It was a wonderful performance Friday night at SPAC – Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Martha Argerich on piano and the Capucon brothers on violin and cello, together with the Philadelphia Orchestra – but the crowd was very light. The place was barely half full.

The Gazette reviewer speculated it was because of competition from the Olympics, and specifically from the opening ceremonies, which were being televised at the same time.

Maybe. I don’t know. For my part, I’m all in favor of pageantry, but I want to see it close up in person, not on television, so I was not tempted in the slightest to skip Beethoven in favor of elaborately costumed drill teams on a television screen. I sneaked a peek at some video clips on the Internet, and that satisfied all the craving I might have felt.

As for the rest of the Olympics, I’m sure they would be perfectly jolly if I were there, in Beijing, but alas I’m not, and my previous experience with trying to watch this quadrennial extravaganza on television was so discouraging that I resolved to leave it alone. A sporting event is one thing, which might or not be interesting, but a montage of schmaltzy videoclips about an athlete’s wholesome childhood, with appropriate music, which television specializes in, is something else, and frankly I don’t have the stomach for it. The last time I tried to sit through it, either four or eight years ago, I developed a severe case of dyspepsia. If I want sentiment, I can get a finer variety from Beethoven.

I would have thought other people would feel likewise, so if they are inclined to go to SPAC for an orchestra concert, they would not be tempted away by a magnified Chinese version of a Las Vegas floor show, on television yet. But I could be wrong about that, as I have been wrong about so many things. Maybe that is why the SPAC crowd was sparse. It was much bigger on Saturday night for Emmanuel Ax doing a Beethoven piano concerto.