Last night it was Handel's Messiah and today it will be Amahl and the Night Visitors.

It seems that I'm going to make up the year's music deficit in one weekend, both as performer and as audience.

While there's a considerable difference between a local youth orchestra and a local chorale on the one hand and an internationally reknowned (and experienced) symphony orchestra and chorale on the other, I must say it was a good performance.

Perhaps it was because I know the music so well I can hear it in my mind's ear and tune out that one first violin's increasingly out of tune string. Must have had a peg slip, or maybe the string was cold when he tuned the instrument.

Or perhaps it's because I'm so starved for music that even local productions sound good.

Or maybe just that it's great music, regardless of the minor imperfections in any one performance. (I remember one very famous conductor, Bruno Walter, who used to sing along with the orchestra--off key, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket--but it was audible only if you were paying very close attention.)

Whatever. I enjoyed the evening.