Bass Blog Back!

Well, I finally heard from all five of my readers. There may be 68,000 odd hits on this page, but to be honest, about 57,995 of those were me obsessively checking to see if the page still existed and if anyone else had viewed it. Thanks to those who inquired about my health, which is no better, but certainly no worse than usual – I simply needed a break.

The performances last week of the Bruckner 5th Symphony have a great deal to do with my decision t start blogging again at this time. Letting a Bruckner 5 pass without comment would be like sitting at the breakfast table one sunny morning and watching the Hindenburg silently drift by without at least nudging one’s companion to look up from the newspaper. Fortunately, under the baton of replacement conductor Jaap van Zweden (filling in for the permanently absent Riccardo Chailly) Bruckner’s bloated masterpiece fared better than the similarly tumid German airship.

The Dutch violinist turned conductor spent more rehearsal time than normal dealing with the strings; in a work such as the Bruckner an endeavor akin to lifting up a stone at the beach, watching the various small crabs and other multi-legged creatures scuttle off in all directions, and then trying to coax them into marching single file across the sand. In spite of the ultimate futility of the effort, it was entertaining to watch. Needless to say, the stone was replaced at the performances with increasing force each night. Still, these were some of the better accounts of the piece I can recall. Too bad the audiences were consistently and depressingly small.

Week 38 (The End...of the downtown season)

as ye sow…

HINDEMITH Overture to Neues vom Tage
HINDEMITH Trauermusik
FRIEDMAN Sacred Heart: Explosion
INTERMISSION
BERLIOZ Harold in Italy
Leonard Slatkin, conductor
Pinchas Zukerman, viola

All-Access Chamber Series
Eugene Izotov, oboe
John Bruce Yeh, clarinet
Albert Igolnikov, violin
Paul Phillips Jr., violin
Robert Swan, viola
John Sharp, cello
Michael Hovnanian, bass
Mozart Oboe Quartet
Prokofiev Quintet, Op. 39
Brahms Clarinet Quintet
Dvorak Slavonic Dance in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 2

Monday
off

Tuesday
10-12:30 rehearsal
1:30-3:30 Prokofiev quintet rehearsal

Wednesday
10-12:30 1:30-3:30 rehearsals

Thursday
10-12:30 rehearsal
8 concert

Friday
1:30 concert
3:30-6 Prokofiev quintet rehearsal

Saturday
2 All-Access Chamber Series concert
8 concert

Sunday
3 concert
7:30 Ars Viva Benefit

(Week 38 was last week. I’m now on vacation.)

After Sunday the orchestra is on vacation until the Ravinia summer season begins in July. Usually we have our main vacation after Ravinia, in August and September, but this year we leave for a European tour on September 1st. Also, Ravinia doesn’t seem to want our orchestra on their property before the 4th of July, even with the dreaded cicadas back in the earth for another seventeen years.

Zuckerman takes nonchalant stage presence and casual concert dress to new levels – whether those are highs or lows is a matter of taste. His performance probably suffered as much as it benefited from its flawlessness. The fact he is able to play with such power lets the orchestra get a bit lazy with our soft dynamics, but that is nothing new. Slatkin safely lead us from the first to last measure of each piece on the program without incident, or much excitement for that matter.

A spirited group performed the Prokofiev Quintet on Saturday. Last week I played the Trout Quintet, so for a few days I maintained the fantasy of playing a real musical instrument with an actual repertoire, but all of that can go back on the shelf again now for another year or so.

Along with our impending vacation, Jefferson Friedman’s Sacred Heart: Explosion generated a fair amount interest among musicians this week. Enthusiastic audience reaction to the piece confounded much of the usual grumbling about new music. Once again, the audience seemed more open minded than the musicians.

Sacred Heart: Explosion, the piece, is based on a painting of the same name by ‘outsider’ artist Henry Darger. Quite coincidentally, Darger lived a couple of miles away from where I’m sitting right now. Darger’s life and work got me thinking of the fragile, sometimes deeply personal nature of the creative process. From time to time I wonder if the atmosphere where new or merely unfamiliar works are subjected to immediate (and more than occasionally mean-spirited) condemnation is really in the best interest of our art form. Certainly, there are those who really do wish to stamp out anything not yet completely fossilized. Others often complain, “How come nobody writes anything good for us to play?” Those remind me of the anal-retentive type gardener, the fellow who meticulously clears the ground, spreads his pesticides, plucks every sprig that pokes its head above ground, saying “Aha! Weed!” and then, one day, looks around and laments “How come there’s nothing growing here?”

Week 37

Oy Vey!

DVORÁK Symphony No. 8
INTERMISSION
OLIVER Federal Street (Great God, we sing that mighty hand)
HATTON Duke Street (O God, beneath thy guiding hand)
ROOT Shining Shore
TRADITIONAL Good Night, Ladies
BISHOP Home, Sweet Home
IVES New England Holidays
[redacted] Symphony Chorus
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor

Monday
2-4:30 Trout Quintet rehearsal

Tuesday
10-12:30 rehearsal
12:30-2:30 Prokofiev Quintet rehearsal
7:30 concert (Rameau/Vivaldi)

Wednesday
12-2:30 3:30-5:30 rehearsals

Thursday
10-12:30 rehearsal
8 concert

Friday
9:30-11:30 In-school concerts
1:30 concert
7:30 Trout Quintet concert

Saturday
8 concert

Sunday
7:30 Ars Viva Benefit rehearsal

This week = last week. I’m behind again.

We had one of the quirkier podium performances this week. In rehearsals the ratio of talk to useful information conveyed threatened to fall into the red zone. To make matters worse, although more entertaining, the Maestro’s score for the Ives didn’t seem to match the set of parts the players were using. Questions fired from all corners of the orchestra began to resemble a Bush administration press conference with dissembling, non-responsive, or off-putting replies. At one point a seemingly simple question about whether a certain measure would be conducted in two or in four prompted a lengthy non sequitur; when pressed on the subject, the maestro admitted he would have to get back to the questioner on that (I can’t recall if he ever did).

Rumor has it somewhere in the chain of command the fact that a chorus would be needed for these concerts was overlooked. A small brave group hastily assembled at the rear of the stage (the normal chorus seats had been sold) needed amplification to be heard over the orchestra. A sad but humorous incident occurred when, after starting and stopping several times to have the chorus microphones turned up again, one of my colleagues muttered to no one in particular “Why doesn’t he ask he orchestra to play more softly?” We can all breathe a sigh of relief such desperate, scorched earth tactics were not needed.

The Dvorak was conducted (mostly) from memory – the score lay pointedly closed on the conductor’s stand throughout in what seemed to be a sort of ‘look mommy, no hands!’ type gesture. Of course we know the all too predictable results of such ill-advised showmanship; the inevitable crash, the tears, the band-aids…

Week 36

Bicket’s charge

VIVALDI Piccolo Concerto in C Major
RAMEAU Suite from Les Boréades
INTERMISSION
VIVALDI The Four Seasons
Harry Bicket, conductor
Jennifer Gunn, piccolo
Yuan-Qing Yu, violin

Monday
off

Tuesday
10-12:30 rehearsal

Wednesday
10-12 1-3:30 rehearsal

Thursday
10-12:30 rehearsal
8 concert

Friday
8 concert

Saturday
8 concert

Sunday
3 concert (Beyond the Score)

The Vivaldi/Rameau program is repeated on Tuesday the 27th so, yes, we play the Four Seasons five times in a one-week span. It really feels more like seven since by the end of a Beyond the Score concert I feel as if I’ve run through the piece three times in a row.

Any so-called baroque music specialist taking the podium at our concert hall is working behind enemy lines. The best ones drop in, stir up as little hostility as possible while accomplishing a limited mission and try to get the heck out unscathed. To that end, Bicket did an admirable job of coaxing an old dog to do a few new tricks. He came across as a fine musician with a lot of interesting ideas about the music, particularly something prone to war-horse-ishness as the Vivaldi. It was nice to see a conductor able to communicate his thoughts in a pleasant manner, non-dogmatic manner. He even got us to go along with a few of them.

The last BTS concert featured The Planets, this time The Four Seasons. There seems to be predilection for popular pieces that already have some sort of program – I wonder if we are going to end up with Carnival of the Animals and the Grand Canyon Suite someday. I’m working on L’Éléphant just in case…

This time around there were fewer examples (78, down from 90 for The Planets) but the first half of the concert still clocked in at about 70 minutes. I find these BTS shows exhausting, playing all of those tiny, out of context snippets, waiting for cues, starting and stopping add odd places in the music. A few of the examples cut off very awkwardly right before a cadence and it is very tempting to resolve a hanging dominant chord in embarrassing fashion. This performance was notable for an odd bit of stagecraft when one of the cameramen was given a curtain call along with the actors, conductor and soloist; the first time I’ve ever seen that happen.

Muti, Man of the Moment

Yesterday’s news couldn’t have been better, as far as I’m concerned. But knowing how things go, the next milestone to look out for is the first time one of the detractors of our former music director refers to his tenure here as ‘the good old days’.

Week 32

Aversion to talk is something orchestra musicians have inherited from manual laborers.
-Theodor Adorno

WAGNER Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
CHIN Rocaná
INTERMISSION
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique
Kent Nagano, conductor

Monday
off

Tuesday
10-12:30 rehearsal

Wednesday
10-12:30 1:30-3:30 rehearsals

Thursday
10-12:30 rehearsal
8 concert

Friday
8 concert

Saturday
8 concert

Sunday
1 Trout Quintet
7 CBE rehearsal

OK, I’m a week behind again. I think the quote from Adorno has something to do with anti intellectualism among musicians, which is apparent enough, but there is also another way to apply it.

Nothing wrings a groan from an orchestra with more predictability than when someone emerges from the wings holding a microphone. It makes little difference if it is a manager, trustee, politician, or representative of some women’s auxiliary; all microphone wielders seem to elicit a similar response. The reaction often has little to do with the quality of the remarks on offer as onstage talks fall into depressingly predictable categories depending on the speaker’s title or position. I think it has more to do with the nature of the concert experience. The lighting changes, orchestra and audience fall silent; the sense of hushed anticipation is palpable. Players still capable of excitement about or interest in what is about to happen might, along with members of the audience, feel an increase of adrenaline. And then, instead of music comes talk.

The talking conductor usually evokes the greatest dismay. Again, not necessarily because of the quality of the remarks – some conductors are engaging speakers – but because there is a feeling a sacred trust is being violated. Musicians who have listened to the maestro speak during rehearsals all week, sometimes at great length, nevertheless hold out hope for the concert, the time when talk must cease for once and for all and music-making at last win the day. It is understandable then that the appearance of the microphone is seen as a betrayal of that trust.

A study of conductor mannerisms (something orchestra musicians do more for sport than necessity) reveals many of them are aware of the transgression. Just observe where they hold the microphone when they take the stage. They hide it. Even the most mannered podium poseur, the Maestro who normally enters with baton held mincingly betwixt thumb and index finger, chest high, will hold a microphone like a shameful talisman, head down, concealed alongside a dark trouser leg, to be produced swiftly, like a magic wand with the power to deaden even the most charged concert hall atmosphere.

All this is merely to say Kent Nagano talked a lot – at rehearsals, and then, saggingly, at the concerts as well. I happen to like Nagano, I think more than many of my colleagues, so it was a bit sad to see his stock among musicians going even lower when he addressed the audience.

Nagano’s Symhonie Fantastique was highly stylized, and I can certainly see how it was not for all tastes. Nevertheless, I didn’t find anything he did outside the scope of the sort of excesses not so long ago passed off here as the product of ‘genius’.

The Unsuk Chin composition, Rocaná I found inscrutable mainly due to poorly notated parts. It didn’t seem to be such a bad piece but suffered doubly from a lack of craft as well as being the subject of Nagano’s onstage remarks.

Week 31

why is this week different from all other weeks?

BERIO Ritirata Notturna di Madrid
SALONEN Piano Concerto
INTERMISSION
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano

Monday
off

Tuesday
10-12:30 1:3-4 rehearsals

Wednesday
10-12:30 rehearsal
6:30 concert

Thursday
8 concert

Friday
1:30 concert

Saturday
off

Sunday
off


All in all, an enjoyable week in the house of notes. Of course the answer to the question posed above, and no small part of the allure of the week has to be because we get Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings off.

Salonen is not a very excitable conductor. If you ask me, that’s a big asset when it comes to the Beethoven 7th, which all to easily crosses the line into bacchanalia in the wrong hands. I’m a big fan of period instrument performances anyhow. That aside, I sometimes get the feeling as a modern orchestra, bulked up on Bruckner, Strauss, and Mahler, it is all too easy to go overboard on these late classical/early romantic symphonies, like a prizefighter pummeling his hapless undersized opponent trapped on the ropes. I’m referring mostly to the string playing, BTW. When you find wood chips and sawdust on the floor after the performance, you’ve probably been playing too vigorously. Fortunately, the demeanor of the guy on the podium can sometimes have a calming influence, as was the case this week.

Salonen’s piano concerto was one of the more interesting and well-written new works we’ve played. I hope his retirement from the LA Philharmonic leads to more composing, and more guest appearances here.

The Ritirata Notturna di Madrid proved an inoffensive bit of fluff – as Salonen said, his mother’s favorite Berio piece – remarkable mainly for the outstanding percussion playing stage-left.

Week 29

It was the best of times…

BERLIOZ Romeo and Juliet
Valery Gergiev, conductor
Isabel Leonard, soprano
Michael Schade, tenor
Laurent Naouri, bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus

HERRMANN Psycho
HERRMANN The Trouble With Harry
HERRMANN Vertigo
HERRMANN Citizen Kane
INTERMISSION
HERRMANN Fahrenheit 451
HERRMANN Taxi Driver
HERRMANN North by Northwest
Joel McNeely, conductor
David New, narrator
Rebecca Davis, vocalist
Greg Cohen Quintet
Robert Burger, piano
Erik Charlston, percussion
Greg Cohen, bass
Marty Ehrlich, saxophone
Bill Frisell, guitar
Danny Kapilian, producer

Ars Viva
Sibelius Swan of Tuonela
SibeliusViolin Concerto (original version)
Hanson Symphony No. 2 (“Romantic”)
Alan Heatherington, conductor
Yang Liu, violin

Monday
7:30 MOB concert (St Matthew Passion)

Tuesday
1:30-3:30 4:30-7 rehearsals

Wednesday
1:30-3:30 4:30-7 rehearsals

Thursday
9-12 Ars Viva rehearsal
8 concert

Friday
12-3 rehearsal
8 concert (Film Night)

Saturday
10:30-1:30 Ars Viva rehearsal
8 concert

Sunday
2-5 Ars Viva rehearsal
7:30 Ars Viva concert

This week started in the heavens and ended in the sewer. I only wish I was being metaphoric.

The week began on a high note with the second performance of the St Matthew Passion by MOB at the Harris Theater.

At the other orchestra I work for Gergiev gave an impassioned rendition of the Berlioz, right on the edge of (and sometimes over into) chaos, but capturing the spirit of the piece quite well IMO. He did not conduct with a toothpick this time, only his ‘magic’ fingers flapping and wiggling like Montgomery Burns holding his hands up to a blow dryer. I really am quite fond of Gergiev and wish we would see more of him. Although in town for two weeks he is only conducting four concerts. Next week the Saturday concert is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of our chorus. This past Friday, Berlioz made way for Film Night. Both of those evenings Gergiev is back in New York conducting opera at the Met.

Film Night should probably be renamed Still Picture Night after this week’s performance. The Bernard Herrmann scores are some good (perhaps very good) movie music, the Greg Cohen Quintet made some intriguing things happen, but the visuals didn’t seem up to snuff. Perhaps an inability to obtain rights to use clips (or even stills) from the Hitchcock and Welles films made the presentation rely heavily on drawings of movie scenes and characters or photos of the composer shaking hands with directors. Admittedly, I was busy playing some of the time, but I recall glancing at the screen during one number and seeing a photo of Herrmann and Hitchcock standing together. A few minutes later, when I looked again, the same image was still there. North by Northwest, after what appeared to be stock images of Mt Rushmore, was represented by a series of scribbled pencil drawings. To top that off, the program seemed horribly out of balance. The first half dragged on for an interminable eighty minutes and did not end until twenty past nine. (I’m sure my opera-playing comrades are laughing, but I get very antsy when something goes on for more than an hour.) We took the stage again at 9:40 to begin the second half. Obviously fearing a sizeable overtime payment (per contract, an orchestral concert is considered overtime after two hours, fifteen minutes) the backstage bean counters made an artistic decision and cut some of the Jazz quintet material so the second half clocked in at thirty-six minutes.

Sorry to say, I don’t often read reviews, so I have no idea if critics attend these film night shows or if there is any oversight whatsoever for that matter. This program had a lot of musicians wondering what the heck we were doing. I’m curious to know if any audience members have opinions about these ‘concerts’.

Ars Viva had some problems booking rehearsal space this time around. Rehearsing the Hanson “Romantic” Symphony and Sibelius Swan of Tuonela at 9 AM (!) all but insures somnolence. On Saturday, let’s just say The North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie has a serious plumbing issue in the vicinity of their basement rehearsal room. As if twisting the knife, fate had us spending three hours of the first warm sunny day in months down there.

Week 25

out with the new!

SHOSTAKOVICH Chamber Symphony for Strings in C Minor
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4
INTERMISSION
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 3 (Rhenish)
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
Robert Levin, piano

Monday
7:30 Ars Viva concert

Tuesday
10-1:30 rehearsal

Wednesday
10-12:30 1:30-3:30

Thursday
10-12:30 rehearsal
8 concert

Friday
8 concert

Saturday
8 concert

Sunday
off

A principal whining about his section in front of the entire orchestra (not the bass section – we’re mostly beyond reproach), players breaking out in song, one of the more bizarre and pointless arguments over the length of a single note, equations of musicology to gynecology – all in all an entertaining week in the orchestra.

If composers of atonal music are public enemy no.1 around here, period instrument specialists have to come in a close second, so it came as no surprise when rehearsals with John Eliot Gardiner veered towards the bizarre. Sir John seemed to arrive as prepared to battle the orchestra as conduct it. As usual, the clash between a crotchety conductor and a stodgy orchestra took on all the charm of a couple of gummy old vets arguing over who has the more ill fitting dentures. If Gardiner was treated less than cordially, he dished out in equal measure to what he received.

It might be advisable to keep the early music specialists on split weeks when only half of the orchestra plays. That way those who don’t want to deal with something ideologically repulsive to them can usually opt out. The more intimate connection to the conductor with the smaller group tends to attenuate the latent hostility of the mob.

Sadly lost in the fracas was the fact Gardiner had some good ideas. At least I thought it might do the orchestra good to experience an alternative to the calcified notions of musicality currently in force. For years, the mantra around here has been that sostenuto is the only way to play expressively. Gardiner had some interesting alternatives, particularly with regards to the Schumann, which were mostly lost due to the acrimonious atmosphere of their presentation. The result was, at best, a jumble.

Robet Levin had some different takes on the Beethoven. His improvised cadenzas seemed more of a bangy parlor trick than musical performance, but they were absolutely in tune with his onstage demeanor. I all but promised to quote the joke going round the musicians’ lounge comparing the improvised cadenzas to a dog (or was it a pig?) walking on its hind legs – nobody cares about the quality of the thing, what matters is that the beast can do it at all.

Topping it all off, due to some unfortunate circumstances I found myself in the principal chair this week. Normally that is, if not something to look forward to, an opportunity to devote a little more than the normal cursory interest in what is going on. Due to things beyond my control, and largely alien to my comprehension, the experience was less than satisfactory this time around – more like repeated visits to a proctologist with hook for a hand, in fact. I can only turn to my faith in Karma at this point.

Week 22

After a week off, back to the grind

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 13
MOZART Divertimento for Strings in D Major
INTERMISSION
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 23
Mitsuko Uchida, conductor and piano

Monday
1:30-4 rehearsal
7:30 CBE rehearsal

Tuesday
2-4:30 rehearsal

Wednesday
1:30-4 5-7 rehearsals

Thursday
11 AM CBE concert
8 concert

Friday
8 concert

Saturday
11:30 Faure Requiem rehearsal
8 concert

Sunday
1:30 Faure Requiem

The dreariest place to have lunch near our concert hall has to be the odd food court that boasts Hotdogs, a Subway, Popeye’s Chicken, and a Falafel place all under one roof. If this were a food blog I would steer readers to the falafel for sure and urge them to stay and soak up some of the ambience. The huge blue-glaring light fixtures that might have come out of a nearby parking garage bathe the place in an unholy light. Mismatched furniture is decidedly Reagan era McDonald’s vintage. To top it all off, the heating system is under performing on this frigid day, forcing most diners to eat in full winter regalia, giving the cavernous space a decidedly late Soviet Union feel. In spite of all that, the axis-of-evil food (falafel) makes it worth the short walk through the snow.

Uchida certainly brings a ray of sunshine into a dreary winter week. The best thing about her has to be that, unlike most podium poseurs, she doesn’t even pretend to be a conductor. She has an interesting way of leading rehearsals, flipping back forth through the score, singing the parts, answering questions or making general remarks in a soft, rapid voice. Sorry to say, we aren’t accustomed to paying constant close attention to what is coming from the podium. Uchida’s flighty, fluttery rehearsal technique suits her perfectly, but leaves the crossword playing, magazine reading, and chit chatting contingents of the orchestra often scratching their heads. She seems to be all about listening, which, if unusual for us, is a good thing. Still, it feels odd to play a Mozart piano concerto senza dogma.

The Divertimento for Strings will be rehearsed and performed without conductor, which should be interesting, to say the least.

Other highlights of the week include the CBE concert on Thursday as well as the Faure Requiem, Sunday. Every time I take a freelance gig, it turns out to be on the coldest, snowiest, hottest, rainiest, or otherwise most beastly week in recent memory. Maybe somebody is trying to tell me something. Always the optimist, I’m still looking forward to it.

Week 20

Ars Viva
Beethoven Creatures of Prometheus
Corigliano Elegy (for Samuel Barber)
Barber Violin Concerto
Beethoven Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”)
Alan Heatherington, conductor
Ilya Kaler, violin

The other orchestra
BERIO Quatre dédicaces
BERLIOZ Les nuits d'été
INTERMISSION
STRAVINSKY Petrushka
Pierre Boulez, conductor
Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano

Monday
9:30, 10:30, 12:30, 1:30
In-school concerts

Tuesday
10-12:30 rehearsal

Wednesday
12-2:30 3:30-5:30 rehearsals

Thursday
10-12:30 rehearsal
8 concert

Friday
3-6 Ars Viva rehearsal
8 concert

Saturday
3-6 Ars Viva rehearsal
8 concert

Sunday
2-5 Ars Viva rehearsal
7:30 Ars viva concert

Boulez returns this week with a classic sort of Boulezian program. (Sorry if that sounds either Armenian or, to quote the Maestro himself, ‘deliciously wrong’.) I admit to a slightly irrational fondness for Boulez. He seems to enjoy a pretty good rapport with the orchestra, so maybe I’m not alone. Among my favorite things about him are some of the faces he makes when things are not going quite according to plan. For some reason, he had plenty of opportunities to use them during our read through of Petrushka on Tuesday. Anyhow, the face I enjoy most has to be the look he sometimes gives the orchestra, I imagine exactly like a man discovering his pate de foie gras had been switched with a small scoop of merde. I can honestly say I enjoy that look as much when it is directed at my own section as any other, perhaps more.

Boulez also has a charmingly offhand way of dismissing the sort of know-it-all questions from players that tend to crop up when a so-called ‘important’ conductor takes the podium. For the uninitiated, those "teacher’s pet isms" tend to follow the format of: “Maestro, would you like us to…” or “Do we have…” followed by something obviously not in the score. Ever the literalist, Boulez leafs through the score, shrugs, and gives the inevitable negative response. That particular ritual has been going on for years.

The Max Factor

The comments by Max were important enough to deal with in a separate post. Does anyone besides me read comments? Just curious.

Insouk asks if musicians have some input into programming. Some in Mr. Hovnanian's unnamed orchestra have urged their representatives, the Members' Committee, to push for a committee of musicians to offer input into repertoire and scheduling. The Committee has regarded these requests as an elegant dinner party guest might regard a turd in the punch bowl. They have protested that another committee would somehow cripple the Members' Committee to represent the orchestra, although we have had Audition and Tour Committees for years. An uncharitable view of this strange state of affairs is that the Members' Committee is jealous of their standing in the orchestra. An alternative, less uncharitable view eludes some of us at this time.


Kudos to Max for opening Pandora’s can of worms, letting the cat out of the bag, or whatever. The issue of input into programming and choice of conductors is indeed on the minds of many musicians. His commentary precludes me from dancing around the topic with a few superficial and sarcastic non-sequiturs.

[Full disclosure: I recently resigned from the Members’ Committee. Actually my letter, submitted in December, took nearly a month to make the long arduous journey from the mailboxes, down the hall, and around the corner, and so was only recently acknowledged.]

The starting point for this issue in my mind is the fact that there is a decent amount of dissatisfaction among musicians with choices in programming and repertoire. If more people were satisfied we wouldn’t hear calls for musician input.

At first glance from a musician standpoint, having more input seems like a no-brainer. But it is inaccurate to assume ‘musicians’ are of like mind. The logistical issues of which viewpoints will be considered, and how, need careful consideration. As I have written about earlier, there is a fairly strong anti modern music sentiment among players, one I do not share. I am not convinced a tyranny of the majority on that issue is in the best long-term interest of our art. If performers throughout history had as much influence as some of my colleagues would like to wield now, I wonder if we would be enjoying the works of Hummel and Dittersdorf rather than Beethoven and Mozart. Who can say? (I know as a bass player, maligning Dittersdorf, who gave us two concertos (!), is tantamount to treason, but there you have it.)

On the other hand, large swaths of the repertoire go unperformed for years or decades, much to the chagrin of many players who chafe at playing many of the same pieces too often while others go unheard. It would be as if the famous museum across the street from our concert hall closed a wing or two and left them dark until somebody raised a fuss and demanded to see inside. In the musicians’ hallway (what passes for a lounge here) there hangs a lengthy repertoire ‘suggestion sheet’, which seems little more than a sop for musician complaints. What it reveals however is a heartfelt interest by players as well as the existence of a valuable store of knowledge concerning repertoire that seems to go largely untapped.

Opinions about the wisdom of forming a committee to deal with these issues are divided. I’m not sure if a poll has been conducted to see how many favor the idea. Also, I haven’t seen a detailed proposal about how such a committee would function – who would serve, for how long, and to whom would they be accountable. Max is correct in pointing out the arguments against ‘dual unionism’ are disingenuous considering the existence of the other committees he mentions, to which I would add most conspicuously the music director search committee, who seem to be answerable to no one. (IMO they are either going to triumph or lay an egg, by which time it will be too late to discuss the details of how it all came to pass…) The issue of musician input into repertoire, programming, etc. hasn’t been debated on its own merits by the musicians as a group, to my knowledge.

One thing I know for certain: I’m never drinking punch again.

Déjà vu

all over again

Sometime before dawn Sunday morning I woke up in a cold sweat. A quick check of my schedule confirmed my fears; we did play the Tchaikovsky 4th symphony last season.

Due to his tragic early demise we know Tchaikovsky only left us with three symphonies. But that is still no excuse for playing the same one repeatedly. My cold sweat came on recalling a discussion with a subscriber who elected not to renew. This person attended concerts for a number of years – sitting in pricey box seats, I might add – but grew disillusioned with the experience after hearing the same piece three seasons running. I’m wondering if there is somebody else sitting out in the audience this week, gritting their teeth through the Tchaikovsky 4th and muttering, “Strike Two!” Even if classical music is indeed a dying art there is still a whole cemetery to choose from before we need to repeat ourselves.

Alexander Polianichko led some interesting performances of the Tchaikovsky this week, to say the least, but not interesting enough to justify the orchestra taking a called second strike. In general, the Maestro used a pretty straight-ahead approach I can appreciate. However, some of his hard to follow mannerisms resulted in a few Solti-esque moments of confusion of the type easily mistaken for excitement.

Beyond the Score expanded its scope to include an actress cavorting behind a shadow screen along with the customary image projections, narrator, and actors. All in all, the explication of the symphony ran about fifty percent longer than the work itself. The thrust of it (if that is an appropriate term to use) seemed to focus on the anxiety Tchaikovsky felt facing up to his ill-considered marriage. The whole production was captured on film and will probably be available at some point.

Week 14

December 12-23

This week at the world’s gratingest orchestra

DVORÁK Slavonic Dances
MOZART Oboe Concerto
INTERMISSION
BIZET Suite No. 2 from L'Arlésienne
STRAUSS Suite from Der Rosenkavalier
Ludovic Morlot, conductor
Eugene Izotov, oboe


Monday
2-8 Gunnelpumpers recording session

Tuesday
10-12:30 rehearsal
7:30 concert (Janacek, Kancheli, Rachmaninov)

Wednesday
12-2:30 3:30-5:30 rehearsals

Thursday
10-12:30 rehearsal
8 concert

Friday
1:30 concert

Saturday
8 concert

Sunday
off (vacation begins!)

A six-hour recording session with that other group I play in probably would have culminated in a murder-suicide, but spending the day with the Gunnelpumpers was truly a pleasure. This session should wrap up the recording process for our first CD. I have no idea when it might come out. The myspace page is a bit out of date as I write this, but I’m sure Doug Johnson will put in the latest news soon enough.

Speaking of that other group, Morlot had an interesting take on how to approach the afterbeats in the Waltz sections of the Rosenkavalier suite. Basically, he wanted the fastest tempo strictly in time. In the slower tempos, the second beat placed as if still in the quick tempo. The result is that the second beat comes soonest in the slowest tempo, a bit later in the medium tempo, and in time in the fast tempo; despite the ungainly explanation (mine) a workable solution. Usually, the request for Viennese afterbeats produces as many takes on what that really means as there are players – sometimes more – with the resulting jumble about as Austrian (and full of…well…baloney) as Vienna Beef.

That made for an enlightening 5 minutes of rehearsal time. As for the other 145…. The maestro’s pluck out one eyelash at a time rehearsal technique might not have been the best approach for an orchestra that seems a little tired and is looking forward to vacation right now. That said, the lack of respect shown the present occupant of the podium is out of place. I can only conclude that the punch line to the old joke about the difference between an orchestra and a bull no longer applies.

Week 07

This week’s CSO program

SIBELIUS Violin Concerto
INTERMISSION
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major (Romantic) (1880 version)
Christoph von Dohnányi, conductor
Arabella Steinbacher, violin

Monday
7:30 MOB concert

Tuesday
10-12:30 CSO rehearsal

Wednesday
10-12:30 1:30-3:30 CSO rehearsals

Thursday
10-12:30 CSO rehearsal
8 CSO concert

Friday
1:30 CSO concert

Saturday
CBE rehearsal TBA
8 CSO concert

Sunday
3 CSO concert
7 CBE rehearsal

I write this on Wednesday October 31, sitting by the front door giving out candy to the 500 or so of the little extortionists we expect to greet this year. So far, rehearsals for the concert this week have resembled long, mildly unpleasant medical procedures rather than preparation for a musical performance. I am happy to report the patient not much worse for wear after three treatments. I even have to grudgingly admit the Maestro’s ‘mechanistic’ approach to the Bruckner produced some good results. Rather than a harmony lesson, we got a look at the nuts and bolts of the piece.

Here is a rehearsal schedule to drive musicians crazy:

Wednesday
10-12:30
Bruckner Symphony No. 4
Sibelius Violin concerto (without soloist)

1:30-3:30
Sibelius (with soloist)
Bruckner

First, I can’t remember the last time we rehearsed any concerto without the soloist. Nobody would expect such treatment for something as familiar as the Sibelius. Next, putting the Bruckner at the beginning of the first rehearsal and the end of the second insures the maximum number of players will sit around waiting to play. As a rule, rehearsals are scheduled according to a sort of ‘Farewell Symphony’ rule, with the smaller pieces coming later so that those who don’t play might go home.

The players suggested the more sensible schedule of
10-12:30 Bruckner

1:30-3:30 Sibelius

but were turned down because the Maestro had to have Bruckner on both rehearsals. Well, wouldn’t you know, on Wednesday, he spent the entire morning picking, poking, prodding, and otherwise dissecting the Bruckner until it became apparent he wouldn’t get to Sibelius after all. Then, as I expected all along, he decided we didn’t need to return to the Bruckner in the second rehearsal either. And, of course, he got to take credit for the magnanimous gesture of letting musicians go home early in what turned out to be sort of a nifty end-around of the musicians who asked for that schedule in the first place.

The only other note this week is that the Sibelius is a piece I always look forward to. It doesn’t seem to matter who is playing violin.

Un gorilla dalle 800 libbre

In spite of the fascinating things I’ve been blogging about lately – boring tour travel, uneaten breakfasts, bass boxes, and the like – the astute reader might have noticed the omission of a subject of some importance to the CSO. I am of course referring to the fact that Riccardo Muti conducted us for four weeks this fall. I can assure my readers that I actually looked up once or twice over the past month and took note of who was conducting and how, but I purposefully withheld comment until the feverish excitement had died down.

Muti is undoubtedly one of the names under serious consideration for the music director position here. More than any other conductor on the ‘short list’, a great deal of hype and speculation preceded his arrival. It didn’t hurt that Muti’s appearance coincided with the conclusion of contract negotiations that had our European tour and the preceding week of concerts hanging in the balance. Either fate or very clever design produced a charged atmosphere where his taking the podium became something of an almost operatic denouement.

The perils and pitfalls of going on record about someone who may well end up as my boss are obvious even to me, so I’m not about to provide a blow-by-blow analysis of Muti’s conducting. More interesting to me was the reaction of the orchestra.

With the hype over Muti’s arrival ramping up I observed some different reactions. A number of players were highly skeptical about him for one reason or another. The more the excitement over his arrival grew, the more skeptical they became. Others bought into the myth-in-the-making wholesale.

The one common assumption seemed to be that Muti might be a difficult, perhaps egotistical person. Whether this was cause for skepticism or premature adulation probably depended on each individual musician’s tendency towards Masochism or Sadism.

Anyhow, members of both camps waited eagerly to be proved right when he actually began working with us. I was secretly pleased when Muti turned out to be personable, self effacing (for a conductor anyway) and funny, proving many wrong.

The quick acceptance and even affection for Muti came as a shock to me – something I haven’t seen here before. It was more than slightly strange hearing some of the most wizened, perennial conductor hating players tittering on like schoolgirls. “Do you think he likes us? I really hope he likes us!” The one lesson I learned was that this orchestra has no practice playing hard to get.

But Muti played his part masterfully, cultivating the good will he encountered. He acted like a man given the keys to a pretty nice car, who had the savvy not to look too closely under the hood or swipe his finger across the dashboard while the owner was still watching. Instead, he took us for a pleasant drive around the Italian countryside. I kept waiting for him to throw a wet rag over the whole affair – stop the orchestra to tell us our tremolo sucked, for instance – but thank heavens he had better sense than that.

Mr Sunshine

About an hour into the first rehearsal of the Bruckner 7th under Bernard Haitink I had a disquieting thought. The Bruckner symphonies were a staple of our former music director so I have spent many hours rehearsing them, hours I will unfortunately never get back. After finishing the first movement I realized I had been holding myself in a kind of cringe that was just beginning to relax. Where was the browbeating? Where were the condescending lectures? What happened to the tedium? And yet the orchestra sounded fabulous, better than we have in a while. How was that possible?

For years around here ‘artistry’ has been so firmly linked to negativity that it is almost impossible for any conductor to clear away the poisoned atmosphere. Somehow Haitink managed to do it this week. He is a quiet, self-effacing conductor, and the orchestra really seems to admire and respect him. Rehearsals were eerily quiet when he stopped us to make minor corrections here and there. His remarks were consistently both tactful and effective.

As everyone knows, orchestra musicians are feckless and lazy. Naturally we would prefer any conductor who treated us nicely over one who might attempt to lead us to a higher level of artistry. That in mind, I tried to keep a critical ear on Haitink’s concerts to see if my sense of contentment vanished during the performance or the musical standards had slipped in any way. The concert is after all the time when all conductors are equal in the sense that the lecturers have to shut up and conduct while the nice guys have to show they have enough backbone to actually lead the orchestra.

Bruckner’s symphonies are like massive cathedrals built from thousands of notes. Conductors can become so enamored with superficial features, pausing to admire every gargoyle and arabesque, that they lose sight of the thing as a whole. Haitink’s approach to the 7th was a success I thought because he focused on the structure rather than every single (or arbitrarily selected) bricks. The music actually flowed along – even at about 70 minutes the symphony seemed refreshingly brief.

Finally, another conductor mistake is fall victim to the episodic nature of Bruckner’s writing and build every climax to maximum dynamic, pummeling the audience (and orchestra) with bruising fortissimos when the composer has actually carefully structured the dynamics. Haitink was somewhat successful at getting the orchestra to observe the dynamics and restored some sense of balance to the sound.

The thing that amazed me and inspired this post was that he was able to do it all in a professional and respectful way. And the orchestra responded with (so far) three very fine performances. The whole thing reminded me of a story probably every school-aged child learns at some point – although I wonder if that was the case with our former music director.

The sun and a storm cloud were debating who had the greater power. When they saw a man walking below they decided to test their strength by seeing which of them could get the man’s jacket off his back. First the storm cloud huffed and puffed, blowing cold winds at the man and pelting him with rain. But the man only pulled his coat more tightly about him. But when the sun came out from behind the cloud the man freely removed his coat and continued on his way.

Rihmed

The CSO concerts this week have an interesting programming idea from conductor Kent Nagano. Rihm’s Das Lesen der Schrift was apparently commissioned by Nagano as a sort of companion piece to the Brahms requiem. In fact the four movements of Das Lesen are meant to be played after movements 2,3,5, and 6 of the requiem.

The idea, as described by Nagano, was to provide an opportunity for listeners to reflect on the masterpiece during the new interludes because through repetition the Brahms had become ordinary, lost some of its impact, or has become taken for granted. Those are my paraphrases of his explanations.

Combining a beloved piece like the requiem with something modern provoked the expected firestorm of protest and condemnation from the players. I feel a bit sorry for Nagano. He is very earnest about his ideas which are being almost universally reviled. If not for the Rihm, I think the orchestra’s opinion of him would be quite favorable, based on his fine job on the requiem.
As a modern music supporter I am enjoying the Rihm, although I’m not convinced the Brahms benefits from its presence. Anyhow, this is a new take on the shit sandwich. (see the post of 2/11/07 for a discussion of the s.s. http://csobassblog.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html) Maybe we can call it the shit club sandwich, although it is more like grinding up a pill and stirring it into your dog’s food so he’ll swallow it without realizing.

This week at the CSO

This week’s CSO program

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9
Haydn Symphony No. 96 (The Miracle)
INTERMISSION
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 27
Jeffrey Kahane, conductor and piano

Monday
off

Tuesday
1:30-4 5-7 CSO rehearsals

Wednesday
1:30-4 CSO rehearsal

Thursday
2-4:30 CSO rehearsal
8 CSO concert

Friday
8 CSO concert

Saturday
8 CSO concert

Sunday
3 CSO concert (Beyond the Score)

The rehearsal on Wednesday was devoted to the beyond the score musical examples. The concert will be filmed and made available for download, like the Miraculous Mandarin, so the rehearsal Thursday was filmed to use as patch material. I had to wear my suit, which did not make me at all happy.

On Friday we played a short tribute in memory of Rostropovitch. I was wondering if John Sharp, our principal cellist, would play something but we stuck with the usual – Bach, air from Orchestral Suite #3. When did this become the piece to honor the dead?

Jeffrey Kahane has been wonderful to work with this week. I haven't heard a touch like his on the piano very often - very light and fluid. He is really working hard too. Playing two concertos and conducting the symphony would be enough. On top of that, there is the Beyond the Score program where he has to play and conduct the orchestra through 80 (cont ‘em!) musical examples from piano concerto #27 on the first half of the concert, including switching back and forth between piano and fortepiano. Then on the second half, he has to play and conduct the piece.

Lastly, I have to say that often playing weeks with a reduced section (4 basses this week) is often a disappointing, infuriating, or worse. This week however, Mark Kraemer is very capably heading the section and I am thoroughly enjoying myself.

Conductor makes helpful remark…!

Playing Tchaikovsky this week under Andrey Boreyko was generally a positive experience – he’s a nice man with good musical ideas. One thing he said stuck in my mind, enough to make me wan to write about it.

We were rehearsing one of the selections from Sleeping Beauty, the Panorama, I think. Anyhow, the movement in 6/8 has repeated 16th notes in the winds, a melody in quarter notes in the strings, with the basses playing pizzicato on the 1st and 4th 8th notes of the bar. Like this:

In our section unfortunately this can sometimes be a recipe for disaster. And sure enough, the bass pizzicatos came thudding in early and often. I should point out to students that this is a classic case where it is necessary to follow the moving notes (the 16ths ) and not get sucked in by the melody which might tend to rush or drag against the beat. Most experienced players would have figured out as much by the time they got into an orchestra, at least you would think so.

Boreyko ran parts of the movement several times and then stopped to explain how the theater in which Sleeping Beauty would be premiered had just installed what at the time was a technical marvel: a rotating stage. He went on to say that the Panorama music reflected this development, with the constant 16ths in the winds representing a kind of ‘mechanical’ force driving the music.

Usually orchestral players are resistant to these kinds of extra musical explanations, labeling them as perhaps some sort of relapse into amateurism. “You want that faster or slower?” (or something like that) is often the response when a conductor tries to wax poetic.

Whether Boreyko had the errant bass pizzicatos in mind or not when he made his comments, I have no idea. I think many conductors have given up on us since commenting on something like that often makes it worse rather than fixes the problem. But miracle of miracles, the next time through, the bass pizzicatos were more or less in he right places.

Shrewd calculation, or naïve accident – I’m still scratching my head.