At orchestra yesterday evening, we were rehearsing 3 pieces, all of which are very tricky in terms of rhythms and changes of speed.
In Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture, there are several places where there is a huge rallentando before the speed returns to what it is before.
In Elgar's Sea Pictures, we have been told about several passages marked colla parte, where the singer will be pulling the speed about. We've been warned that we cannot possibly know until the soloist arrives what speed these passages will go. So the conductor has been trying out various speeds to get us to practice following him.
Ravel's Piano Concerto In G has a number of places where the speed changes quite suddenly, and also a great meny places where things happen off the beat to varying degrees.
I'm not going to name the guilty parties, but there was a definite tendancy among a number of players to select a tempo for themselves, and then put their heads down and plough on regardless of what the conductor was doing.
In Romeo and Juliet, there was one point where the horns are playing triplet quavers during a huge rallentando. I could see how far the conductor was slowing down, it was a loud passage, so I decided very confidently, loudly and deliberately to follow him to the point where the final quaver was about a quarter the speed of the beginning of the bar - just to show the other players what needs to be done to keep with the conductor. There were several other passages where the horns aren't involved, where the orchestra came out of the end of the rall probably a beat or more ahead of the conductor. They just weren't looking.
During the coffee break, several people came up to me and said how nice it was to have an utterly solid horn player in the orchestra. The compliments of course are very nice, but the compliment would be greater if they would copy what I'm doing and coordinate their tempo with the conductor and the rest of the orchestra.
There are two aspects to this.
First, you must watch the conductor at all times. Your music must be positioned such that you can always see the beat out of the corner of your eye, and you have to be ready to react. It is only by watching the conductor that you get advance warning of changes of speed. If you don't look at the conductor and respond to his gestures, he loses all ability to shape the interpretation.
Second, you must listen, and make sure that you don't rush quavers, or get ahead of the beat that everybody else is playing. If you have a sudden single note to play, you have to listen and make sure it happens in the right place. For that you have to be able to hear what the rest of the orchestra is up to so that you come in right.
It's part of teamwork - the performance is scrappy if we don't all play together.
Showing posts with label conductors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conductors. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Friday, 12 February 2010
Inspiring conductors
Lyle Sanford has been musing lately on the autocratic habits of conductors and the childlike and dependent attitudes of some amateur musicians.
I've come across my share of autocratic conductors, and there are of course famous examples of such people at the top reaches of the profession - Fritz Reiner was a notorious martinet for instance.
But from my experience here in the London area both of the orchestras I am or have been a regular member of and those for which I've deputised from time to time, conductors of amateur orchestras do seem to recognise that their continued employment depends to some extent on making the rehearsal experience rewarding and enjoyable to the players. You do hear of an occasional conductor who drives his players to tears but inspires great loyalty because of the results he achieves. But here, this seems very much to be the exception rather than the rule.
I suspect that this in part is because there is a huge oversupply of wannabe conductors compared to orchestras available for them to conduct. Your average amateur orchestra is perhaps 60 players, and it requires just one conductor. And many conductors run a number of amateur orchestras, each meeting on a different night of the week. If you take a look at the London page of the UK Amateur Orchestras listing website, you'll see that conductor's names often pop up 2 or 3 times.
Outside London, this is less common because of the longer distances to travel. But within London, this does put the orchestra committee at a great advantage - if the orchestra finds itself disliking a conductor, there are always plenty more where he (it is almost always a "he") came from. This means that a conductor has to work much more by encouragement than has perhaps been traditional in the past.
But I think it is also partly due to the example of their predecessors whom they themselves have learned under.
I've long since lost count of the conductors I've played for. I've mentioned here a magical occasion on which I once had the opportunity to play under the baton of Simon Rattle, but generally I find myself comparing any conductor against three that I regularly played for in school and student days. On the few occasions that I've had the opportunity to do a bit of conducting myself, these three are the ones I model myself on.
The first was Fred Firth, who conducted the Norwich Students Orchestra. I played under him for about 2 years from the age of about 13 to 15, when he retired. One one occasion after that I played under him in a series of performances of Verdi's I Lombardi which he conducted with the Norfolk Opera Players.
He wasn't the first conductor I played under or the first orchestra I played in - I joined my first youth orchestra at the age of 9 in London before my parents moved to Norfolk, but I don't remember all that much about the conductor there. Fred Firth was the first conductor to inspire me. He had a broad Lancashire accent that shone out of his mouth every time he spoke, even though he had lived in Norfolk for decades. The kids in the orchestra were willing to follow him anywhere - and we followed him through some very tricky pieces - things which I would regard as difficult even today. Kodaly's Hary-Janos suite, the Elgar Cello Concerto, Delius Paris: Song of a Great City, and Sibelius' 1st Symphony are four works that come to mind. By the standards of the 1970s, this was quite daring repertoire even for an adult amateur orchestra, let alone a set of high school kids.
Next was Lawrence Leonard. When I was at high school, the Norfolk County Youth Orchestra would meet twice a year for a one-week residential course at Wymondham College in the Easter and summer holidays. I loved those courses - though I was utterly exhausted at the end of them. Lawrence had a most amazing fund of anecdotes and would keep us all in stitches of laughter telling us real or imagined stories of his musical adventures. I didn't know it at the time, but Lawrence had been the conductor of the Morley College Orchestra, which transformed itself into the Hoffnung Festival Orchestra for some utterly hilarious concerts in the Royal Festival Hall called the Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival. An idea of the fun to come was in the announcement given by the Festival Hall's general manager T.E. Bean, at the start of the first concert.
The concert included such items as A Grand, Grand Overture by Malcolm Arnold, which included three vacuum cleaners and a floor polisher among the required instruments, and a Concerto for Hose-pipe and Strings, with Dennis Brain playing a garden hosepipe with a horn mouthpiece in one end and a funnel on the other.
This was all before I was born, and I only learned about it later, but gives an idea of the sort of fun that he could be. Anyway, Lawrence was also inspiring to us. He was a cellist as well as a conductor, and during rehearsals would grab the principal cellist's instrument and demonstrate what he wanted in terms of an effect or style - whatever instrument he was speaking to.
He was always a good sport. On the last night before the concert there was a tradition of "follies", an informal concert of light-hearted pieces by members of the orchestra. One year I got him to agree to do Ernst Toch's Geographical Fugue. It is a perfectly good fugue, except that it is entirely spoken and there are no notes in it. It starts like this.
So I got Lawrence to start alone on stage. He made a huge performance out of tuning his cello, and then put it to one side, and said "Ladies and Gentlemen. Trinidad! And the big Mississippi..." The other three of us taking part in the fugue each started our own part from our seats in the audience and made our way up to join him on stage.
On another course, he had been very critical of one of the violinists who had something of a tendancy to fling himself about when playing and to use too much bow. On Follies night, Lawrence performed John Cage's 4' 33" (arranged for solo cello), with an excessively serious expression on his face. Halfway through, the errant violinist called out "Lawrence, too much bow!", and everyone completely fell about laughing. Lawrence's expression didn't even crack!
Lawrence Leonard also got us through some very tricky pieces. Stravinsky's Firebird and Petrushka suites, Brahms 2nd Symphony, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherezade, Sibelius 2nd Symphony are highlights I remember. All before I was 18. We played Petrushka in a concert in Kings Lynn at the end of one course, and just as we reached the passage where the horns are playing a quaver passage slurring up and down alternate notes, an ambulance drove past the outside the hall with its two-tone siren going - in a different key but at about the same tempo!
The third conductor I particularly remember was Harry Legge. He was a founder member of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (playing the viola) under Sir Thomas Beecham. He was in a way responsible for my existence. He set up The Rehearsal Orchestra, as a residential course during the Edinburgh Festival in August 1957, (it has been run there every August since) and my parents met as a result of attending that very first course. Probably nearly half the professional musicians in Britain have been through the Rehearsal Orchestra in their student days and so a great many of them knew Harry. It meant that at his local amateur orchestra in London, the Brent Symphony Orchestra, he was able to get some of the most amazing soloists to come and play with the orchestra. I remember Moura Lympany playing a Rachmaninov concerto, Robert and Raymond Cohen playing the Brahms Double Concerto together, Nigel Kennedy playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto (and staying on with his girlfriend to listen to us play Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony in the 2nd half). I first played for Harry in the British Youth Wind Orchestra (now the National Youth Wind Orchestra) on a tour of Canada and the US in 1977. When I was in London at university, I played both for the Brent Symphony Orchestra and for various of the Rehearsal Orchestra weekend courses in London. I remember in particular in one weekend getting through not only the whole of Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben, but also Bartok's Kossuth as well (which requires an almost identically huge orchestra).
Harry had played under many of the greats, particularly including Beecham and also Rudolf Kempe, who succeeded Beecham as chief conductor of the RPO, and so he knew precisely what he wanted from an orchestra, and got it without much fuss. He modelled his rehearsal technique on Beecham's, basically working on the principle that you speak as little as possible, and let the players play the notes as much as possible, eventually they become familiar with what you are trying to achieve.
It's noticeable that all three of these conductors who had a great musical effect on me were ones I first played for before I was 18. They were playing great and difficult and inspiring pieces of music, requiring the utmost concentration from both conductor and players. None of them worked by shouting at the orchestra - except under extreme provocation. And they were all hugely loved by their players. They, along with my teacher at the RCM, Douglas Moore, provided me with my musical education. What I know of music I know largely as a result of having played it for them. I count myself incredibly fortunate and privileged to have had not just one but three such outstanding musical role models.
I've come across my share of autocratic conductors, and there are of course famous examples of such people at the top reaches of the profession - Fritz Reiner was a notorious martinet for instance.
But from my experience here in the London area both of the orchestras I am or have been a regular member of and those for which I've deputised from time to time, conductors of amateur orchestras do seem to recognise that their continued employment depends to some extent on making the rehearsal experience rewarding and enjoyable to the players. You do hear of an occasional conductor who drives his players to tears but inspires great loyalty because of the results he achieves. But here, this seems very much to be the exception rather than the rule.
I suspect that this in part is because there is a huge oversupply of wannabe conductors compared to orchestras available for them to conduct. Your average amateur orchestra is perhaps 60 players, and it requires just one conductor. And many conductors run a number of amateur orchestras, each meeting on a different night of the week. If you take a look at the London page of the UK Amateur Orchestras listing website, you'll see that conductor's names often pop up 2 or 3 times.
Outside London, this is less common because of the longer distances to travel. But within London, this does put the orchestra committee at a great advantage - if the orchestra finds itself disliking a conductor, there are always plenty more where he (it is almost always a "he") came from. This means that a conductor has to work much more by encouragement than has perhaps been traditional in the past.
But I think it is also partly due to the example of their predecessors whom they themselves have learned under.
I've long since lost count of the conductors I've played for. I've mentioned here a magical occasion on which I once had the opportunity to play under the baton of Simon Rattle, but generally I find myself comparing any conductor against three that I regularly played for in school and student days. On the few occasions that I've had the opportunity to do a bit of conducting myself, these three are the ones I model myself on.
The first was Fred Firth, who conducted the Norwich Students Orchestra. I played under him for about 2 years from the age of about 13 to 15, when he retired. One one occasion after that I played under him in a series of performances of Verdi's I Lombardi which he conducted with the Norfolk Opera Players.
He wasn't the first conductor I played under or the first orchestra I played in - I joined my first youth orchestra at the age of 9 in London before my parents moved to Norfolk, but I don't remember all that much about the conductor there. Fred Firth was the first conductor to inspire me. He had a broad Lancashire accent that shone out of his mouth every time he spoke, even though he had lived in Norfolk for decades. The kids in the orchestra were willing to follow him anywhere - and we followed him through some very tricky pieces - things which I would regard as difficult even today. Kodaly's Hary-Janos suite, the Elgar Cello Concerto, Delius Paris: Song of a Great City, and Sibelius' 1st Symphony are four works that come to mind. By the standards of the 1970s, this was quite daring repertoire even for an adult amateur orchestra, let alone a set of high school kids.
Next was Lawrence Leonard. When I was at high school, the Norfolk County Youth Orchestra would meet twice a year for a one-week residential course at Wymondham College in the Easter and summer holidays. I loved those courses - though I was utterly exhausted at the end of them. Lawrence had a most amazing fund of anecdotes and would keep us all in stitches of laughter telling us real or imagined stories of his musical adventures. I didn't know it at the time, but Lawrence had been the conductor of the Morley College Orchestra, which transformed itself into the Hoffnung Festival Orchestra for some utterly hilarious concerts in the Royal Festival Hall called the Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival. An idea of the fun to come was in the announcement given by the Festival Hall's general manager T.E. Bean, at the start of the first concert.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have to ask your indulgence for an announcement. Owing to circumstances over which the LCC [London County Council] and the management of the Hall have no control, tonight's programme will be given exactly as advertised.
The concert included such items as A Grand, Grand Overture by Malcolm Arnold, which included three vacuum cleaners and a floor polisher among the required instruments, and a Concerto for Hose-pipe and Strings, with Dennis Brain playing a garden hosepipe with a horn mouthpiece in one end and a funnel on the other.
This was all before I was born, and I only learned about it later, but gives an idea of the sort of fun that he could be. Anyway, Lawrence was also inspiring to us. He was a cellist as well as a conductor, and during rehearsals would grab the principal cellist's instrument and demonstrate what he wanted in terms of an effect or style - whatever instrument he was speaking to.
He was always a good sport. On the last night before the concert there was a tradition of "follies", an informal concert of light-hearted pieces by members of the orchestra. One year I got him to agree to do Ernst Toch's Geographical Fugue. It is a perfectly good fugue, except that it is entirely spoken and there are no notes in it. It starts like this.
Trinidad!
And the big Mississippi
and the town Honolulu
and the lake Titicaca,
the Popocatepetl is not in Canada,
rather in Mexico, Mexico, Mexico!
So I got Lawrence to start alone on stage. He made a huge performance out of tuning his cello, and then put it to one side, and said "Ladies and Gentlemen. Trinidad! And the big Mississippi..." The other three of us taking part in the fugue each started our own part from our seats in the audience and made our way up to join him on stage.
On another course, he had been very critical of one of the violinists who had something of a tendancy to fling himself about when playing and to use too much bow. On Follies night, Lawrence performed John Cage's 4' 33" (arranged for solo cello), with an excessively serious expression on his face. Halfway through, the errant violinist called out "Lawrence, too much bow!", and everyone completely fell about laughing. Lawrence's expression didn't even crack!
Lawrence Leonard also got us through some very tricky pieces. Stravinsky's Firebird and Petrushka suites, Brahms 2nd Symphony, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherezade, Sibelius 2nd Symphony are highlights I remember. All before I was 18. We played Petrushka in a concert in Kings Lynn at the end of one course, and just as we reached the passage where the horns are playing a quaver passage slurring up and down alternate notes, an ambulance drove past the outside the hall with its two-tone siren going - in a different key but at about the same tempo!
The third conductor I particularly remember was Harry Legge. He was a founder member of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (playing the viola) under Sir Thomas Beecham. He was in a way responsible for my existence. He set up The Rehearsal Orchestra, as a residential course during the Edinburgh Festival in August 1957, (it has been run there every August since) and my parents met as a result of attending that very first course. Probably nearly half the professional musicians in Britain have been through the Rehearsal Orchestra in their student days and so a great many of them knew Harry. It meant that at his local amateur orchestra in London, the Brent Symphony Orchestra, he was able to get some of the most amazing soloists to come and play with the orchestra. I remember Moura Lympany playing a Rachmaninov concerto, Robert and Raymond Cohen playing the Brahms Double Concerto together, Nigel Kennedy playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto (and staying on with his girlfriend to listen to us play Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony in the 2nd half). I first played for Harry in the British Youth Wind Orchestra (now the National Youth Wind Orchestra) on a tour of Canada and the US in 1977. When I was in London at university, I played both for the Brent Symphony Orchestra and for various of the Rehearsal Orchestra weekend courses in London. I remember in particular in one weekend getting through not only the whole of Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben, but also Bartok's Kossuth as well (which requires an almost identically huge orchestra).
Harry had played under many of the greats, particularly including Beecham and also Rudolf Kempe, who succeeded Beecham as chief conductor of the RPO, and so he knew precisely what he wanted from an orchestra, and got it without much fuss. He modelled his rehearsal technique on Beecham's, basically working on the principle that you speak as little as possible, and let the players play the notes as much as possible, eventually they become familiar with what you are trying to achieve.
It's noticeable that all three of these conductors who had a great musical effect on me were ones I first played for before I was 18. They were playing great and difficult and inspiring pieces of music, requiring the utmost concentration from both conductor and players. None of them worked by shouting at the orchestra - except under extreme provocation. And they were all hugely loved by their players. They, along with my teacher at the RCM, Douglas Moore, provided me with my musical education. What I know of music I know largely as a result of having played it for them. I count myself incredibly fortunate and privileged to have had not just one but three such outstanding musical role models.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Playing for one of the greats
I thought I would balance the previous article about a bad experience with a conductor, with one of my very best experiences of working under one of the greats.
I've been a regular participant in the Rehearsal Orchestra for many years. They run several weekend courses during the year, and a week-long residential course in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh International Music Festival. The participants are a mixture of college-level music students and good amateurs, with regular London pros as the paid principals of each of the string sections. For the one- and two-day weekend courses, they intensively rehearse a really big work and then put on an informal performance of it (they call it an "open rehearsal") at the end, and friends and relations are invited to come and listen.
One weekend in December 2001 was very special because the orchestra's patron, Sir Simon Rattle, had agreed to conduct a course.
He was in London that month conducting Parsifal at the Royal Opera. It is about the most exhausting thing to do, the opera lasts about 5 hours. As a rest from that on his Sunday off, he came to coach us for a day on Bruckner's 9th symphony - not a small work by any means!
I was playing first horn, so there was plenty to do. Bruckner wrote a lot of notes for the horn, and this piece requires 8 of them - and it seems like he uses them all most of the time!
Simon Rattle was lovely. The first thing he said when he stepped onto the rostrum was how wonderful and nostalgic it was to be back. (He played percussion in the Rehearsal Orchestra when he was about 14, and says he learned a lot from it.) He did everything possible to put a large number of very nervous and overawed amateur musicians at their ease.
Even so, I spent the first 45 minutes as nervous as anything, and at that point I gave myself a good talking to, and told myself. "Jonathan, there is absolutely zero chance of Simon coming up to you in the break and saying 'Jonathan, you're just the person I need to join the horn section in the Berlin Philharmonic!', and even if he did, you would turn him down, because you long ago decided against a musical career. So nothing depends on this except your own enjoyment of it."
And with that, I decided just to go for the notes and entries, and if I split an occasional one, then at least I'm trying to make it sound good and musical. And it worked. I felt myself relax and my tone opened out.
It is fascinating to watch a real master of his art at work. He spent most of the first hour or so working mainly with the strings. Normally wind players more or less fall asleep when the conductor is working with the strings, but not this time. It was riveting seeing how he took their sound apart, and then gradually, one technique at a time, he built the tone into what he wanted specifically for this composer and this piece. Pizzicatos with the fleshiest available part of the thumb or finger. Tremolando only after nearly a full length of bow. Wider vibrato than they had ever used before. Lots of bow. Very specific instructions as to when to use the heel of the bow and when to use the tip. At one point called out "Anyone found not playing at the heel at this point will be taken out and shot!"
Immediately after the first forte entry of the heavy brass, he stopped the whole orchestra and turned to them.
"Brass, that was a wonderful noise! Absolutely perfect for Shostakovich. And I don't want ever in my life to hear it again in a Bruckner symphony. The sound has to be rich and round without the slightest hint of a cuivré to it. Let's try it again."
I turned to the other horns and whispered down the line. "Horns, that means us as well!"
It wasn't just the techniques he was asking for, but he made it clear what he wanted in terms of the overall breadth & warmth of the sound. At one point he said "In this passage, I want the biggest, fattest tone you can manage. I want a full Orson Welles of a sound. Maybe even 7/8ths of a Marlon Brando." There were references to The Simpsons. "Imagine you are Bart Simpson having to write lines on the blackboard. Write 100 times 'I will not diminuendo on the down bow in Bruckner'."
At one point, he said "The main purpose of the conductor is to make himself unnecessary. You're now going to prove that. You mustn't rely on me and the beat, you have to listen to each other. Just to show you can, I'm going to start you off here, and you carry on without me." He started us off and then folded his arms, and grinned evilly at us, managing cues simply by looking at the relevant person and raising his right eyebrow. And we listened to each other, and we stayed together. After a minute or so, he stopped us and said "You know, conducting is one of the great fake professions..."
By listening to him working with the strings, it became clear to me the sort of tone and style he wanted from the horns as well, so my listening to him working with them hopefully saved him the bother of telling me. At one point he said to the orchestra (just after I had played something not quite in time). "You have to count and listen. I am not going to do anything as mundane as beat time just to make it easier for you to put semiquavers in the right place, I've more important things to do with the music." Sure enough, we did count, and we did listen, and we did (mostly) get the semiquavers right.
And in the course of the first hour or so, he transformed the tone and sound of the orchestra from what we were in fact (a pretty good amateur group) into a sound that to my ears would not have disgraced a regional professional orchestra.
He had some nice stories as well. He said that on one occasion when he was a student, he was coming into the Festival Hall to listen to Sir Georg Solti rehearse a Bruckner symphony with a major orchestra. He was just outside the door when he heard Solti screaming something at the orchestra. He opened the door and heard Solti absolutely apoplectic with rage shouting "TRANQVILLITY!!! AT ZIS POINT VE MUST HAF TRANQVILLITY!!!"
It's hard to describe the complete feeling of confidence that working with a master can bring to you (once you overcome the terror of his reputation!) Normally, with an amateur orchestra, the conductor is expected to keep a clear beat, and make sure that he looks at you and gives you a cue if you have a solo entry. You tend to get nervous if that doesn't happen. Somehow though, with Simon Rattle, I felt perfectly confident making solo entries without a cue, without much of a beat, and while he was looking very pointedly at the double-basses, right over on the opposite side of the orchestra. I don't know how he does it, but it works!
In the third movement, there are some passages which are just the 8 horns (or rather, 4 horns and 4 Wagner tubas. Horns 5-8 change instruments for the last movement) and almost nothing else apart from quiet strings, with first horn taking the tune. It was wonderful being able to let the tune soar out over the top of all that rich sound.
Talking to the other players over a drink afterwards, everyone was walking on air. The curious thing was that, every person I spoke to seemed to be convinced that in the informal concert at the end, Simon Rattle seemed always to be looking at them personally for the entire duration!
This is what playing for a great conductor can be like. People who can instil this kind of confidence in their players can completely transform a performance through the sheer force of their personality. This is what conducting should be.
I've been a regular participant in the Rehearsal Orchestra for many years. They run several weekend courses during the year, and a week-long residential course in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh International Music Festival. The participants are a mixture of college-level music students and good amateurs, with regular London pros as the paid principals of each of the string sections. For the one- and two-day weekend courses, they intensively rehearse a really big work and then put on an informal performance of it (they call it an "open rehearsal") at the end, and friends and relations are invited to come and listen.
One weekend in December 2001 was very special because the orchestra's patron, Sir Simon Rattle, had agreed to conduct a course.
He was in London that month conducting Parsifal at the Royal Opera. It is about the most exhausting thing to do, the opera lasts about 5 hours. As a rest from that on his Sunday off, he came to coach us for a day on Bruckner's 9th symphony - not a small work by any means!
I was playing first horn, so there was plenty to do. Bruckner wrote a lot of notes for the horn, and this piece requires 8 of them - and it seems like he uses them all most of the time!
Simon Rattle was lovely. The first thing he said when he stepped onto the rostrum was how wonderful and nostalgic it was to be back. (He played percussion in the Rehearsal Orchestra when he was about 14, and says he learned a lot from it.) He did everything possible to put a large number of very nervous and overawed amateur musicians at their ease.
Even so, I spent the first 45 minutes as nervous as anything, and at that point I gave myself a good talking to, and told myself. "Jonathan, there is absolutely zero chance of Simon coming up to you in the break and saying 'Jonathan, you're just the person I need to join the horn section in the Berlin Philharmonic!', and even if he did, you would turn him down, because you long ago decided against a musical career. So nothing depends on this except your own enjoyment of it."
And with that, I decided just to go for the notes and entries, and if I split an occasional one, then at least I'm trying to make it sound good and musical. And it worked. I felt myself relax and my tone opened out.
It is fascinating to watch a real master of his art at work. He spent most of the first hour or so working mainly with the strings. Normally wind players more or less fall asleep when the conductor is working with the strings, but not this time. It was riveting seeing how he took their sound apart, and then gradually, one technique at a time, he built the tone into what he wanted specifically for this composer and this piece. Pizzicatos with the fleshiest available part of the thumb or finger. Tremolando only after nearly a full length of bow. Wider vibrato than they had ever used before. Lots of bow. Very specific instructions as to when to use the heel of the bow and when to use the tip. At one point called out "Anyone found not playing at the heel at this point will be taken out and shot!"
Immediately after the first forte entry of the heavy brass, he stopped the whole orchestra and turned to them.
"Brass, that was a wonderful noise! Absolutely perfect for Shostakovich. And I don't want ever in my life to hear it again in a Bruckner symphony. The sound has to be rich and round without the slightest hint of a cuivré to it. Let's try it again."
I turned to the other horns and whispered down the line. "Horns, that means us as well!"
It wasn't just the techniques he was asking for, but he made it clear what he wanted in terms of the overall breadth & warmth of the sound. At one point he said "In this passage, I want the biggest, fattest tone you can manage. I want a full Orson Welles of a sound. Maybe even 7/8ths of a Marlon Brando." There were references to The Simpsons. "Imagine you are Bart Simpson having to write lines on the blackboard. Write 100 times 'I will not diminuendo on the down bow in Bruckner'."
At one point, he said "The main purpose of the conductor is to make himself unnecessary. You're now going to prove that. You mustn't rely on me and the beat, you have to listen to each other. Just to show you can, I'm going to start you off here, and you carry on without me." He started us off and then folded his arms, and grinned evilly at us, managing cues simply by looking at the relevant person and raising his right eyebrow. And we listened to each other, and we stayed together. After a minute or so, he stopped us and said "You know, conducting is one of the great fake professions..."
By listening to him working with the strings, it became clear to me the sort of tone and style he wanted from the horns as well, so my listening to him working with them hopefully saved him the bother of telling me. At one point he said to the orchestra (just after I had played something not quite in time). "You have to count and listen. I am not going to do anything as mundane as beat time just to make it easier for you to put semiquavers in the right place, I've more important things to do with the music." Sure enough, we did count, and we did listen, and we did (mostly) get the semiquavers right.
And in the course of the first hour or so, he transformed the tone and sound of the orchestra from what we were in fact (a pretty good amateur group) into a sound that to my ears would not have disgraced a regional professional orchestra.
He had some nice stories as well. He said that on one occasion when he was a student, he was coming into the Festival Hall to listen to Sir Georg Solti rehearse a Bruckner symphony with a major orchestra. He was just outside the door when he heard Solti screaming something at the orchestra. He opened the door and heard Solti absolutely apoplectic with rage shouting "TRANQVILLITY!!! AT ZIS POINT VE MUST HAF TRANQVILLITY!!!"
It's hard to describe the complete feeling of confidence that working with a master can bring to you (once you overcome the terror of his reputation!) Normally, with an amateur orchestra, the conductor is expected to keep a clear beat, and make sure that he looks at you and gives you a cue if you have a solo entry. You tend to get nervous if that doesn't happen. Somehow though, with Simon Rattle, I felt perfectly confident making solo entries without a cue, without much of a beat, and while he was looking very pointedly at the double-basses, right over on the opposite side of the orchestra. I don't know how he does it, but it works!
In the third movement, there are some passages which are just the 8 horns (or rather, 4 horns and 4 Wagner tubas. Horns 5-8 change instruments for the last movement) and almost nothing else apart from quiet strings, with first horn taking the tune. It was wonderful being able to let the tune soar out over the top of all that rich sound.
Talking to the other players over a drink afterwards, everyone was walking on air. The curious thing was that, every person I spoke to seemed to be convinced that in the informal concert at the end, Simon Rattle seemed always to be looking at them personally for the entire duration!
This is what playing for a great conductor can be like. People who can instil this kind of confidence in their players can completely transform a performance through the sheer force of their personality. This is what conducting should be.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
How not to get on in an orchestra
When I was about 15, the much-loved conductor of my local youth orchestra retired. He was an inspiring character, and managed to get us unscathed through some quite complex pieces such as Delius' Paris:Song of a Great City, and Kodaly's Hary-Janos Suite.
Unfortunately his successor wasn't nearly so good. We were rehearsing Brahms 4 for our first concert under him, and making pretty heavy weather of it. The problem was that this conductor had no rehearsal technique. He talked a lot rather than letting us actually play through things, and he didn't talk very loud, so only the front two desks of strings could hear him for most of the time.
On one occasion, he endlessly repeated the strings in some passage in the slow movement. The wind had all pretty much gone to sleep. When he finally continued, without having given any warning to the wind that this time we would be going on, the horns didn't come in for their entry, which didn't please him.
By this time, I was getting really, really pissed off with him. So after the coffee break, I decided to time him. I had a stopwatch feature on my wristwatch, and so I set it running whenever he was talking, and stopped it whenever we played. In the 50 minutes of the 2nd half of the rehearsal I timed him talking for 32 minutes. The remaining 18 minutes included a complete run through of the 3rd movement (about 5 minutes) at the end.
So at the end of the rehearsal, I went up to him, in front of all the other kids, and told him that he had been wasting everyone's time, and that he had been talking for about twice as long as we had played, and that it was no wonder we weren't making much progress. I told him that I had been timing him and gave him the figures I had collected.
In retrospect, I'm mildly surprised he didn't hit me, I got him that cross. While I didn't swear at him, I'm sure I made it perfectly clear that he didn't have my confidence or respect. In turn he complained that I had wasted time in the first half of the rehearsal not being ready for my entry. I told him that I had given up all hope of us ever reaching it, since he had been endlessly repeating the strings without there being any obvious improvement, and that he had warned nobody that we were going on that time. I told him that we were all getting thoroughly bored with this piece. He asked me to write down what I wanted to play instead and to write down my complaint and bring it in to rehearsal next week.
I told my parents about it when I got home, and they advised that I simply write a list of pieces I would like to play, and not make any reference to the other part of the complaint. This I did.
He was most put out that I hadn't put in a formal written complaint. It turned out that he had complained about me to his boss, the County Music Advisor, and requested that I be thrown out of the orchestra.
I already knew the County Music Advisor a little, his son also played horn and was second horn to me in my school orchestra, and so I had met him at school concerts. I suspect that this was critical to the subsequent turn of events. I learned afterwards the he had dealt with the matter with exemplary efficiency. He asked the conductor whether I was right in what I had said about him spending a lot of time talking. On getting equivocation for a reply, he simply said "Well, you had better make sure he has no reason to complain about it again." And that was the end of the matter.
The conductor did improve his rehearsal technique, though he never managed to become all that good. But our performance of Brahms 4 at the end of term was pretty dire. But I don't think he ever forgave me, and he avoided rehearsing the horns at all in full rehearsals - he left it to the brass section coach to rehearse anything that needed improvement.
It took me some years before I began to like Brahms 4, because of its association with my experience of playing it in the youth orchestra. I only started to like it again when I next played it at university, and had to my astonishment been made 1st horn of the University of London Orchestra. But that's a story for another day.
The quality of the conductor really can make all the difference to how a group performs, but if you are stuck with a bad one, be a bit more circumspect about how you deal with him than I was. I was right in that he was rehearsing us extremely badly. But it was because I was right that he couldn't cope with me being there and tried to get me thrown out. If things get really bad with a conductor, you shouldn't tackle him alone. See what others think, and if you can get support, have a delegation of several of you approach him. That way, he can't pick you off one by one.
In the case of my youth orchestra conductor, I now realise that there was a much better way to handle the issue. I should have kept my lip buttoned until I got home. My parents were both experienced amateur musicians, and it would have been a simple matter to have one or other of them arrive early to pick me up the following week, come in and listen for themselves to the rehearsal for a while, and then write to the County Music Advisor describing their impressions. A letter from parents could not have been wished away as easily as a complaint from a child. But I was young and foolish, and I acted without thinking things through.
As it happens, it all turned out well, but if the County Music Advisor had not known me, or had shown a bit less backbone, I would have been out.
Unfortunately his successor wasn't nearly so good. We were rehearsing Brahms 4 for our first concert under him, and making pretty heavy weather of it. The problem was that this conductor had no rehearsal technique. He talked a lot rather than letting us actually play through things, and he didn't talk very loud, so only the front two desks of strings could hear him for most of the time.
On one occasion, he endlessly repeated the strings in some passage in the slow movement. The wind had all pretty much gone to sleep. When he finally continued, without having given any warning to the wind that this time we would be going on, the horns didn't come in for their entry, which didn't please him.
By this time, I was getting really, really pissed off with him. So after the coffee break, I decided to time him. I had a stopwatch feature on my wristwatch, and so I set it running whenever he was talking, and stopped it whenever we played. In the 50 minutes of the 2nd half of the rehearsal I timed him talking for 32 minutes. The remaining 18 minutes included a complete run through of the 3rd movement (about 5 minutes) at the end.
So at the end of the rehearsal, I went up to him, in front of all the other kids, and told him that he had been wasting everyone's time, and that he had been talking for about twice as long as we had played, and that it was no wonder we weren't making much progress. I told him that I had been timing him and gave him the figures I had collected.
In retrospect, I'm mildly surprised he didn't hit me, I got him that cross. While I didn't swear at him, I'm sure I made it perfectly clear that he didn't have my confidence or respect. In turn he complained that I had wasted time in the first half of the rehearsal not being ready for my entry. I told him that I had given up all hope of us ever reaching it, since he had been endlessly repeating the strings without there being any obvious improvement, and that he had warned nobody that we were going on that time. I told him that we were all getting thoroughly bored with this piece. He asked me to write down what I wanted to play instead and to write down my complaint and bring it in to rehearsal next week.
I told my parents about it when I got home, and they advised that I simply write a list of pieces I would like to play, and not make any reference to the other part of the complaint. This I did.
He was most put out that I hadn't put in a formal written complaint. It turned out that he had complained about me to his boss, the County Music Advisor, and requested that I be thrown out of the orchestra.
I already knew the County Music Advisor a little, his son also played horn and was second horn to me in my school orchestra, and so I had met him at school concerts. I suspect that this was critical to the subsequent turn of events. I learned afterwards the he had dealt with the matter with exemplary efficiency. He asked the conductor whether I was right in what I had said about him spending a lot of time talking. On getting equivocation for a reply, he simply said "Well, you had better make sure he has no reason to complain about it again." And that was the end of the matter.
The conductor did improve his rehearsal technique, though he never managed to become all that good. But our performance of Brahms 4 at the end of term was pretty dire. But I don't think he ever forgave me, and he avoided rehearsing the horns at all in full rehearsals - he left it to the brass section coach to rehearse anything that needed improvement.
It took me some years before I began to like Brahms 4, because of its association with my experience of playing it in the youth orchestra. I only started to like it again when I next played it at university, and had to my astonishment been made 1st horn of the University of London Orchestra. But that's a story for another day.
The quality of the conductor really can make all the difference to how a group performs, but if you are stuck with a bad one, be a bit more circumspect about how you deal with him than I was. I was right in that he was rehearsing us extremely badly. But it was because I was right that he couldn't cope with me being there and tried to get me thrown out. If things get really bad with a conductor, you shouldn't tackle him alone. See what others think, and if you can get support, have a delegation of several of you approach him. That way, he can't pick you off one by one.
In the case of my youth orchestra conductor, I now realise that there was a much better way to handle the issue. I should have kept my lip buttoned until I got home. My parents were both experienced amateur musicians, and it would have been a simple matter to have one or other of them arrive early to pick me up the following week, come in and listen for themselves to the rehearsal for a while, and then write to the County Music Advisor describing their impressions. A letter from parents could not have been wished away as easily as a complaint from a child. But I was young and foolish, and I acted without thinking things through.
As it happens, it all turned out well, but if the County Music Advisor had not known me, or had shown a bit less backbone, I would have been out.
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