Recording Bobby and Hans with Orchestra of the Swan- the final concert….<\/p>\n
With 1 hour and 34 minutes before the concert the musicians adjourned for dinner and rest, while I prepared for the pre-concert lecture. We had to set up a way of playing audio excerpts from my iPod through the Civic Hall PA system.<\/p>\n
The pre-Concert lecture started at 6:45 and was scheduled to last about 25 minutes. David Curtis, the orchestra’s artistic director and principal conductor was there to introduce me. That says a lot about the organization- how often do you see the Music Director of an orchestra coming to the performances of the Principal Guest Conductor? There was a lot of ground I wanted to cover- there are so many things to say about Schumann and G\u00e1l that one could go on for days and days. In the end, I opted to focus on G\u00e1l, and to take a personal path, talking about my relationship with Entartete Musik, my experience studying Ullmann with Henry Meyer, and how that started a voyage that led to G\u00e1l many years later. Hopefully for some of the listener\u2019s there, the concert would be the beginning of their relationship with G\u00e1l\u2019s music- discovering great music is always a personal process. \u00a0From there, I talked about G\u00e1l\u2019s voice as a composer and played some excerpts from the Triptych CD that I thought showed some of his unique qualities as a composer. We had some interesting questions, from the audience, and I was glad to be asked about the pairing of Bobby and Hans, which gave me a chance to talk a little about Schumann.<\/p>\n
Once I shook hands with some of the attendees \u00a0and said thank you\u2019s to the audience, I had about 10 minutes until \u00a0the show to get into my concert black and get backstage. I had just been told about the sell-out \u00a0audience, which was great news, but I didn\u2019t know what to expect from the concert. Had we left the last and best of our chops and mojo on the studio floor this afternoon?<\/p>\n
First up was Mozart\u2019s Magic Flute Overture, which we had only rehearsed briefly on Monday, and that now seemed like a distant memory. It begins with a full-blooded E-flat major chord, the key of the Schumann we had spent so much of our energy on for the last 2 days. Right away, I knew the band was on- I\u2019m not sure how they did it, but the whole orchestra were not only maintaining their level after 15 hours of recording, they were raising it. The Mozart, which we\u2019d barely looked at, was hot.<\/p>\n
Next up was G\u00e1l. My colleague, \u00a0David Curtis, had suggested we introduce the symphony by having the orchestra play some excerpts from the piece. I thought this was a great idea since it would be new to everyone there. I talked a little about the history of the piece, and then introduced what I called the \u201cdramatis personae\u201d of the work, with the orchestra playing some of the main themes. As I wound up my talk and got ready to start the performance, the import of the moment really struck me. I suppose with such an immersion in the recording process, I\u2019d almost forgotten that this was the historic moment- the first performance of a G\u00e1l symphony in Britain in 35 years, and the first performance of this piece in 55. G\u00e1l\u2019s daughter, Eva, was there. Afterwards, I asked her how she had managed to not go mad with frustration and indignation waiting so long to get this music heard. Her response was marvelously stoic, and deeply telling- \u201cwell the 60\u2019s were particularly difficult, and that\u2019s when I learned to be more patient.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, we started, and, again, the orchestra found an extra gear. I\u2019d never doubted the band would give their all the concert, but I had wondered what \u201ctheir all\u201d could possibly be after what we\u2019d done the two previous days. Besides- being on top of your game isn\u2019t as simple as playing your guts out, it is balancing head and heart, fire and repose, and knowing when to take the big chance and when not to. The performance of the G\u00e1l simply reinforced what I said at the beginning of this serie \u2013 that recording is the best rehearsal. The tender first section of the 1st<\/sup> movement had more flexibility and more poetry, and the violent music of the Allegro had more intensity, power and explosiveness. We found new colors at transitions and turned several corners with a new sense of discovery. At the end, there was one counting mistake, undetectable to anyone without a knowledge of the score, and even that pleased me in a perverse way. When everything is “covered” from the recording sessions, a concert should be about taking risks. Any mistake is proof positive that nobody was playing it safe.<\/p>\n After intermission, it was just Bobby to do justice to. Again we played excerpts of all the themes, but I started with a plea. \u201cTry to forget everything you\u2019ve ever read about this piece, or about the great Bobby Schumann. Forget the liner notes and the talking points. Let\u2019s just imagine that this is a piece like the G\u00e1l- a newly rediscovered work by a mostly unknown composer of the past. After all, most of what you\u2019ve read about this piece is untrue. Schumann never called it the Rhenish- that was the work of his biographer and his publishers. Instead, he explicitly asked that all programmatic and poetic descriptions be avoided in the first edition of the score. Do you know the famous story of how the 4th<\/sup> movement was inspired by Schumann\u2019s observation of the crowing of a new cardinal at Cologne Cathedral? Well, after 150 years, someone finally checked his diary against the historical record, and he was home sick in Dusseldorf the day the cardinal was crowned. The story is a fairy tale that has n<\/p>\n othing to do with the piece. So, for tonight, let\u2019s just pretend this piece is just what it says in the score- a Symphony in E flat major\u201d<\/p>\n Then, we spent about 8 minutes finding about 8 miracles in the construction of the piece.<\/p>\n And then we played it. Again, there could have easily been a let-up after the G\u00e1l, but there wasn\u2019t. For the first time, the 1st<\/sup> Mvt had the electricity it needed- other than patching around a cough or two, I think purchasers of the CD will be hearing mostly that concert as we played it. I do think we all benefited from having just spent those few moments looking at how the piece is put together- for instance, the piece is built around perfect fourths. That\u2019s not the sort of detail one belabors in rehearsal, but having just demonstrated it to the audience, the players were playing all those fourths with a sense of purpose and discovery.\u00a0 At the risk of sounding too smug, I\u2019ll refrain from further description of how much I enjoyed the performance, but really, we do enough suffering as artists, so it\u2019s good to enjoy those moments that can be enjoyed. Whatever you think of my tempi and stick waving, it was high-energy playing of the highest standard. \u00a0Amazingly, after two such exhausting days, the horns were pretty much flawless- afterwards, many subscribers and board members said it was the best the section had sounded. Chops of steel, indeed. At the end of the performance, I was completely drained, dripping with sweat. If we\u2019d played the Schumann at that level of intensity in the morning recording session, we would have never survived the concert.<\/p>\n So, two great, exciting, exhausting, intense and rewarding days. Funnily enough, readers may, or may not, be surprised to learn that I almost didn\u2019t write this summary of events. Why? Because in our field, to be positive can be perceived to be not-very-good or not-very serious. All too often, we associate excellence with grouchiness, or being up our own bottoms with having high standards. If I say the Orchestra of the Swan were incredibly \u201ccooperative, patient, motivated and committed,\u201d and even, god forbid, \u201cnice,\u201d or \u201ceasy to work with\u201d it could be interpreted by some readers as a musical equivalent of the damning old dating clich\u00e9 \u00a0\u201cshe has a great personality.\u201d<\/p>\n Much as the clich\u00e9 is that \u201cgreat personality\u201d means \u201cnot pretty,\u201d so all-too-often people assume \u201ceasy to work with\u201d means \u201cnot quite first rate.\u201d<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not just players who are suspect when on best behavior. Likewise, conductors are often afraid to say anything nice about an orchestra for two reasons- first, you don\u2019t ever want to \u201cmiss\u201d the mistake or seem too easily pleased, and second, you don\u2019t want to be raving about the abilities of a player at the same time they\u2019re stabbing you in the back. There are trust issues on all sides in the music world. And frankly, too many agents and orchestra managers mistake megalomania and irritability for musicianship and mojo in conductors.<\/p>\n Well, forgive me, but to heck with \u00a0those people. That attitude has half-killed the music world for too many years.<\/p>\n In this case, a group of world class musicians undertook a challenging project on a tight budget and got the job done with style and panache and turned in a great concert on top of it, while maintaining a warm atmosphere. And nobody was making excuses for themselves because of the schedule. If I can\u2019t write about that, I might as well shut down the blog.<\/p>\n It\u2019s early days for me at Orchestra of the Swan, but there is something exciting going on in the orchestra that I\u2019m lucky to be part of- the vibe and<\/em><\/strong> the level are really special. There are a lot of reasons why things are going well- why all our Stratford concerts this year (including Bobby and Hans) have sold out, why we\u2019re starting a recording programme while others are shutting theirs down, why we\u2019re setting up new residencies when other orchestras are struggling. \u00a0It will be interesting to learn what those reasons are….<\/p>\n