Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

I got a nice mention on the excellent Through These Ears in an interesting post about the job of the Music Director, one inspired in part by this article in the Washington Post-

Aside from having high performance standards and a good working environment, there are other benefits for everyone when the relationship works well.  For instance, I just noticed this post by Kenneth Woods about a bit of programming he’s doing for his upcoming season with the Surrey Mozart Players.  He’s programming a much neglected piece he has always wanted to hear live, and is well aware of the pitfalls of trying to do such a thing.  This kind of enthusiasm and dedication to the art is great for the orchestra and the audience, as well as being a personal moment of musical satisfaction for the music director.  That kind of thing won’t happen very often in other business arrangements.  James Levine gets to do lots of his beloved Elliott Carter and other contemporary music because it’s his show.  Similarly, Salonen can keep doing works by his old schoolmate Magnus Lindberg with LA.  The same goes for Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra, or, as the above article metions, the NSO can now add more contemporary works from other countries after Leonard Slatkin’s departure. 

(Anyone who manages to include me in the same paragraph with Leonard Slatkin, James Levine, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Leon Botstein is my kind of writer.)

I’ve found that the shared discovery of a new piece together can be one of the great bonding moments between a conductor and an orchestra. If I had to single out the best thing about 2008 for me, it has been those moments, whether the piece was Mefano’s Interferences or Higdon’s Saxophone Concerto or the Bloch Suite for Cello and Orchestra when a colleague in the band has come up to me at the break of after a concert overjoyed at discovering a great work they didn’t know. But there are always risks, and you have an extra duty of care when pursuing your own repertoire passions to make sure that the players enjoy working on the pieces as much as you do. More often than not, pieces off the beaten path come with little hidden traps like illegible or unusable parts (publishers are often, in my experience, the biggest culprits in keeping the music they publish from being played more often). An experienced conductor can look at a score and tell more or less how difficult the piece is to play, but not how hard it is to read, or how many misprints and mistakes are in the music.

And you must keep your radar on so that you don’t push too far. Making your orchestra sick of the composer you love is not a service to the music, and sometimes you have to know when to back off from a project. I love cycles and big repertoire-driven projects, but sometimes a desperation  for completeness can undo a lot of good work. You never want to hear an audience member or musician saying “man, am I sick of Dvorak-Mahler-Gal-Schnittke-Mozart-Brahms etc…”

On the other hand, sometimes resistance to a pet piece is a symptom of something bigger- frankly, if your orchestra is rolling their eyes and muttering “what is this- where does Woods find this crap” every time you put something besides Beethoven 5 on the stand, chances are, you’re driving them mad in other ways, and it’s time to look hard at your preparation, rehearsal demeanor, personal relationships with musicians and anything else you can think of. No point in getting defensive- keeping 70 brilliant people inspired and challenged is a tough job. Go home, study harder, talk less in rehearsals and make sure you’re listening out for peoples concerns.

Finally- be careful not to speak for the orchestra when you talk about a piece, whether it’s Brahms 1 or Schnittke 7. I remember a colleague getting in some trouble for an interview a few years back for saying of a new piece “the orchestra fell in love with it instantly,” when the opinion was maybe more nuanced or divided. Perhaps better to say “a number of the musicians came to me after the first rehearsal full of enthusiasm” (assuming that it is true). Part of your job as an MD is to be an advocate for the orchestra, championing their work to the community and the industry at every opportunity, but NOT to presume to speak for the musicians unless they ask you to. An orchestra is a group highly-accomplished professional artists- they have earned the right to speak for themselves.
 

A view from the podium

First- a nice piece on my upcoming concert at the University of Delaware Master Players series on the 13th of November from Delaware Online, including lots of information on my colleagues.

 The University of Delaware Department of Music is proud to present the Fifth Annual Master Players Concert Series.(Formerly known as the Master Players Chamber Series) The second concert will be held on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. and is entitled, “Quasi Expressivo.” It will take place at Mitchell Hall located on South College Avenue in Newark, Delaware. Admission is $21 for the general public; $17 for senior citizens, UD faculty, staff and alumni; and $7 for students with ID and children. Tickets may be available at the door, however many of the concerts were sold out last season. Purchasing tickets in advance is strongly recommended. Tickets are available at the Trabant or Bob Carpenter box offices on the UD campus. Please call 302.831.4012 for box office locations and hours. For more information about the 2008-2009 Master Players Concert Series visit our website mpcs.music.udel.edu.

Under the artistic direction of Xiang Gao, the internationally renowned UD faculty violinist, the Master Players Concert Series serves as a vital cultural resource for the UD campus, the city of Newark and surrounding communities. Season after season, the extremely successful concert series has brought many of the world’s most established classical musicians to Delaware.

November 13th is an evening of romantic music by Beethoven, Saint-Saëns and other masters performed by such renowned concert artists as acclaimed American cellist Kenneth Woods, Shreveport Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Kermit Poling, international prize winning violist Hongmei Xiao, renowned harpist Anne Sullivan, UD faculty pianist Julie Nishimura, and MPCS artistic director, violinist Xiang Gao. There will be guest artists’ master classes held at 1:25 PM-2:30 PM, November 14th,

Gore Recital Hall, Center for the Arts they are free and open to the public

You can read the whole thing here.

Next, for those of you coming to the Gulf Coast Symphony for the first time this week, they have an unusually nice system of online program notes, with a generous selection of musical examples. It is an excellent primer on all three pieces on the program, especially the Elgar. I have a very different take on the Finale than the authors Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn, who describe the end of the symphony as follows-

The movement abounds with the grand orchestral gestures that Elgar was so fond of, all based on variations and combinations of the motivic kernels, but the mood remains ambivalent. He brings back the motto to tie this enormous structure together. Just as at first, it seemed powerless against the angry restlessness of the movement, in the end it returns “triumphant” to give a final, peaceful resolution to the enormous structure.

I agree that this final appearance of the opening theme is the key to the structure of the entire piece, but I’m not sure I find any peace in this ending. Michael Steinberg describes this ending as the the theme being battered and assailed from all sides, like a ship sailing into harbour in a fierce storm, and I can’t escape that metaphor, especially given my feelings about what comes before it.

 Of course, longtime Vftp readers will know that Elgar looms large on these pages and that this symphony has often been discussed here before.

Not long ago, I discussed why more of his music isn’t done in America here. Maybe it is nice to revisit that post since his music is being done with a vengeance this week.

More from Michael Steinberg and others about Elgar on the occasion of his anniversary celebrations last year can be found here. As I get ready for this weekend’s performance, this quote comparing Mahler to Elgar from Michael particularly resonated with me-

Both detested white rooms, both took what their censorious contemporaries saw as an unholy delight in orchestral virtuosity, and Elgar’s injunction to conductors that he wanted his music played “elastically and mystically” applies equally to Mahler.

“Elastically and mystically.” Oh yes, and non vibrato? Sorry, couldn’t help myself….

A view from the podium

It’s official- I now know someone in every orchestra from another orchestra….

Fresh on the heels of meeting a first oboist from the Kelvin Ensemble playing 2^nd in the Lancashire Chamber Orchestra, I arrived at the rehearsal today at the Gulf Coast Symphony and the principal violist was the same guy who played principal viola for the Texas Festival Orchestra at Round top this summer when we did Appalachian Spring. That’s good news, too, as he’s a fine player and a nice guy.

We started with a string sectional- there’s so much detail in Elgar’s music to cover, but I was immediately encouraged by both the level and the attitude of the musicians. Starting with a string sectional is a pretty good idea, but there’s always the danger that one will waste a moment or two explaining something that becomes obvious when the brass and percussion show up, and I did fall into that trap twice. Fortunately, what I said wasn’t complete b.s. and it only wasted maybe 30 seconds of time, but I do hate even a wasted second in rehearsals.

Every composer has their own way of notating things- Elgar is unique in that his notation is just about the most literal of any major composer. There are a handful of misprints and small copying errors, but other than that, the main job for me in an early rehearsal of mature Elgar is to encourage everyone to read the ink very literally- not to try to match other sections (like Mahler, he writes lots of independent dynamics, so one can really go badly wrong trying to match the section next to you) and to play exactly the articulation he asks for. If he wants you to shorten a note, he tells you, unlike Beethoven, Dvorak or Berlioz who can be maddeningly inconsistent about note lengths.

The string sectional flew right by- I didn’t get to work on the slow movement of the Elgar, but otherwise, we managed to cover what needed covering. Then, after a short dinner break, we were on to the tutti rehearsal.

Given that almost nobody in the band had played Elgar 1 before, I thought the best thing was to play through from beginning to end without stopping, then have a break. In the end, we had to stop 3 times, but just for tiny counting problems. For a first reading, it went well- the main issues were those pesky articulations and the need to not let complexity slow us down.

Still, a cold reading of a huge piece like that is exhausting, so, after 4 movements and exactly one hour, we took a break, then returned for 40 minutes of spots. This gave us a chance to work on balancing things- Elgar’s orchestration is pretty flawless (I’d actually posit that he was the best orchestrator that ever lived), but sometimes his markings for trumpets seem a bit heavy-handed on modern instruments instead of the lighter axes of his time.  We had enough time to clarify and tighten up quite a bit of the first two movements and the Finale, which puts us in pretty good shape. To their credit, the brass quickly adjusted where needed- I’m letting them play pretty big much of the time, so hopefully we’re all happy. Where we need some time now is on the slow movement- the heart of the piece and the most challenging and sophisticated music on the program. 

Finally, we read the Wasps Overture, which is lovely and refreshingly light and straightforward after the density of the Elgar. I was content just to bash through it once and let everyone go 15 minutes early.

All in all, it was a rewarding day. The orchestra is miles better than I dared to hope- younger and hungrier and more diverse and multi-cultural than one might think for this part of the US. These are exciting times, when regional orchestras are filled with talented and accomplished young musicians from all over the world, especially, it seems, from Latin America, Eastern Europe and all over the US and Canada, who can play anything and have a huge passion for their work. The mixture of ages and backgrounds makes for a vibrant band.

Looking forward to the rest of the week.

A view from the podium

One of the big bonuses of being a conductor is that work, again and again, has taken me places or introduced me to people I would never have otherwise found. This week promises to be another such occasion as I am spending it in Gulfport-Biloxi Mississippi with the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra.

Some Vftp readers may be surprised that I am actually quite at ease in this part of the country- both of my parents and all of my extended family are from Georgia, so I speak pretty fluent Southern, so I can always ratchet up the “thank you ma’am’s” and “yessir’s” when called for, and I know my way around Southern cuisine.

More unusual for me is the fact that this area is a huge gaming center. Now, I’m all for vices, but gambling is not one that ever appealed to me. It’s not that I’m not a risk taker- after all, I’ve taken on some crazy projects as a musician like Mefano’s  Interferences, which the composer told me was a catastrophe for both Bruno Maderna and Michael Gielen when they first did it, and I had one day to put it together when they had 2 weeks…

In fact, it’s the lack of risk that bothers me in principle about gaming- the house is never at risk, and you never have a reward commensurate with your risk. Still, I am aware that the fact that I’ve never been to Vegas (I have been to Reno, though), singles me out as one of those non-pro-American Americans we’ve been warned about. So, freed from the guilt associated with actually deciding to go to a casino, I am now living in one for the next week while I get to know the orchestra- the casino is a generous sponsor of the orchestra.

So, if one tends to feel a bit like a fish out of water in a casino, I’m not sure that Saturday night at 9 PM, when you’ve been traveling for 20 hours, is the best time to show up. When I walked in the door of this giant building there was a rock band playing in the bar ahead and to my left and a New Orleans-style drum corps marching through the Brazilian Steakhouse to my right while country music played loudly on the muzak system. Ives would have loved it!

After a good night’s rest, though, I’m ready for  the repeated shock of leaving my quiet room for the clang and bang of the casino. We’ll see what the week has to offer- everyone so far is very friendly and welcoming..

Today we start with a string sectional then a full rehearsal and have a lot of ground to cover. The program is

Vaughan Williams- Overture to “The Wasps”

Vaughan Williams- The Lark Ascending

Jenny Gregoire, violin

Elgar- Symphony no. 1

The program has an “anniversary” theme in celebration of GCSO Music Director John Strickler’s 10^th anniversary here- it is the 50^th anniversary of Vaughan Williams’ death and the 100^th anniversary of the premiere of Elgar 1. The Elgar is huge and hugely challenging, and is quite unknown music in this country, so just to get through it and give the musicians a good sense of how it works is going to keep us busy today.

It’s a pity that one of the great symphonies in the repertoire is such rarity here in America, but, especially compared to cinema, the written word and pop music, British classical music doesn’t have a huge presence in America, and there are only a few standard repertoire pieces in circulation at American orchestras, The Planets, the Enigma Variations and, er, ah…. um….

As it happened, I ran into the pianist Piers Lane this week for the first time since we recorded the Chopin E Minor for Radio 3 last year. He was asking me about this program and we got to talking about the lack of familiarity with great English music among American musicians. “It can feel like such a foreign language to American players,” Piers said, “where for us, it is as natural as breathing.”

Of course, an actual English musicians listening to our conversation might have been amused at the fact that Piers is Australian and I’m American (except in Gulfport/Biloxi, where I’m officially English).

But, happily, one’s musical culture has nothing to do with where you’re from but what you love. I remember that everyone used to expect my old boss at the Cincinnati Symphony, Jesus Lopez-Cobos to excel in Spanish music because of where he was born, but what he really loved and did best was Brahms and Strauss, and even a bit of Wagner- a product of his training in Vienna under Swarowsky.

The classic Tokyo Quartet line-up may have been ¾ Japanese and 1/4 Candian-British, but when you heard them do their vintage Haydn-Bartok-Beethoven programs, you were sure they were as Austro-Hungarian as anyone who ever lived. I was very touched at the State of Mexico Symphony a few years ago when the Russian concertmaster and associate came backstage after Prokofiev 5 and told me I had a Russian soul, but I’ve been listening obsessively to Shostakovich since I was a toddler, while, on the other hand, in spite of my love of Copland and Piston, there’s plenty of American music that does little for me. Orchestras can learn a culture- last year, when we had a British guest conductor at the OES in for the Enigma Variations and Cello Concerto when I was playing he went so far as to say they were playing it like a British orchestra. That’s the result of doing a lot of that music over the years.

In the end, I think that the main reason we haven’t had lots of British music here is that most major American orchestras were historically very Germanic, as were many conservatories. When I was at CCM in the 90’s, the Germanic heritage was so strong that Shostakovich was still very controversial, while Berg and Schoenberg were gods. The culture of American orchestras is changing rapidly these days for lots of reasons, though, and I think today’s players are more open-minded and curious than at any time in our history.

Meanwhile, here’s the latest in the local paper about the concert.

And, for the curious, I think the BBC still has the broadcast of Piers and I doing the Chopin here on their website.Oh, by the way- we’re doing the Elgar non-vibrato sempre… Hah!

A view from the podium

I’ve been wanting to share a few post-concert thoughts from Saturday’s program with the Lancashire Chamber Orchestra. In spite of the fact that the centerpiece of the concert was an unknown work by a relatively unknown composer, we had a very full house for the evening, and I think the outcome was no accident.

I’m not an arts administrator, but, all things being equal (doing the usual advertising for the usual orchestra(, I’d say that attendance depends on programming, scheduling, venue and luck. Mess with any of those, and, all thing being equal, you’ll see a decline in attendance.

Fortunately, this week taught us that not everything has to be equal- we can cheat. In fact, in this case, we were able to get a much bigger audience for a slightly off-beat program than for our much more conventional concert in June. Yes, you can replace the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with the Gal Violin Concerto and improve your ticket sales!

(kw, annette-barbara vogel and eva fox-gal just after the uk premiere of the gal violin concerto) 

The biggest and most powerful reason that I think we were able to fill the hall for this concert was because some of the musicians were very pro-active in reaching out to the community. It’s amazing how effective a musician who is excited about a unique piece of music can be. In this case, a couple of players who got fired up about Hans Gal and the fiddle concerto seemed to be able to make a huge difference. Leadership, passion, energy: key members of the orchestra brought all that to the table this time. 

On the other hand, I’ve seen an orchestra very dear to me struggle with poor audiences for years in spite of heroic efforts by the musicians. What’s wrong? Do not enough people know about the orchestra? Do too many have a negative pre-conception?

Here’s where I think re-branding can be really powerful. In the case of this week, LCO got a new website up and running a few weeks before the concert, and completely redesigned our printed materials. Programs and flyers had been essentially identical for many, many years, with the same logo and same layout. This time, everything was new- the logo, the fonts, the layout, even the paper stock.

On one had, the new look is simply hipper and better, with higher production values, but also, it’s different. Prospective audiences may not have any opinion of an orchestra’s quality, but still stay away because they’ve seen the posters and brochures around for so long that they no longer read them. If your orchestra is in a rut, change things. Fresh faces, fresh energy, new look.

Likewise, OES has a much improved program look this year- better paper, clearer printing (especially the pictures) and a more modern design. I’ve been begging for this for years, and I think it’s really going to pay off. Just think how well they’ll do when they get a fresh conductor to put on the posters….

However, in the end the most important thing this week was that we picked the right piece. For so many new listeners to take a chance on the Gal, it was important that they love it. By the end of the performance, the place was bursting with energy. I believe the cast majority of the orchestra, Annette and me all felt we’d done something better than worthwhile, and that the audience was glad for the investment they’d made.

In fact, in a busy and interesting year, I think conducting the UK premiere of the Gal Violin Concerto (only the 4^th performance of a work premiered in 1933) is going to be among the most important moments of my musical 2009. It’s seriously great music. It sounds like a cliche, but I felt very privilaged to conduct one of the first performances it’s ever gotten.

Thanks also to Hans Gal’s daughter, Eva Fox-Gal, for joining us for the concert!

A view from the podium

Given that I’ve spent almost 2 weeks and thousands of words describing my few days of rehearsals in Pendleton for our opening weekend of the season in relentless, naval-gazing detail, it may surprise readers to know that I find it very hard to write about concerts. That’s not so much because I feel any particular reluctance to be my own critic- I think I’m old enough to balance an honest assessment of the good and the bad, especially given a few days to distance myself from the rush of success or the heartbreak of a disappointment.

Instead, I think that because concerts, at their best, are less about playing notes and more about  communicating and connecting, they become, in spite of their public nature, much more personal affairs. Funnily, most non-musicians think of the rehearsal and practice process as mysterious and private, but they’re present for the bit that is most mysterious and most personal, and in a way, most private. Rehearsals are nuts and bolts, rational, practical, process-driven things, but concerts are something else entirely, and sometimes we find hard sharing what we felt or experienced.

 

(what is appropriate footwear for a redneck orchestra baby at a concert?) 

 For me, some concerts I give are very emotionally cathartic, all-consuming experiences in performance, while others I keep a bit more distance. One can go too far in either direction- I remember doing the Shostakovich E minor with my piano trio when we had every note memorized, completely in our fingers and had played it dozens of times in the preceding weeks at a festival. We laid our souls bare on the stage, and while it was fine, by the end, we’d all lost too much physically to control the soft ending as we wanted to. Two days later, we did it again, holding a bit of ourselves back and it was much better. On the other hand, even in the most intricate modern music, you’ve got to balance fire with intellect or it can get boring. Boulez may look cool, but his performances have heat even in the craziest works.

This concert was a mixture of catharsis and control. In her comment yesterday, Michelle already mentioned she was “pleasantly shocked” at how it all went. I often chat to the audience at the beginning of a concert, but, especially since it was the beginning of the season, I thought it was best to launch straight in with the Dvorak. Since the piece is completely unknown, part of the joy of it is the surprise. It begins slowly and softly, is mostly dramatic and intense, but has a completely over the top, joyful ending which Dvorak has masterfully constructed- one that keeps you thinking “okay, this is the climax, the big ending” but keeps getting more and more exciting. Overtures are often wasted on audiences everywhere- they’re too busy digesting their steaks to realize what they’ve heard.

Anyway, my strategy, given the lack of the rehearsal time, was pretty simple- take no prisoners. I did take the beginning of the Allegro just the tiniest bit slower than I might have otherwise, mostly just to maximize everyone’s confidence and give the piece room to build, but by the end we were in “oh shit, this is really fast” territory, and everyone managed beautifully, and for once the audience responds to an overture with a wild cheer. So was this performance as catharsis? Maybe thrill-seeking is a better description….

Bloch, on the other hand, was always going to need focus and control. It’s less than 24 hours since the train wrecks of the Friday rehearsal, but there are no disclaimers needed for orchestra or soloist. The orchestra’s concentration was amazing, but more amazing was that they played  not just like they weren’t blinking (although several did in fact tell me later they didn’t dare blink), but like they actually knew, even owned the piece. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an orchestra anywhere come so far on a piece of such ferocious difficulty in 24 hours.

Then, finally, Tchaik 4. Fair to say, we gave it our all, and I don’t think there was any evidence that we’d spent so little time on it for the audience to chew on. Yes, Tchaik 4 is definitely a “performance as catharsis” piece. Quintessential”music that makes you want to say ‘rarr.’” 

Afterwards, I ran into James who said “man, I haven’t been so tired since the last time I played here.” All my projects involve a mélange of travel, uncertainty, time pressures and stress, but OES, for a whole litany of reasons, is by far the most draining thing I do. I’m not only, like James, the most tired I’ve been since April, I’m actually feeling rather awful- maybe too tired for my own good. We’ve had crazy weeks before with recitals and who knows what, but this time I’m so tired I’m glad I don’t have to drive any time soon. Maybe it was all the non-musical energy going into resigning and long-range planning, maybe it was the up and down of the Bloch. Anyway, I’m thrilled with the concert and completely unsure how I’ll cope with the chamber music program tomorrow. There sure as hell isn’t time for enough sleep to catch up.

But that’s my problem- for now, safe to say that we’ve lived up to our moniker as the Best Damn Redneck Orchestra in the World (T-shirts are still available on our 2^nd printing!), after what I think was the toughest program we’ve done. I had an email today asking what makes us a redneck orchestra. Well, that’s hard to say…

(what’s with the lipstick? vote g.o.p. and get a kiss? vote g.o.p. and get a lipstick? a little slice of main street in the rodeo city)

A view from the podium

Concert-day rehearsals are a relatively new (and much-needed) addition to the OES schedule, but out of deference to delicate sensibilities we only rehearse for 2 hours, which feels like a painfully short period compared to the 3 hour call on Friday evening.

Perhaps I can digress for one moment as someone who played as a union-member cellist in professional orchestras for a long time. Typically in America, a service is 2 ½  hours with a 20 minute break. If you have 2 rehearsals in a day, the 2^nd has to be 2 hours. Some orchestra’s contracts allow for a 3 hour dress rehearsal or a few 3 hour calls per season for extraordinary works. This all works well, especially at elite orchestras where the level of playing and preparation is so high as to guarantee that, unless the conductor is a complete moron, you should always have ample time.

However, having worked in the UK for several years now, where all rehearsals are 3 hour calls, and almost all days are doubles, I do find the insistence on avoiding fatigue at all costs a bit wet.

Anyway, this just means I would have liked to have a longer rehearsal for this evening’s OES concert, for reasons that will soon become clear.

So, when last spoke, I was dashing over from a failed meal in foul temper. Sometimes in life, one is surprised to find out that not everyone is in the same mood as you are, and this was the case as I got to the hall. All the players I ran into seemed awfully cheery, in spite of the long day ahead and the hard and humbling efforts of the night before.

Today, we start with the Bloch to give Parry as long a break as possible. In an ideal world we would just top and tail a huge and physically draining concerto to save the soloist, but that’s just not an option. We get started, and there’s one early counting error from a musician that makes them so rarely that it convinces me there really is such a thing as Chinese food syndrome. That humorous moment aside, something strange is happening- the music is unfolding in long paragraphs instead of juttering forward in single and uneven steps. Far from taking an hour, the first movement goes without a major hitch, then the 2^nd goes even better. There are tiny things here and there, but even the nasty syncopations of the slow movement are settling. By the time we finish the Finale, I’ve dog-eared about 10 pages, but that’s all. We work through as many of those as we can, and (given that the piece is close to 40  minutes), we’re over an hour into our rehearsal time. Time for a quick break, but I’m feeling MUCH better about life, if still a little edgy.

By the end of the break, we’ve got about 45 minutes of rehearsal time left, and much of the brass section has never played the Dvorak. We start a run-through and have a complete tuning melt-down in the opening woodwind chorale. This is not good, but again, because of the cancellations we have a number of players playing this for the first time. We re-tune and I implore everyone to listen like crazy, as there’s no time at all to go chord by chord. God must be smiling on us today- it’s better.

(we’re all taught never to close our eyes when we conduct. photo- steve bass) 

 

The run-through is ragged by not hopeless. This is when I earn my stripes- I’ve got maybe 20 minutes to turn a sight-reading into a performance. There are still a few first violin licks that need help. We fix a couple of balances. Tighten the many transitions at the end of the piece.

We now have less than 15 minutes for all of Tchaik 4, which we didn’t exactly over-rehearse yesterday. Our most pressing issue is to run through the entire 3^rd movement, even though much of it is pretty easy to play and musically straightforward. The reason for this is that in these crappy Kalmus parts, the players have to negotiate a complete confusing set of DS’s, “jump to’s” and to find all manner of signs and codas. On the other hand, the score is written out. This kind of false economy drives me nuts- the letters don’t agree with the score or with each other (why are there so many pieces in the literature that use J for strings and I for the winds at the same spot?!?!?!). Anyway, we run it, and do the opening oboe solo and closing bassoon solo in the 2^nd movement, as it seems a little cruel to only give them one shot at it before the concert (last night being the first time we’d done it).

And that’s about it. Now, trusting a Tchaikovsky symphony to get it’s first complete bash-through on stage in a concert is something you would be happy about at the Chicago Symphony, but even 2 years ago, I would have never dared this. However, I’m secretly very confident about the Tchaik- I can tell everyone knows it and has put the work in, and I know I can get them through it. Moments like this, when you can see what all the years of hard work with the band have achieved are what it’s all about.

 

(what constitutes appropriate rehearsal footwear for the best damn redneck orchestra in the world? photo- april  westervelt)

 

Rehearsal done, everyone has a break, except for Suzanne, Adam, David and I, who feel like we want a few more minutes on the Beethoven. We set up on the stage and start sorting things, and are soon joined in the audience by about a quarter of the string section- no pressure! Still, it’s a helpful extra look at things, but by 4:30 we’re sure we need to call it a day.

This afternoon break between rehearsal and concert at OES is something I’ve come to rely on. The rest and peace are much needed, but so is a bit of quiet time to look at the scores. It’s a funny twist that I spend so much time alone with the scores, wishing I had the orchestra there, when I’m learning the piece and before I come to PDT. However, by the end of the week, I’ve had so much time with the band and so little time with the scores that I’m relieved to have that hour or two before the concert without the musicians to think through what I’ve learned in the week in peace and quiet.

Then, it’s shower, get dressed and head to the hall, in this case with wife, baby and my mom as senior baby-sitter…..

A view from the podium

One of the challenges in doing rare works like the Bloch Suite, is that it is exceedingly hard to locate basic background materials. Fortunately, with some help, we have found Bloch’s own program notes on the piece. I reproduce them here especially for the many players and audience members who were so intrigued by the piece and wanted to more of its origins.

 

A view from the podium

As we prepare for the UK Premiere of Hans Gál’s Violin Concerto, op 39 (written in 1933!) I thought I would be worth sharing some of Gál’s own thoughts on the concerto. I would not hesitate to speculate that his was probably the most musically thoughtful article ever published in Bournemouth Winter Garden’s Society Newsletter (from 1954). 

 

In view of all this it seems amazing that concertos are still being written. Why does a composer do it? 

 

This question I can only answer from my own, personal point of view. But I have reasons to assume that some of my colleagues have similar feelings. A concerto, to my mind, is one of the most thrilling, most fascinating problems of composition, a problem of form, style and expression that demands the utmost experience and technical resourcefulness. This problem has been solved by the great composers in different ways, but its essence remains the same everywhere and whatever the style of the music may be: how to arrive at an ideal balance of symphonically-conceived music and the relaxed playfulness of a brilliant solo part as the central, commanding feature. It is possible to dodge the main difficulty by ignoring one of these two main factors, but the result is never entirely satisfying in an artistic sense. On the one hand, there are concertos of the older, purely virtuosic type, which are rather extended solos supported by an orchestral accompaniment, with some tuttis thrown in for better weight. Even Chopin’s two beautiful pianoforte concertos belong to this category. This type of concerto is too much focussed on virtuosity and ornamental elegance to give full scope to the music as such, as a pure substance: there is too much rambling, and the solo seems to behave like a spoiled princess with a humble, self-effacing retinue. But aesthetically the opposite proceeding seems to me hardly preferable: a symphony with a solo instrument obligato—of which there are frequent examples in contemporary music. This conception of a concerto, to my mind, contradicts the very meaning of a type of composition, the purpose of which is to give a noble setting to a spirited, fascinating individuality on the platform. 

 

The peculiar position of the solo part implies a most stimulating element of improvisatory spontaneity, the most characteristic instance of which is the cadenza in the classical concerto, but which practically pervades the whole structure. However closely built the musical substance may be, there must always he sufficient scope and time for the graceful or expressive or dreamy or purely brilliant exuberance of that capricious character who is the centre of events, and who is in danger of losing all his glamour whenever he becomes a mere part of the orchestra. The success of a concerto depends, more than on any other condition, upon whether the composer has been able to make this central character stand out as an interesting, original figure, and whether he has succeeded in giving his music the peculiar shape and texture suitable for this purpose. 

 

Read the whole thing here (from HansGal.com). Ticket information here. 

 

A view from the podium

It was a short and restless night before CONCERT DAY ONE. Sam did well with jetlag over the summer, but it’s really hit him this week, which means he wants to go to bed most days at 3 PM and wake up at 2 AM. Still, that gives me 2 hours of peace between Rainbow and chaos….

Playing begins at 10 AM with Beethoven 18.1. With half a run-thru and an hour’s rehearsal under our belt, it’s practically old hat. Okay- pretty new hat, but at least I now know it well enough to remember which bits we’ve only sigh-tread one time. Each movement has its own little thorny problems- making the first movement sound effortless and effervescent, allowing the 2^nd movement to really sink into a complete abyss of despair, balancing Adam’s virtuosic passagework in the Scherzo and keeping our fingers from locking up in the finale. All along the way, there are the unique challenges of playing in F major in a string quartet.

F major is problematic because if we tune our fifths to anything resembling actually perfect fifths the c-strings of the cello and viola will be a fourth below an f-natural that is way flat to the open A of the violins. Likewise, if the F gets tuned to the open A, any open c-string will sound painfully flat.

To compensate, we try to “squeeze” our fifths when we tune- David and I even have a running challenge  to see who can tune his c-string the highest without sounding sharp (I win about 68% of the time, but that’s mostly because the viola is an instrument that was never meant to be tuned). Even so, we have to compromise and adjust often, which meant that the tonic note, which would usually be the most stable note in the key is constantly changing between the high version, in tune with the a-string, the low version, in tune with the c-string and 20 or 30 in-between versions.

After a little more than an hour, Parry joins us for Tchaikowsky and a bit of Schubert. Again, after our lengthy exploration of these works (HAH!), it’s time to get down to brass tacks- by which I mean figuring out how to play them in tune. Tchaikowsky, with his benevolent disposition, transcribed this Andante Cantabile from this 1^st String Quaret. The  original version is in the rather cozy key of D major, but the cello solo version, for some perverse reason, is written in B major. B major sucks for the exact opposite reason that F major sucks (of course, being a tri-tone apart, they are literally opposite keys). F Major sucks because there are too many open strings in the key, but B major sucks because there aren’t enough. Of course, open-e is the fourth of the key, but nobody really takes e-strings seriously- they’re more suited to slicing cheese in a deli than providing a guide to intonation…..

Then there’s Schubert. Having worked through it from beginning to end on Friday, we start with the last mvt, taking a few minutes to agree on a good, Hungarian rubato for the main theme, and to find our inner-Wiener for the second theme.

We have only an hour for lunch, so it’s off to the usually reliably fast and good Chinese place across the street- it’s cheap and cheerful, and usually fast. Someone must have told them we were in a hurry, because they’re moving awfully slow and there don’t seem to be any English speakers around (lest I sound jingoistic, my only gripe is that when nobody speaks the language AND they won’t let you point at the menu, you can’t order food). Long story short- slow service and Ken ends up eating off of everyone else’s plates while his lunch goes in a box for later. Does this sort of thing happen to Leonard Slatikin?

Finally, I race across the street, leaving my family to pay for the disastrous dinner, arriving at our final dress rehearsal with only seconds to spare in foul humor, completely stressed. All this and we’re starting with Bloch….

A view from the podium

In a rare sign that sanity (at least pockets of sanity) does still exist in the world, New York Times contributor Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize for Economics. 

 

Paul Krugman is one of two political writers that I read pretty religiously (the other is Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, who should be due for a Pulitzer soon). For a long time, he was the only reason I subscribed to New York Times Prime (or whatever they called it then). 

 

It’s nice for once to see someone who has been proven right about war, peace, economics, politics and social trends get rewarded. 

 

More here and here 

. Krugman’s excellent and passionate blog (yes, one can be passionate about economics it turns out) is here.

Rock on Paul- I wish I could take a year to come to Princeton and take your econ seminar.

A view from the podium

At our season opening concert last week, the OES did our first Audience Survey in many years. The results were surprising and interesting in several ways. Below see the results and my comments

 

Please rate your Overall Experience with us tonight-

Overall Experience “Excellent”- 96%

Overall Experience “Fair”- 3%

Overall Experience “Neutural” 0%

Overall Experience “Unsatisfactory” 0%

Overall Experience “Poor” 0%

KW Comments- These are encouraging numbers.  Additional comments seem to indicate that the only areas of concern had to do with snafus involving seating and ticket-taking. There were some backups at doors and a couple of double-sold seats. This kind of thing happens from time to time, and we’ll try to get more people on the doors next concert. At least nobody had bird poo on their seat, which happened a few years ago when part of the Vert’s ceiling gave way.

 

Please rate the Quality of this Evening’s Performance-

Performance Quality “Excellent” 96%

Performance Quality “Fair” 3%

Performance Quality “Neutural” 0%

Performance Quality “Unsatisfactory” 0%

Performance Quality “Poor” 0 %

KW Comments- Obviously, this one in many ways means the most to me. It’s a big improvement over the last survey (done in my 2^nd year with the orchestra), and a HUGE one over the survey done at the end of my predecessor’s tenure (he said shamelessly gloating). It’s doubly rewarding to hear this about such a difficult concert- much bigger-budget bands would struggle with preparing the Dvorak and Bloch on such a tight rehearsal schedule.

 

Please rate this evening’s selection of works-

Program Selection “Excellent” 85%

Program Selection “Fair” 14%

Program Selection “Neutral” 1%

Program Selection “Unsatisfactory” 0%

Program Selection “Poor” 0%

KW Comments- To be honest, this is one of the bigger surprises for me on this survey. Considering that the entire first half of the program was unknown repertoire, and that the Bloch is in some ways a rather austere and intense piece in a musical language that may be unfamiliar to a Pendleton audience (it is the first Bloch of any kind the orchestra has ever done), I’m thrilled we did so well, with 99% of audience members responding favorably to the program, and 85% very favorably. I think this is partly the result of many years of hard work introducing unusual works here- our audience is now willing to invest itself in an unfamiliar piece.

 

What types of pieces are you most interested in hearing on a concert (pick as many as you like)

Symphonies- 87%

Concertos-  60%

Choral- 63%

Light Classics- 50%

Pops- 47%

Small Ensembles- 40%

KW Comments- I get a lot of pressure to do more Pops and Light Classics at the OES (although we have done a lot of both, particularly Light Classics). How interesting then, that it is Symphonies that come in first, and that Pops and Light Classics are minority interests. Of course, this is a survey of an audience that came to hear Tchaik 4, so it is by no means a representative sample- there may be others out there who didn’t come tonight who would come to a Pops show. However, it looks like only half of tonight’s audience would really want to come back for a Light Classics show, and less than that for Pops. We focus a lot on how to get new people to come, but this reinforces that the people who are coming are coming because they get what they want here.

 

Length of Concert

Good length- 95%

Too long-  5%

Too Short- 0%

KW Comments- To the best of my knowledge, no audience member anywhere has ever rated a concert of any kind as “too short.” On the other hand, I often find with less than world-class orchestras a pressure to add one extra piece to “fill out” the program lest it be “a little short.” This often tips a difficult program into being a nearly impossible one. However, the great, and VERY surprising news here is that only 5% of respondents thought tonight’s concert was too long. This was a HUGE program- a long and hefty opener, a four movement concerto and the Tchaik, complete with 20 minute first movement.  I’m pretty sure that one of those who thought it was too long was the lady at the reception who told me “Ken, you know , those last two pieces were really long…. Really long….Don’t you think they were long?” (yes, I was offended).

 

Program suggestions

“Tchaikovsky’s always been my favorite!”

“Modern (Messiaen, Cage, etc)”

“Charles Ives”

“Movie Music”

“Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Lizst, Mendelssohn, Rossini”

“I enjoyed last season’s opera with the group from Portland”

KW Comments- Okay, I really wasn’t expecting to see Messiaen on this list. One of the current heartbreaks in my life is that nobody has hired me to conduct any Messiaen (whose music I am very, very passionate about, and I know Turangalila backwards having covered it twice) in this, his anniversary year. Had I had even this one request to go on, you can bet we would have been the first redneck orchestra to do Turangalila this year. The 2 Tchaikovskys remind me of my comment about repertoire types- Tchaik fans come to Tchaik concerts. Not at all surprised to get the request for Movie Music (some of which we’ve done, but not tons- it’s expensive), but more surprised that contemporary music out paced it in popularity.

Other Suggestions or comments

“Supply pencils for survey”

“This concert was outstanding!”

“I wish I had come before tonight!”

“Lift the back section of the orchestra up higher”

“Please avoid Sunday afternoon concerts! Children under 4 years should be strongly discouraged!”

“Recently I heard the Tchaikovsky on PBS. OES is way better than TV! The Chamber Music on Sunday was world class! Really!”

“Orchestra sounds great”

“I would like to see local musicians perform. Hired professional musicians can be seen elsewhere”

“Perhaps half of the program could be symphonic with less performed works and the 2nd half with works containing recognizable melodies.”

KW Comments- I was delighted to see so many flattering comments, and to know that the chamber music went down so well. I’m not sure who conducted the inferior Tchaik 4 on PBS, but I hope it was Lorin Maazel.

So, maybe I can take a moment here to address the criticisms. The back of our orchestra is on risers, and probably about as high up as they can go because the ceiling above them (this is the brass section, of course) is fairly low. We also often sit the basses at the back (especially for Beethoven), and they need to stand on the risers, so the current height is close to the max our stage will allow. I’m sure that whoever requested that was sitting on the main floor, which is really too low relative to the height of the stage and the length of the hall. A patron on the middle of the main floor still has their eyes below the lip of the stage which isn’t good.

The comment about local musician participation is not surprising- I was expecting more of these. This is a discussion that has run through my tenure at the OES, often in heated terms. There is still a strong local contingent in the orchestra, but 10 years ago, the orchestra was all local. The fact is that many of the local musicians who were in the orchestra 10 years ago have either moved away or retired (the membership of the orchestra was remarkably stable for its first 15 years. Many of them were already in their 50s when the orchestra started, and are now in their 70s ).

I also find the concept of “hired’ musicians in itself to be distasteful- it has too much of the ring of “hired help,” as if they were a gang of musical mercenaries.  I don’t know any group with more commitment and esprit de corps than our musicians, both local and commuting. Our commuters are people who travel great distances and go to a lot of trouble rearranging their teaching schedules (and often missing out on better paid gigs in the city) to be with us. I rate a musician’s “belonging” in an orchestra in terms of what they give of themselves to the orchestra- are they invested, are they committed, are they prepared, do they play their guts out, are the kind to audience members? I don’t give a damn what their zip code is.

Of course, part of the orchestra’s mission is to provide an opportunity for local musicians to make music at a high level, something I think we’ve been very successful at, but I dislike the very notion of dividing up musicians based on where they live, since that has nothing to do with what they bring to the orchestra. Once the rehearsal starts, we’re all equal members of the orchestra-  musicians and collaborators, regardless of where we’re from, what we look like or anything else. I hope that after I’m gone, maybe those who would ban anyone from “away” will stop seeing our out-of-town musicians as mercenaries and recognize that this is a remarkable group of people who have been incredibly loyal and generous in trying to bring great music to a rural area for many years. In doing so, I’m sure they’ve enriched the musical lives of our local musicians immeasurably- how many times has a local player said to me “thanks for bringing in Biff- I learned so much sitting with him,” or “I never imagined we’d get to play a piece like that Schnittke opera we did on Tuesday here in such a rural area” (no, we’ve never done a Schnittke opera in real life). My interest in working with any musician who judges a colleague on their zip code, whether someone from a big city who looks down on a rural resident, or a rural musician who thinks that city musicians are just in it for the money, is minimal at best, as is my sympathy for the listener who only wants to hear people who live on their block.

Finally- the comment about programming. We’ve done that format of concert (one half substantial, one half light/familiar)  before several times, but it is limiting because you can’t do a lot of things that you want to do- if you look at the data on audience preference, a lot of people who do want to hear a symphony don’t want to hear  the pops stuff, and probably vis-a-versa. Still, I’m sure it is a format the orchestra will come back to from time to time. This year on our main series we’re doing one Overture-Concerto-Symphony program, one program of short well-known, single movement works, a Holiday Pops concert, a single-work concert (Mahler 5) and a two work concert with choirs (Mozart Requiem and Beethoven 2). That kind of variety of program has been pretty typical in recent years.

Anyway, it would be great to hear from some of our musicians or listeners here about the results of this survey, or your reactions to my comments. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Would we have gotten completely different results had we passed out pencils?

A view from the podium

I’ve just returned from an intense day’s rehearsal with the Lancashire Chamber Orchestra for our concert this coming Saturday, October 18.

I had to share a little random moment with Vftp readers. In the run up to this concert, I’ve been in regular touch with our new wind, brass and percussion fixer, Simon. We conflict this time with a nearby orchestra, so some of our regular wind players are unavailable, but I’ve been trying be helpful in recruitment, but in the end, Simon has had to sort it all out with a lot of time and effort. As of Monday, he sent an email confirming that we had a complete wind section of satisfactory standard, and that he was the happy father of a baby boy (Theo James).

When I came to rehearsal this morning, I was a bit surprised, given the difficulties Simon had had in putting the section together. There were a lot of familiar faces- clarinets- seen them before, bassoons- the usual suspects, flute- new (our regular team are playing with another band), and oboes, all familiar.

Then, at the break I congratulated Simon on his job well done, and he said he’d only filled the section the previous Saturday when he found the 2^nd oboe player.

“But she’s played before,” I said.

“No mate,” Simon answered, “she’s played for you before, but this is the first time she’s played for us. Think Glasgow…”

Then it hit me, far from being an LCO regular (indeed, this is her first LCO program), she’d played in the Kelvin Ensemble these last two years when I worked with them.

And suddenly, Britain became that much smaller. For a conductor who just moved this country knowing one person (my wife) a few years ago, to start seeing unexpected and un-facilitated cross-pollination of orchestras is a wonderful surprise…..

A view from the podium

Tonight’s rehearsal promises plenty of challenges, but others await that I have not foreseen. Our work in the first rehearsal on Thursday had convinced me that we needed a lot more time on the Bloch. Fortunately, we don’t have to stick with a pre-announced rehearsal schedule (although I try to still stick to what I’ve told people), so there’s no reason not to move the Bloch up as early as possible.

No reason, that is, except that we have two other huge pieces to cover. On top of that, there are other concerns. Tonight is our first rehearsal with all of the brass and the oboes, and our only other rehearsal is on the afternoon of the concert. That means that if I don’t want to wreck the brass section’s chops for the concert, any ensemble work I want to do with them has to be done tonight.

Of course, I’m predictably excited that we have indeed engaged Harry Bell on 3^rd horn. He sounds fine, but he doesn’t look at all like a Viking, and I’m pretty sure he eats no yak. It seems a bit cruel to start a horn section that has never played a chord together on the opening of Tchaik 4, but we have no choice. That’s not something we can do on Saturday. Finding the right emotional tone, and good intonation, for that opening is trickier than you’d think- the horns need to be terrifying, which means they should sound effortlessly powerful, not like 4 human beings who are struggling to play as loud as they can. It’s a classic example of backing off a bit and getting a more powerful effect, but not backing off so much that it sounds less than apocalyptic.

With the whole brass choir, the main issue is also one of finding a section sound- Tchaik 4 is a funny piece, in that there are almost no brass solos (on the other hand, think of the great horn solos in Tchaik 2 and 5). Instead, everything is section work- it’s a piece that benefits from section continuity, something missing this week. James, our principal trumpet, has spent his summer on long tone work and sounds HUGE, but this means we have to either get the others to step it up or have him back it off a bit. Again, except for the absolute climaxes of the piece, you never want it to sound like everyone is playing as loudly as they can- the brass should sound like they crush the wee mortals at anytime, not like this is all they’ve got. If the audience can see the veins popping out of the side of the neck, the players are too close to their max.

We barely have time for about 2/3rds of the 1^st mvt, a partial run of the 2^nd mvt so the soloists (oboe and bassoon) get a shot at it and bits of the Scherzo, followed bit a tap dance through the finale. We’ve done the main part of the Scherzo in sectionals, but the Trio is difficult and scary for the wind, and, to my surprise, the brass keep slowing down in their bit. Remembering well that tempo problems are usually the conductor’s fault I try a couple of beats, as well as mentioning the issue, but it’s still sluggish. There’s also one of those “counting things” that we all dread- these happen at even the best orchestras and sometimes all you can do is give someone a week off, but that’s not an option here. Then, I look up, and it’s time for a break- no Dvorak tonight. How scary is that.

Having fought our way through the first two movements of Bloch last night, we start with the 3^rd tonight. It’s beautiful stuff, and has the advantage of being less sectional than the first two movements, but it’s VERY slow and still needs flexibility. Throughout much of the movement, there is a nasty ostinato of very slow triplets and very slow off-beat triplets. Until people understand what is going on, the on-the-beat people tend to wait for the off-beat people, making the “slow” into the “stopped.” On the other hand, some folks want to play the triplets at the universal tempo, getting miles ahead.

 

Then, there’s the finale- a rollicking Danse Chinoise, full of pentatonic melodies and splashy percussion touches, but it’s also tricky in spots, mostly making the tempo relationships work. Feeling rather annoyed with myself, I’m realizing that some of how I’d thought this would work doesn’t, so there’s nothing for it but to try things differently- beating in 1 instead of 2 or taking this a bit slower than I’d thought we would.  However, much of the movement is a summing up of ideas and themes from the rest of the piece, so at least we’re encountering familiar material.

Even starting the piece early, it’s getting late as we go back to start the first movement for the 2^nd time. It’s going faster than day one, but not much. I think we’re all tired, but it’s just not hanging together, and people sound tentative. Part of this may have to do with how it’s written- Bloch scored the piece with a HUGE orchestra but with a viola in mind, so the parts are mostly written in pp and p. I start suggesting we take things up a notch and play out- Parry has a huge sound, and we don’t have a huge string section. This helps give some structure and clarity to what is going on, thank goodness. Still, the clock runs out on us before we can quite finish the 1^st mvt.

I’ve seen the band pull some things off in my day, but I’m getting really worried. In 2 rehearsals, we’ve been unable to get through the whole piece either time. Heck- we can’t even seem to get through the first movement in less than 45 minutes. Maybe part of that is me stopping for things like balance and articulation that we can let slide in a concert, but is there any way we can actually play through the whole 40 minute beast in concert in 24 hours?

We have a 2 hour rehearsal the next day, in which we’ll have to do whatever we’re going to do with the Dvorak and its 10-page horn parts, cover as much Tchaik as possible and get this Bloch ready for prime time. I’m feeling tired, beaten and bloody. I worked hard on this piece and feel like it is kicking my ass on every level, and with so much starting and stopping, I’m no longer even sure whether it works or I like it anymore.

Parry, who has played like a god all night, is all smiles afterwards, which gives me hope. Still, I’m just about ready to collapse…

A view from the podium

UPCOMING CONCERT

Lancashire Chamber Orchestra

Kenneth Woods- principal conductor

Saturday, October 18, 2008

7:30 PM

Altrincham Grammar School for Girls

Program

Mozart- Overture to “The Impressario” (“Der Schauspieldirektor”)

Gal- Violin Concerto op 39 (UK PREMIERE)

Annette-Barbara Vogel, violin

Mozart- Symphony no. 40 in G minor 

For more information, please visit the NEW Lancashire Chamber Orchestra website at http://www.lancashirechamber.co.uk/ and the official website of the Hans Gal Society at http://www.hansgal.com/

The LCO has come a long way in the last few years, and this is concert is not-to-be-missed. Since moving to Altrincham Grammar School, most of our concerts have been capacity audiences, so it’s worth booking in advance. 

I’ve really enjoyed working on the great Mozart G minor, which may be my favorite Mozart of all (it sure is this week), and the orchestra excels in that kind of classical repertoire. However, the real highlight promises to be a rare performance of Hans Gal’s magnificent Violin Concerto, op 39.

(Kulenkamp and Busch in rehearsal for the premiere of the violin concerto in 1933. photo from hansgal.com)

Premiered in 1933 by violinist Georg Kulenkamp (who also premiered the Schumann Violin Concerto, the last fiddle concerto I conducted before this one- don’t you love these wacky coincidences), it’s a heart-stoppingly beautiful piece, full of the kind of sensuous longing and poetic tenderness you’d expect in late Strauss or the very best of Korngold, but it is also a formidable virtuoso work  with several punishing cadenzas for the soloist along the way.

I’ve always been interested in music of this period, and have become particularly interested in Hans Gal’s music over the last few years. After years of study, planning and discussion, it’s going to be a joy to finally play this piece, with more Gal to come soon.

Have a quick listen to the opening of this wonderful piece, from an Austrian Radio broadcast in 2004, which at the time was only the 2nd known performance of the work.

 

UPDATE- I should have mentioned that this is the UK premiere of the Gal Violin Concerto, which is kind of sad considering he spent half of his life living and working in this country. Happily, his daugher Eva will be present for the occasion!

A view from the podium