??? My First Classical Concert,What Can I Expect ???

This is mainly to reinforce what others have already said!

The six Brandenburg Concertos are very early 'classical' pieces and do not feature soloists like later concertos do.  The original meaning of concerto was 'playing together'.  The original instrumentation did not use any drums, instead the harpsicord provides an improvised rhythm section and according to Sir Thomas Beecham sounds like two skeletons copulating on a tin roof.  The volume produced by each harpsicord keystroke is fixed!

Each concerto is very short - somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes - but much longer than most modern 'songs'.  The first concerto has four individual movements with pauses between them, the other five are just three movements.  These pauses are the best time to wriggle, cough and say a few words to your partner.  Otherwise, try to stay silent.  Take a few cough lozenges unless you fancy being a featured soloist - always embarrassing. Best to wait for most of the audience to clap before you join in, unless you know the piece being played.

As far as acoustics go, in Bach's day the only venues were echo-prone churches and cathedrals, or much smaller rooms.  The Brandenburgs were composed for intimate spaces where the very fast notes don't get lost in reverberation.  You have to fast forward to Mozart's time to get custom built 'listening spaces' aka chambers and true chamber music.

The sound will vary dramatically throughout the church.  Being near the front, you may just be able to shut your eyes and localise an instrument, but the original intent was to play together!  I have never been able to pinpoint an instrument in a full symphony orchestra playing live in a real venue.

I hope you do have fun, but it can be hard when everybody around you is po-faced and deadly serious!

@mylogic 

The Royal Albert Hall is where l have heard all of these……it’s not the venue for great sound

It was renowned for a dreadful echo - Sir Thomas Beecham remarked that at least young composers could be sure of hearing two or more performances of their work

@mylogic 

Agreed!  Even the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall had poor acoustics until fixed recently with A$100-million upgrade!

Where was the article quoted above, when discussions turned to the best place to sit in a concert hall.  It is not necessarily in the centre of 7th row back, as claimed by a forum member "because it is where he always sits"!

If a concert has plenty of spare seats, I often gravitate to high up at the rear during interval!

@mylogic 

The article I quoted was in the post above from @horn13 

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/where-is-the-best-place-to-sit-in-the-concert-hall/

Interestingly one of the worst positions with a big orchestra (around 100 players - six times more than the baroque ensembles needed for the Brandenburg Concertos) is where the conductor normally stands.  It is far too close to the front desks, which overpower more distant players. Our Australian Mahler specialist Simone Young would move around the empty auditorium while the orchestra was on 'auto-play' to try to work out the balance she wanted for the audience.  But as soon as the venue fills with people, its acoustics change.

I have never been to the acoustically designed Symphony Hall in Birmingham, but my understanding is that its inner structure floats on rubber isolation blocks.  Huge adjustable 'hangar doors' open to the outer space, allowing the hall reverberation to be fine tuned to suit the musical program.

If I ever visit Europe again, Copenhagen 's newish DR Koncerthuset will be a must visit along with the Berliner Philharmonie;

Not to mention the biggest wooden building in the world - Wagner's temporary hall in Bayreuth, the Festspielhaus, which is now almost 150 years old.  The hall demonstrates Wagner's intention that the sound should be blended, and some say foreshadows Phil Spector's Wall of Sound.  The entire orchestra in the Festspielhaus is under the opera stage and out of sight of the audience.  Good luck pin-pointing instruments there!

@mylogic 

From about 10 years old I was taken to classical concerts at the White Rock Pavillion in Hastings, just east of you (’just’ as in Australian distance terms!).

Mainly it was the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who seemed to use Hastings as a final rehearsal before playing in London.  I remember an absolutely electrifying performance conducted by the Russian Kirill Kondrashin, who used neither score nor baton, but seemed to hover over every instrumental entry while simultaneously balancing the sound.  I get the same thrill watching another Kirill, this time Petrenko, conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker in Tschaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony, number 6 on Blu-ray.

@freediver  About as far removed from the Brandeburgs as you can get and highly recommended if the harpsicord turns out not to be your thing!  I must admit I run a mile away from the Australian Brandeburg Orchestra, but equally quickly towards the Australian Chamber Orchestra in the same repertoire.