Monday, September 24, 2012

The Best Thing about Brussels So Far...

Has got to be the Concertgebouw (part of a complex with the appealingly multilingual name of "Bozar").    The building is nothing in particular to look at with an interior just as charmless any other charmless modern concert hall.   But we heard Gerald Finley as soloist in a Brahms Requiem with a massed orchestra and chorus; every sound was right and in particular, you could hear every word of his text.   Finley and, yes, Genia Kühmeier, perhaps less well known in the US but entirely up to the task.

Brussels in general is turning out to be a lot more interesting than I might have expected so long as you steer of all those massive projections of European power, out east of the old City.  Food not quite so wonderful as represented, though quite good enough.  And I've been mostly dining French; oddly (to me) enough, the really good stuff is said to be Flemish.

And no, I haven't yet seen the Mannekin Pis. He's short, easy to miss.

1 comment:

Kevin said...

Le Musee de la Gueuze was my favorite!