While in that fertile last hour of morning sleep before the alarm went off th other, I had strange and troubling dream.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been trying to allow a bit of time lately to go back through pieces I\u2019ve conducted this year using my own parts and make some small revisions, particularly to a few bowings.<\/p>\n
This particular \u00a0morning, I dreamt that somehow, I had overlooked revising Beethoven 4, which I did in July,\u00a0 and that suddenly, my whole professional and artistic future hinged on handing out parts with the \u201cperfect\u201d bowing\u00a0for the main theme of the first movement in 30 minutes\u00a0(in the dream, some industry power figure was going to decide whether or not to let me have a festival orchestra in Lucerne based on this issue).<\/p>\n
In the dream, I feverishly sat at the desk, erasing errant markings, then sprinted back to the cello to try things out, playing the first violin part in several different octaves and fingerings to get a better sense of whether the bowing is affected by string changes.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I woke up in quite an agitated mood.<\/p>\n
Sad, isn’t it?<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t gotten the parts out yet, but I\u2019ve been mulling this question\u00a0ever since\u00a0(the whole dream focused on only one bowing issue). Up-down (Beethoven\u2019s original, currently in the parts but somewhat whinged about by a couple players this summer), down-up (I do love backwards bowings) or down-nnnnn (the preference of the more economical\/lazy player)?<\/p>\n
One thing I can still count on- whatever bowing ends up on those parts, someone will try to change it.<\/p>\n