Sprightly

Aeneas picked up a rock, a heavy lift, which no two men now alive could do, although he managed it with ease all by himself. -Homer, The Iliad Last week, one of my colleagues retired after 49 years in the orchestra. The feat is something that, the more I think about the particulars of it, the more astonishing it seems. The last time we went to Japan, I met with a rabid fan of our orchestra, and incidentally, a reader of this blog, who ended up taking me out and buying me quite a few drinks. At some time during our evening together, after at least our second bottle of sake, he said, solemnly, “The {redacted} bass section is all very old men.” His English, although better than my Japanese, was not great. Assuming we were suffering from both linguistic and cultural miscommunication, I have no idea if he meant that as a compliment or a not so subtle put-down. One of the first things a new player in the orchestra learns is that talking about age and retirement is a VERY touchy subject for ...

{Not to ignore the elephant in the room, I join my colleagues in wishing for our music director's good health and speedy recovery. The desire to seek an explanation, or at least, information about what happened, while quintessentially human, does nothing to ameliorate the situation, although it may satisfy our own desires for immediate resolution. At the moment, compassion for someone who has suffered misfortune, or at very least the right to privacy, might be the most appropriate response.} Last week, I played an awful lot of Mozart, at the {redacted} SO and with Ars Viva. Two different people reminded me his birthday was coming up (on January 27th) but I forgot, and so enjoyed the sensation of being surprised by the same news twice. Some years ago, overcoming what had been a longstanding aversion, I broke down and attended a double bass convention in a distant city. While there, I encountered a colleague who specialized in music of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Elements of o...