos nostros doctrina excolamus; aut ferre animos tantam posse contentionem, nisi eos doctrina eadem relaxemus?

You're asking me, Gratius, why I take so much delight in this man (the poet Archias, whose Roman citizenship Cicero is defending).  Because he provides me with a place where my spirit may be refreshed from the noise in the lawcourt, and my ears, worn out from arguments, can relax.  Do you think that speaking daily on such a wide variety of topics can come easily to us if we fail to cultivate our souls with learning?  Or do you think that our souls can bear such heavy strain, if we do not relax them with this same learning?    

Perhaps Haydn, Ligeti, and Bartok aren't doctrina, exactly--Cicero is speaking of literary pleasures--but I persist in thinking that his point applies.