I went to the symphony.

I went to hear Shostakovich's 8th symphony because Shostakovich's music has recently become meaningful to me. So I read a biography of his life to make my own relationship to the composer to supersede the one previously imparted.

I went alone.

When you go alone to events like this you get a good seat because there is always one seat separating groups. And in this case my seat separated two old men. The one on my right was clearly passionate about classical music. His was very attentive, his body pulsing to the rhythm sporadically. The man on my left came to placate his wife I am sure, his wife who in one sentence to him summed up their marriage for me. Standing at intermission she said: It's good to stand a little. The prodding inflection in her voice did not move him and I thought, This is a man who has not moved in a long time. This man kept turning his neck to look at me throughout the performance. Occasionally his head bobbed in sleep.

Most everyone is old and graying. They wear gray clothes, shapeless clothes, and walk slowly up and down the aisle. Those who aren't old are probably middle-aged, many outfitted in plastic clothes and plastic skin, which caused me to wonder why they'd come at all. Caused the suspicion that they come because the symphony is something you attend when you want to appear refined, despite the garish truth. Of the young, and I am one of those few young people, motivation was hard to guess. Perhaps they play classical music or are like me and just have some kind of interest in a composer or soloist or the mystery of the music itself.

Listening to classical music requires focus, a focus far more intellectual than is required to enjoy popular music. It's a hard exercise for me. I want some melody that bores its way in, something that I can be passive to. But this stuff I have to meet—it is aloof in that curious and frustrating way some sensitive intellectuals are, the ones who won't reach for you but issue subtle yet desperate invitations to come find them out.

So I read about Shostakovich and the historical context in which the 8th symphony was born. And when it was played I knew what to listen for and was astonished, anyway, by the incredible tossing emotion. It would've reached me even if I hadn't sought to understand it, like it had once before.