Sprightly

...links A few years ago I embarked on a project to record a set of six Sonatas by Benedetto Marcello. A small but very unfortunate accident was a major factor in my never completing the set. The hard drive with six as yet unreleased movements crashed – actually fell off the dolly with all my equipment and shattered on a cement floor – taking with it the final two movements of Sonata IV and all of Sonata V. After such a setback, it was difficult metaphorically as well as literally to pick up the pieces and go on. Also, the recording process, where I would load both of my instruments and all my recording gear into a car and drive to an undisclosed location, usually in the middle of the night, to make the recordings, had become increasingly burdensome, so I went on to other things. Quite some time ago now, someone informed me the links to the audio files no longer worked, and, indeed, when I checked, the file hosting service I had been using was long ago defunct. I was content to le...

Some weeks the best strategy is to close one's eyes and to think, if not of England, at least about double bass fingerings. On background, and for those unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the instrument, apart from its size, the most distinctive difference between the double bass and the other stringed instruments of the orchestra is that, where the violin, viola, and cello tune in fifths, their larger relative tunes in fourths. This seemingly picayune difference actually represents a broad chasm, for although both are classified as 'perfect' intervals, fourths are actually a bit less pure than their 'goody-two-shoes' inversion, the fifth, which can almost do no wrong, harmonically speaking. On the other hand, the so-called 'perfect' fourth, with its checkered past, is actually considered dissonant in some cases. Imagine the dilemma suffered by bassists as they awake each morning wondering whether or not their strings are tuned consonantly or dissonantl...

“Of course, you know this piece very well.” To the naïve or untrained observer, it might appear that the Maestro beginning rehearsals with such a compliment is off to a good start. However, this bit of flattery clangs off the ears of the hardened orchestral musician like a dropped mute, especially when it serves as the prelude to, maybe even an apology in advance for hours, perhaps even days, spent in a painstaking vivisection of the repertoire on offer. Indeed, in this context 'knowing the piece very well' is often coded language for received wisdom, the accumulation of error, or of a misguided tradition, which the conductor is about to sweep away with a number of well chosen words, leaving in its place something cleaner, more authentic, an ur-interpretation of what was once naively thought familiar. The empty promises ring hollow when brought up against the reality of the limited allotment of rehearsal time, not to mention the hubris of feeling oneself capable of knocking...

sort of Boor 1) a churlish, rude, or unmannerly person Booer 1) a person who boos Sir Mark Elder's talk preceding our performance of the Elgar Symphony no. 1, performed here for the first time in 33 years, was briefly accompanied by an odd noise, which I at first mistook for an audience member having some sort of physical problem, but which was soon revealed to be guttural evidence of extreme disgruntlement. The speech, laudable for its cogent advocacy of this neglected masterpiece as well as its relative brevity, was immediately followed by some lustily delivered “Boos” from a single, loudly dissatisfied customer somewhere high up in the balcony. We have been booed before, certainly, and I've commented on it, a couple times ( here, and here , for anyone interested), but always at the end of a musical performance. This was a first, in my experience, where a conductor's remarks prompted a vocal display of displeasure. Generally, I'm pro booing – the whole freedom of...

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...