Hollywood: the Epics @ Roy Thomson Hall

"These are not the seats you are looking for."

A friend called me up on Monday. "Are you free Wednesday night?" he said. "I've got a spare ticket for the symphony."

"Sure, I'm free," I said. "Wait -- what's playing?"

"Not sure," he said. "The theme is Hollywood movies or something."

"Oh," I said. "Well, as long as it's not Mozart."

I haven't been to the symphony in years, and I confess that even though I probably know more about classical music than the average person, I've never enjoyed the symphony. That is, watching a live orchestral performance has never blown me away like I always expect it to.

I always thought it was because I have a hard time reconciling what I see with what I hear. I realized last night that that's only a small part of it. I like music to be a little raw, and human. Symphony orchestras play as a single well-oiled unit, for the sake of the piece. The composition is human; the live performance rarely is.

The other problem with last night is the nature of movie music, or at least the arrangements put together for performances - brief suites or preludes that cobble together all of the soundtrack's main motifs (often running the gauntlet of tempos and treatments) in under 10 minutes.

Anyway, it was worse than I expected. The night was titled "Hollywood: the Epics" -- which meant the most grandiose scores from Hollywood's most grandiose movies. When Stormtroopers greeted us at the door, I suddenly realized that I am a classical music snob. I enjoy the Star Wars films; I enjoy (some) classical music. Putting them together, in my mind, is just plain wrong.

Seeing people get excited about the show also made me a little angry. A five-minute suite evoking hobbits and Sith Lords and Hollywood-style romance only scratches the surface of what orchestral music is capable of. I know it's important to make classical music more accessible, and get younger people in the seats, but there has got to be another way.

There were a few worthwhile moments, though. The overture from Around the World in 80 Days actually made us want to see the movie. ( And it made me want to dance with maracas. ) We also learned that Kubrick had added the classical soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey as a placeholder for composer Alex North -- but after North composed his own original soundtrack, Kubrick decided to scrap it and stick to the classics.

Rosza's "The Lord's Prayer" from King of Kings also surprised me with its rich sound and constantly shifting chord progressions. You would have never guessed it was from a film. And I confess that John Williams' Theme from Schindler's List had a quiet gravitas; unlike typical Hollywood soundtracks, it held back, and the lead violinist performed beautifully.

It doesn't make up for the sappy "Lara's Theme" from Doctor Zhivago or the suite and "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. During the latter, I turned to my friend and whispered, "I'm going to poke my eyes out." When Darth Vader strolled onto stage at the end and chased off the conductor after the Star Wars suite, I thought, "I'm turning in my grave -- and I'm not even dead yet!"

So there you go. I'm a snob. But the day the Toronto Symphony Orchestra performs the film scores of Bernard Herrmann, I'm there.