This arrangement for clarinet and piano explores the full range of the clarinet, from the lowest note on the “A” clarinet to the highest (double high C) on the “B flat”. At the piano is Dianne Frazer.
Tag Archive for 'Performances'
We played a family oriented program this afternoon. It involved a quick rehearsal followed by an hour long pops concert. The conductor for this event is a long standing regular with us. He has established himself as our main pops conductor, with good reason. His amiable, energetic and lighthearted demeanor appeals to our pops audiences.
To give you perspective, our pops concerts usually feature a big name artist who plays with the orchestra on the second half. The first half features just the orchestra. Most of the audience comes to hear the big name act, not necessarily the orchestra. So, despite our being “featured” on the first half, most of the audience is patiently waiting for the big act. This conductor bridges that gap well. He has high energy and is comfortable chatting and joking with them between pieces.
He also has talent as a musician. He knows good phrasing, good sound and pitch when he hears it. He corrects valid problems during rehearsals. But he has a disconcerting tension in his body when he conducts. There’s an urgency about him, despite his affable exterior. His face is often contorted and impatient during performances, and his arms move in tight, insistent motions. All this contributes to a tense orchestra. Our demeanor reflects his.
The most frustrating expression of this tension and urgency are his tempos. He tends to take them too fast. Even after setting a tempo, he seems to want to “keep us on our toes” by constantly pushing the tempo forward. It’s as if it’s never fast enough. So we never settle into a rhythm, a beat. As a player, I feel like I’m being dragged on a short leash through a beautiful park, missing all the glorious scenery I am paid to notice and recreate. Perhaps he sees it as a way to keep the audience from being bored, but is that doing justice to the music or the audience?
Many musicians in my orchestra are as frustrated as I am. We don’t presume to know the best tempo for any piece. There are many valid possibilities for tempos for any particular music. That’s not the issue here. It’s whether the music is playable, and also about allowing a tempo to settle.
So, preparing for this short family concert we rehearsed a well known piece. It was very familiar, in fact. Which means we’ve also played it under some top notch conductors over the years. We know what the tempos should be. After we rehearsed is for a half hour or so, with tempos the upper edge of speed, he implored us to perform the music well despite such little rehearsal. (remember we know this music)
Then, during the concert, he pushed the tempos even more. When I tried to stabilize one accelerando to keep it sensible, he just ignored me and pushed ahead to an unplayable speed. It’s a shame he doesn’t have enough respect for us to give us the benefit of the doubt. He always says how much he loves us, but I don’t feel respect from the podium under him. I give my best, and he pushes it more.
I don’t know any conductor who would ignore the collective experience of 55 well trained, very experienced musicians. Does he remember that we have notes to play while he’s zipping away up there? Even if we get the notes at those tempos, they sound frantic with tension. I am happy to give my best, but when it’s never fast enough, I tend to give up and ignore him. I don’t think he would want that. The fact is, many big orchestras ignore their conductors to survive. The Columbus Symphony is unusual in that we really give our best and try to follow any conductor who leads us.
But we do so at a risk. The players are the ones blamed if the musical product is lacking, rarely the conductor. Who will be our advocate in this case if not we? No one. Again, I don’t question this person’s ability or validity as a musician. As I’ve said, he bridges a difficult gap with out pops audiences. But he insists on pushing us to play tempos beyond either tradition or reason. That affects our musical product.
Making music shouldn’t be a tug of war. A conductor can give urgency to a tempo without ignoring the musicians and without looking frantic. A balance of responsibility between conductor and musicians is crucial. It’s a group effort. Each knows what they’re doing. True, each may prefer differing tempos for good reasons. The musicians want playable tempos so the music sounds clear, the conductor wants to create excitement. The two meet in the middle. That’s the way music is made.
So what?! It doesn’t matter a pile of feathers if it’s not together. Many musicians, good ones, don’t understand this basic fact of life in an orchestra. You have to factor in delay time for acoustics and human response time. So staying with the conductor is not the blanket solution. But it’s not rocket science, either.
There’s a clear hierarchy of leadership in the orchestra. The concertmaster leads not only the first violins, but also has some leadership of the other string sections. Within each string section, its principal is leader. So, 1st and 2end violins, violas, cellos, basses, have their own leaders. The same applies to every other section. In the woodwinds, the oboe is usually the leader of the whole section, while each section leader is responsible for that section. The brass are similar, with the trumpet leading all the other leaders of the various brass sections. The French Horns tend to be their own section, influencing both the brass and woodwinds.
So how do all those leaders stay together? Well, the conductor leads the way, giving the musical gestures and tempo and style indications. Then each section leader must interpret to make sense of it for their sections. The section leaders moderate and codify the conductor’s lead. For example, if the conductor’s tempo is simply too fast or erratic for a section, the leader may take the sensible path and lead a steadier, more playable tempo. The other sections will follow suit.
Within each small section, the players must follow both the conductor and their section leader. In other words, they get information from both and make sense of it within their group. It’s easier in the woodwinds, where there are only a few players in each section. The second oboe will always defer to the first oboe, no matter what the conductor does. And when the flute and oboe play together, since they are both leaders, they will work out their own hierarchy of leadership.
The leaders have to develop courage and tenacity to lead their sections in times of crisis. Occasionally a conductor will get lost or befuddled, and the section leaders have to become conductors, literally swaying in time to show where the beat it.
All this processing takes some time, so there’s an inevitable delay from the time a beat is given by the conductor and the resulting music follows in the orchestra. As a kid seeing a live orchestra or the first time, I thought it was rude and lazy of the orchestra to play so far behind the conductor’s beat. Now I know why. In order to get 80-100 people in lock step doing a subtle ballet of ever changing music, it takes time.
Like a huge, delicate machine, the orchestra undulates in subtle response to the various leads within it. Like a flock of birds or a swarm of insects, the group will stay together no matter what. At least it should, if the professional hierarchy is intact. But that’s another post.
We play a lot of pops concerts. If classical concerts are the meat, pops are the carbohydrates of our diet. They keep us going financially.
The orchestra usually plays some light classical pieces on the first half, then a famous pop or rock act plays with us on the second. We only hire acts which use us in their accompaniment. In fact, we’ve played orchestral accompaniments to such bands as Led Zeppelin and Tammy Wynette. Now that’s entertainment.
We don’t rehearse the first half much. And it often has some challenging works on it. Light doesn’t always mean easy. In fact bad arrangements can be extremely difficult and awkward. Those are the weeks I build my “close your eyes and dive in” chops!
When I first got an orchestral job in 1983, it was with a ballet orchestra. Ballet music is often some of the hardest to play. It goes on and on, with thick orchestrations in odd keys and no breaks. After six years of that I had developed some reading chops!
So, during pops weeks, I try new equipment, try new reeds. I show up, sit down, open my folder and dive in!
This week the pops is all about the celebrations of the season. Though it’s mostly about Christmas, it includes some music for Hanuka. It’s a variety show. Our choral director runs it, and it features our excellent all volunteer chorus. But he also includes our top notch local ballet company, BalletMet. The first half is a bit more classical, with selections from Handel’s Messiah, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Respighi’s Adoration of the Magi. The second half has a carol sing along for the audience and lots of traditional Christmas music and finally, a visit from Santa. Though I’ve played it for 17 years here, I still enjoy the spirit of it.
Sometimes your heart is into it, and other times, well, you just go through the motions. We had a tough week for the orchestra last week. Our ex music director was engaged for a guest appearance. A few years ago the orchestra and board were deeply divided over whether to keep him on as music director. Ultimately, one faction won and he was “allowed to move on” in his career.
So when he came back last week, only a week after our new music director whom we LOVE, conducted us, it was an uphill struggle to keep our spirits up. The program consisted of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto and Brahms 3rd Symphony. Brahms 3rd is one of my favorites, not only because it has a gorgeous clarinet solo in the second movement, but it’s also a masterpiece of symphonic composing. So, our ex director, who always explores the limits of every phrase, is leading us through this incredible piece, and half of us are suffering through it while the other half are trying to get into it.
To credit the orchestra, everyone did their best to do make music. This guy, despite his passion, is known for his unpredictable interpretations. And that’s putting it lightly. To him, all music is Italian opera, full of drama. He can swoop down on phrase from the middle of nowhere and wallow in it like a girl in a bubble bath. Meanwhile, we’re turning blue or purple, his least favorite color, waiting for the next beat. And sometimes the next beat is really a beast, which swallows the bubble bath whole, girl and all, moving ahead to the prowl on the next unsuspecting phrase.
Now don’t get me wrong or anything…I like him. He’s a great cook and in love with life, something most Americans know little about. We are a culture of bean counters, note takers, fact checkers, time keepers, rule makers, and on. Making music is not about those things. It’s about being free of the structures which convey its language. It’s about letting time float. Occasionally, he creates a brilliant nuance I could never imagine, which shudders through me like a homogenization beam from another planet, and I realize what music is all about.
Each musician eventually finds a personal balance between subjective and objective interpretations of music. Subjective interpreters seeks the meaning through the emotions, the feeling of the music, while objective ones strive to recreate the composer’s intentions. Both are valid. In my opinion, George Szell maintained the perfect balance between the two.
I lean toward the subjective camp. There are times when I feel I’m only playing the music, not feeling it, not really making music of it. Freshness helps wake me from the blindness of familiarity, especially with pieces I’ve played many times. This week’s Brahms 3rd gave me a chance to see it new, as through a microscope.
Over the years of being under this guy as music director, he has shown me the wonderful nuances and magic which can be pulled from an ordinary phrase of music. Really there are infinite ways to play any piece. The objective camp believes there is one ideal way. I think there are numerous ideal ways. And often you don’t know what might work until you try it. Inspiration is critical to making music.
After the show I argued with some colleagues, many of them string players, about these issues. I have to concede, this guy stretched Brahms way beyond the traditional, North German, stoic interpretation which works best with his music: the latent passion struggling to be free of its shadows, the yearning Bohemian dreaming of a better world.
Yet, from my little island of music making within the group, I relished wallowing in the secret depths of Brahms’ introverted complexities, in the rich density of his tonal language, the Escheresque rhythmic structures. And many of my colleagues in the winds and brass felt similarly. We were “gellin”!
The strings, however, saw it completely differently. They are the sea sprawled around our little windy islands. Spread apart and in much greater numbers, they couldn’t rely on the intimate person to person connections to stay together like the winds and brass did. They were lost at sea, while the guy up front was busy getting signals from outer space. They were not happy. Nope. Not!
This brings me back to making music versus playing. The two are codependent. This week, while some of us were able to make beautiful music within the relative chaos coming from the podium, to flourish within it’s spontaneous freedom and compulsive freshness, others struggled just to play the notes together. Ultimately, if we can’t all enjoy the same spontaneity and freedom while playing together, it lacks the most important feature of a great performance: cohesiveness.
So, here’s to guzzling music raw when ever we can, whether it’s 60 or 100 proof. But the lasting impression comes in the richness of a balanced meal accompanied by an aged wine, when we can actually remember what we did the night before.
Today I performed at a church where the music minister regularly hires a full orchestra to feature the mystical and healing power of music in the service. The entire service featured the music of Mozart, a glorious collection of Wolfie’s best and most sublime, including the Andante from the flute concerto K315, Kyrie from the Coronation Mass K317, two movements from Vesperae solennes di confessore K339, and the famous Adagio from the Clarinet Concerto K622.
Written near the end of his life, Mozart achieved a perfect balance between profound meaning and simple expression in his clarinet concerto. The adagio begins with a simple, arching melody which rises higher with each two bar statement. A second arching line overlaps between solo and orchestra, with tension and resolution soaring over a satisfying peak. Then the “B” section changes moods, allowing the solo clarinet a free and wandering fantasy, a conversation with itself, which builds slowly to a fervent musical climax. Here the orchestra drops out and the clarinet is left alone to float down from the rich tension, back to the simple “A” part from the beginning. The movement ends with a long coda of new, rambling material, which settles, like a feather, gently down to a relaxed repose.
Before I played, this poem The Song and Prayer of Birds by Thomas H. Troeger (b 1945) was read by the minister:
The song and prayer of birds
is melody alone,
Their hymns employ no words.
Their praise is purely tone.
Their song is prayer enough.
Love hears what sound conveys,
and love does not rebuff
a creature’s wordless praise.
And so we trust that prayer
does not depend on words
to reach the source of care
who understands the birds.
After hearing this poem, I was inspired to play the pure meaning of the music, without thinking or second-guessing or analyzing. I just felt the phrases as they came and went, abstract shaped of sound and song. I was able to sing through my instrument as if it wasn’t there.
The other night we had a pops concert, a tribute to Arthur Fiedler. The program style reflected his unique balance of light music with one substantial classical piece. We played about a half hour of “medium” light classical, some Wagner overtures and a Puccini Arias arrangement for orchestra. After an intermission, we played the entire Tchaikovsky violin concert, a hefty chunk of music for a pops audience. Then came another intermission. Yes, two intermissions. At the Boston Pops, much of the audience is set up at tables, so they can eat and drink during the concert. Then two intermissions make sense. Anyway, onward.
The third half was all schlock. “Fiddle Faddle”, a tough little bugger, especially at the caffeinated tempos our conductor likes. Then a piece for typewriter and orchestra, very cute. Our principal percussionist dressed as a sleazy secretary, with a blue beehive wig and a cigarette hanging out of his/her mouth. The typewriter was the real thing, a heavy, old battle ax. The part was mostly the ticking of the keys, inter-spaced with the ripping of the carriage and the infamous little bell to warn you to return the carriage. Fun.
Anyway, one of the traditions of Fiedler was to spontaneously insert an encore in the middle of the third half. Our conductor warned us. On Saturday night he decided to do it. The piece was “Stars and Stripes”. My music had gotten shuffled into the mix of everything in my folder, and I couldn’t find it. He started the piece, as I frantically looked for the part. Bum, bum-t-um tum, tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-TUM! The music started. I’ve played it many, many times, but in different keys, and with different repeats, etc. It’s not an easy piece, and I don’t have it memorized. So I kept looking. It wasn’t there. I thought someone had played a joke on me, but our orchestra doesn’t play jokes, they just get even. I started at the beginning of the folder and turned each piece over. I’m right in the middle of the orchestra, dead center, in sight of all. There I am calmly (now I know all are looking at me, so calm is the key) paging through my music…The piece is not that long, so it’s about a third over…and finally, there it is, hiding between Fiddle Faddle and Buglers Holiday. I knew it, it was a conspiracy between the string and the brass! Anyway, I dove in and played the rest.
After the concert, as I walked out of the hall, the conductor happened to see me, and laughed as he said, “Dave, I had so much fun watching you frantically looking for your music during the march. Thanks for breaking the monotony and making me laugh!”
I smiled. At least someone enjoyed it.
