Carmina Burana at the Royal Albert Hall

We arrived at the Albert Hall so early that the doors were closed and there were queues outside. We diligently joined the queue and watched in amazement as it grew and grew and grew!! We would never have got there so early if we hadn't been in town all day! Crazy people. Incidentally the Eadweard Muybridge exhibition at the Tate Britain is fantastic. That is where we were in the afternoon.

So after a 45 minute wait (because we were ridiculously early), the concert started on the wrong note! I hadn't realised that there would be 'filler music' and thought I was in the wrong concert, or some weird arrangement of Carmina Burana not written by Carl Orff. The 'filler music' was OK, especially Berlioz's Rakocszy March, but it fatigued the audience for the finale second half. I didn't much enjoy the Saint Saens Organ Symphony. Bit too experimental, but it was nice to hear the Albert Hall's enormous Organ bellowing.

The second half commenced with the amazingly powerful O Fortuna movement which was blissfully spine tingling. The concert continued as one would expect: beautiful, majestic and powerful... and also funny! Good job there was no translation to take away from the majesty. Apparently the lyrics are a jumble of old drinking songs. The tenor, who only performs in just one act, made a quip about being a little bored and then faux passed out when he finished. The poor soprano boys choir where on their best behaviour throughout all of the first half and the second with just a couple of movements to sing. The were visible throughout and amusingly fidgety! The audience almost cheered when they got up to perform!!

It was a treat to hear Carmina Burana live again, the last time I went when I was 12 it was performed at the Barbican. Both times it was a memorable and moving performance. They could have chosen better and more fitting music for the first half. Much of the audience were clearly not music buffs and only there for the beginning and finishing acts of O Fortuna , shifting and fidgeting a lot through the rest of the performance. The first half must surely have been even harder for them than it was for me. What about some good old classics to start with...