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.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Week 06
October 22-29
This (last) week’s CSO program
MOZART Symphony No. 25
TURNAGE Chicago Remains
INTERMISSION
BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 2
Bernard Haitink, Conductor
Emanuel Ax, Piano
This (last) week’s MOB Program
MOZART Les Petits Riens
DELALANDE Te Deum
INTERMISSION
CHARPENTIR Te Deum, H. 146
Ravel Le Tombeau de Couperin
Jane Glover, conductor
Sarah Gartshore, soprano
Amy Conn, soprano
Karim Sulayman, tenor
Harold Brock, tenor
Douglas Anderson, baritone
Peter Van De Graaff, bass-baritone
Monday
off
Tuesday
10-12:30 CSO rehearsal
2-5 MOB rehearsal
7:30 CSO concert (Wagner/Mahler)
Wednesday
12-2:30 3:30-5:30 CSO rehearsals
7-10 MOB rehearsal
Thursday
10-12:30 CSO rhearsal
8 CSO concert
Friday
1:30 CSO concert
7-10 MOB rehearsal
Saturday
3:30-6:30 MOB rehearsal
8 CSO concert
Sunday
10-12 Chicago Bass Ensemble rehearsal
7:30 MOB concert
Monday
7:30 MOB concert
Due to a busy schedule, I’ve fallen a week behind with the blog. The CSO concerts were enjoyable. Emanuel Ax is always a pleasure. I was off the Mozart (2 basses only), so that was wonderful. The Turnage piece was also a pleasant surprise. Without it sounding derivative, I thought I detected hints of Stravinsky, Messiaen, Boulez and Zappa – all good influences in my book.
The MOB concerts are a rare diversion from the normal sort of Bach, Handel, Telemann fare. It is funny how in the German Baroque music everything in the parts is just so while a lot of this French stuff is a mess – hard to decipher roadmaps, frequent changes from Inegal to straight, none of which are in the print . But it has been an enjoyable challenge. Thanks to some top-notch soloists, this turned out to be a pretty good concert.
Yes, that is a bass quartet rehearsal at 10 AM on a Sunday. The CBE is gearing up for our big concert on November 7th, or else I would have been happily sleeping.
This (last) week’s CSO program
MOZART Symphony No. 25
TURNAGE Chicago Remains
INTERMISSION
BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 2
Bernard Haitink, Conductor
Emanuel Ax, Piano
This (last) week’s MOB Program
MOZART Les Petits Riens
DELALANDE Te Deum
INTERMISSION
CHARPENTIR Te Deum, H. 146
Ravel Le Tombeau de Couperin
Jane Glover, conductor
Sarah Gartshore, soprano
Amy Conn, soprano
Karim Sulayman, tenor
Harold Brock, tenor
Douglas Anderson, baritone
Peter Van De Graaff, bass-baritone
Monday
off
Tuesday
10-12:30 CSO rehearsal
2-5 MOB rehearsal
7:30 CSO concert (Wagner/Mahler)
Wednesday
12-2:30 3:30-5:30 CSO rehearsals
7-10 MOB rehearsal
Thursday
10-12:30 CSO rhearsal
8 CSO concert
Friday
1:30 CSO concert
7-10 MOB rehearsal
Saturday
3:30-6:30 MOB rehearsal
8 CSO concert
Sunday
10-12 Chicago Bass Ensemble rehearsal
7:30 MOB concert
Monday
7:30 MOB concert
Due to a busy schedule, I’ve fallen a week behind with the blog. The CSO concerts were enjoyable. Emanuel Ax is always a pleasure. I was off the Mozart (2 basses only), so that was wonderful. The Turnage piece was also a pleasant surprise. Without it sounding derivative, I thought I detected hints of Stravinsky, Messiaen, Boulez and Zappa – all good influences in my book.
The MOB concerts are a rare diversion from the normal sort of Bach, Handel, Telemann fare. It is funny how in the German Baroque music everything in the parts is just so while a lot of this French stuff is a mess – hard to decipher roadmaps, frequent changes from Inegal to straight, none of which are in the print . But it has been an enjoyable challenge. Thanks to some top-notch soloists, this turned out to be a pretty good concert.
Yes, that is a bass quartet rehearsal at 10 AM on a Sunday. The CBE is gearing up for our big concert on November 7th, or else I would have been happily sleeping.
Friday, October 19, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Week 05
October 15-21
This week’s CSO program
WAGNER Siegfried Idyll
INTERMISSION
MAHLER Symphony No. 6
Bernard Haitink, conductor
Monday
off
Tuesday
10-12:30 CSO rehearsal
7:30 CSO concert (FAURÉ, DEBUSSY, COPLAND, ADAMS)
Wednesday
12-2:30 3:30-5:30 CSO rehearsals
Thursday
10-12:30 CSO rehearsal
8 CSO concert
Friday
8 CSO concert
Saturday
8 CSO concert
Sunday
off
Haitink conducting Mahler should make this a high point of the season. Unfortunately the concerts are not sold out. There is something very wrong with that.
This week’s CSO program
WAGNER Siegfried Idyll
INTERMISSION
MAHLER Symphony No. 6
Bernard Haitink, conductor
Monday
off
Tuesday
10-12:30 CSO rehearsal
7:30 CSO concert (FAURÉ, DEBUSSY, COPLAND, ADAMS)
Wednesday
12-2:30 3:30-5:30 CSO rehearsals
Thursday
10-12:30 CSO rehearsal
8 CSO concert
Friday
8 CSO concert
Saturday
8 CSO concert
Sunday
off
Haitink conducting Mahler should make this a high point of the season. Unfortunately the concerts are not sold out. There is something very wrong with that.
Friday, October 12, 2007
This is my box
Sometimes I wonder if we bassists surround ourselves with all sorts of specialized equipment as an antidote to the general dreariness of playing the instrument. Could all of the special chairs, oversized cases, endpin rests, bass bibs, bow quivers, grinding wheels, etc. etc., signify some desperate search for fulfillment? I have no idea, and that isn’t really even the subject of this post.
When a question came in about our ‘bass boxes’, visible in one of the tour photos, I realized my negligence in not bringing them up sooner.
The CSO did a few small east coast tours in the 90s. On one of them we played in Boston and there the bassists were surprised to find little boxes set beside each of our bass stools. Normally we each had a regular chair on which to rest the bass during breaks. The chairs also were a good place to put rosin, the ubiquitous filthy bass rag, watches, wallets, or whatever the player might wish to unencumber himself of before playing. But those chairs took up a lot of room and tended to get in the way. The boxes were a clever solution.
Not to be outdone, our stagehands built their own version and presented them to us later in the season. The boxes have gone through a couple of redesigns over the years – better handles, Velcro latch, more durable padding – so that now I would venture to say they are darn near perfect.
Here is a photo showing the boxes. (Sorry for the railing in the foreground)
This is the latest design, showing the carpet-material padding. (Box courtesy of Rob Kassinger)
This is my box. I certainly hope the six-inch deep compartment is the untidiest one in the section. It is stuffed with: grimy bass rags, rosin, pencils, cough drops, earplugs, the empty wrappers from the previous two items, practice mute, tuner, Prince CD (don’t ask), CD titled ‘Welcome Sir Simon’ presented to CSO musicians by the Berlin Philharmonic (never opened), various memos to CSO musicians, Japanese phrase book, long ‘E’ string (to be used as a garotte for unruly stand partners), serrated red dowel (used in some modern piece and never returned), cow moo-er (one of those cylindrical things you flip over that make a cow mooing sound – indispensable for late Mahler symphonies with cowbells), and a green glow-in-the-dark skull on a handle with a little trigger that makes the eyes roll and the teeth chatter (often used during ‘bass solo’ passages).
When a question came in about our ‘bass boxes’, visible in one of the tour photos, I realized my negligence in not bringing them up sooner.
The CSO did a few small east coast tours in the 90s. On one of them we played in Boston and there the bassists were surprised to find little boxes set beside each of our bass stools. Normally we each had a regular chair on which to rest the bass during breaks. The chairs also were a good place to put rosin, the ubiquitous filthy bass rag, watches, wallets, or whatever the player might wish to unencumber himself of before playing. But those chairs took up a lot of room and tended to get in the way. The boxes were a clever solution.
Not to be outdone, our stagehands built their own version and presented them to us later in the season. The boxes have gone through a couple of redesigns over the years – better handles, Velcro latch, more durable padding – so that now I would venture to say they are darn near perfect.
Here is a photo showing the boxes. (Sorry for the railing in the foreground)
This is the latest design, showing the carpet-material padding. (Box courtesy of Rob Kassinger)
This is my box. I certainly hope the six-inch deep compartment is the untidiest one in the section. It is stuffed with: grimy bass rags, rosin, pencils, cough drops, earplugs, the empty wrappers from the previous two items, practice mute, tuner, Prince CD (don’t ask), CD titled ‘Welcome Sir Simon’ presented to CSO musicians by the Berlin Philharmonic (never opened), various memos to CSO musicians, Japanese phrase book, long ‘E’ string (to be used as a garotte for unruly stand partners), serrated red dowel (used in some modern piece and never returned), cow moo-er (one of those cylindrical things you flip over that make a cow mooing sound – indispensable for late Mahler symphonies with cowbells), and a green glow-in-the-dark skull on a handle with a little trigger that makes the eyes roll and the teeth chatter (often used during ‘bass solo’ passages).
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