Sprightly

My New Year's resolution: to blog more often, perhaps even on a semi-regular basis. Since I follow the lunar calendar, I don't consider late February to be too late a start. (click to embiggen the images) Orchestra musicians exist in a milieu rich with traditions, some of which are ennobling, many of which are stultifying. One of my favorites, and not at all in the sarcastic sense, has to be the way our bass section plays the passage above, which occurs near the end of the Tchaikowsky 6 th Symphony. I've highlighted the 2nd and 4th horn parts, marked fortissimo and  gestopft  (stopped), which is that brassy, deliciously nasty sound produced by stuffing a hand into the bell. The arrows show the double bass part holding a low F-sharp (which sounds one octave below the written pitch). The first time I played the piece with the  {redacted} SO, I was bemused to notice everyone else in the section changing bows during the long note...

you probably think this blog is about you The (poorly taken) photo is from Wall Drug in South Dakota. The sign behind the “Cowboy Orchestra” reads: “Our drugstore musicians ain't heard o' Petrillo. They play  just for the thrillo.” (Note how their working conditions were unilaterally changed by management.) This is either a pretty old sign, or an extremely inside joke. I wonder how many folks who look at that know about James Petrillo? Taken during my sabbatical last year, the photo seems all the more apropos lately since our contract was up for renegotiation this fall. Happily, after a few tense weeks an agreement was reached and everything is all smiles and bonhomie around the concert hall. Contract time is interesting to me mostly for its rhetorical excess – the pleas of poverty from management set against the claims that classical music is a priceless asset, as necessary to human survival as air and water. While the truth most probably lies somewhere in between, I fee...

Last week, either by design, or like so many things in this profession, by accident, the {redacted} SO at Ravinia explored the quintessence of our summer music festival experience. During the span of three concerts we performed a Zemlinsky Tone Poem, a pair of war-horse concertos (which both turned into white knuckle affairs), a Gala concert, that most American of summer staples – an all Tchaikovsky Spectacular, and, where we finally reached a kind of Waterloo, (insert Sad Trombone sound here) a film night performance of the movie Gladiator. About the only things missing were a major overtime boondoggle in favor of musicians and the devastating thunderstorm, which arrived Sunday evening about an hour too late to do anybody any good. Alexander Zemlinsky, one of the composers championed by our departing warm-weather music director, makes the perfect mascot to represent the recent travails of the {redacted} SO in our summer home. Alma Schindler's rejection of a homely musical unde...

Seeing a noted soloist return as a conductor is not often cause for high hopes, whether the transformation occurs after age has taken its toll on the playing, or in mid career, ennui, or an inflated ego has inflamed the desire to conquer a higher musical mountain. Although but a few steps, the journey between the soloist's spot at the footlights and the podium is a perilous road which has buried many a neophyte beneath an avalanche of overwhelming details, thrown many an overeager yet unprepared dilettante down into a hidden crevasse, or left many a dabbler dawdling along the crisscrossing paths of interpretive uncertainty. With these thoughts in the back of my mind, Nikolaj Znaider playing a Mozart concerto and conducting Symphonie fantastique on the Ravinia schedule looked like cause for concern. As if to confirm my worst fears, when greeting the orchestra, his Israeli-tinged accent immediately brought on a horrible, pit-of-the-stomach sinking feeling, flashbacks to our own lo...

  Since no summer of Bass Bloggery can go by without commentary on the season at Ravinia, it is time to take on the festival.   “What are you doing home on a Saturday night?” one of my neighbors who knows what I do for a living asked during a recent impromptu front porch gathering, calling attention to the fact that in years past the rigors of my profession often forced me to eschew the warm weather social scene on our block. Happily, I could inform my neighbor since the {redacted} SO would only have three Saturday performances all summer, my attendance at future gatherings would be more likely. Having been at something of a loss for words to describe this year's iteration of the festival, and also desiring to come across as a bit less judgey about our summer working conditions, I hit upon the notion that through numbers I might be able to describe the situation. Numbers, after all, being impartial arbiters of fact, don't lie. So here are a few numbers about the {redacted}...

“ Well, I'm back .” – Sam Gamgee       Sorry for the lengthy hiatus. For some of the time, I have a good excuse for not posting – I was away on sabbatical for a year – and for the rest of it, I have an even better one – general malaise, with a side of laziness.   Thanks to those kindly who inquired as to the fate of the blog, and even in a few rare instances, my own well-being. The requests to have the blog start up again were all greatly appreciated and truly touching. Any fellow creeping along a high ledge, hearing the crowd below encouraging him to 'jump!' would be so moved.   After rubbing elbows with the peculiar brand of paranoia extant in the orchestra for many years, I find it difficult to divulge my exact whereabouts during my time off. With the beginning and endpoints shrouded in secrecy, details of my travels to other points around the globe must remain necessarily vague. Flirting with treasonous candor, a few nuggets of information are more tha...

  A pattern seems to be evolving at Ravinia; begin the truncated summer session with a week of Christoph von Dohnányi and end with a week of Lord of the Rings. I'm not sure how many years the eighty-three-year-old maestro has left, but now that the LOTR folks have turned The Hobbit into a trilogy of films, we have five more to go. (If they tackle The Silmarillion, I'll probably throw myself under a train. If Ravinia ever makes us play LOTR, the musical, I might self immolate in the parking lot.)   Sometimes it feels as if Sauron himself takes a hand in scheduling during the summer season. Nothing whips the Orc-hestra into that deadly combination of boredom and anger like fifteen hours of rehearsal spent going over (and over) two Beethoven Symphonies and two Piano Concertos (3, 3, 4 and 5 – don't ask me which is which; I'm desperately trying to put the whole thing behind me). Dohnányi, who has admirable qualities as a musician, also has a disposition which forces ...