The plucky little chamber orchestra is a labor of love for the musicians, who started it themselves so they would have a chance to do interesting repertoire with conductors they wanted to work with.<\/p>\n
One project they\u2019ve latched onto is performing all of the major arrangements of the Society for Private Musical Performances founded by Arnold Schoenberg. We\u2019ve already done Schoenberg\u2019s magical arrangement of Mahler\u2019s Das Lied von der Erde and the chamber version of Debussy\u2019s L\u2019apres midi d\u2019un faune. This time, it was to be the 10 player version of Bruckner\u2019s Symphony no. 7.<\/p>\n
For those of you lucky enough not to deal with music rental, here\u2019s how it works\u2026. Music that is under copyright is availably only from one distributor in any country. You call the rental company or fax them and ask for a quote. Getting an answer might take a week or so (more than once I’ve called for a quote and just had the music show up weeks later without ever having gotten a response or having actually ordered it). Often at this point you gulp and change the program. Then you order the music via both fax and email. Then you wait. Sometimes you get a contract back, sometimes the music just shows up with a contract in it. In this case, nothing happened. However, once an order is shipped, the rental company usually won\u2019t respond to emails- I suppose they assume that we don\u2019t need the reassurance if the music is on the way. Still, absent a response, we start calling and writing. The silence remains deafening. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, two weeks before the concert, we get though. Oops, they haven\u2019t done anything with our order in over a month. They didn\u2019t \u201cget\u201d our emails, or the original fax. There\u2019s more, but I\u2019ll skip it\u2026<\/p>\n
After much discussion, it\u2019s agreed they\u2019ll fed ex to Portland. Music arrives on Friday\u2026. Hooray!<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s where it gets good.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION edited by Haas. They\u2019ve sent Bruckner\u2019s glorious original work, replete with Wagner tuben to the Rose City CHAMBER ORCHESTRA. <\/u><\/strong>\u00a0Can people not read?<\/p>\n Of course, we re-checked the contract- yes, we did have a contract for the right piece. Our poor librarian on Friday emails the distributor for the gazillionth time on Friday- can they call us first thing today at let us know if the correct parts can be sent to arrive by tomorrow? Well, it\u2019s noon on the West Coast, which means its 9 PM in Germany. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to be sending any music today\u2026.. Hmm, what else can we pull out of our library ten days before concert for strings, clarinet, horn, piano four hands and harmonium????<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason why we got rid of monopolies over 90 years ago. I’m sure if there was more than one place you\u00a0could get this piece,\u00a0both would have adequate numbers of staff to cope with their orders.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, next time you\u2019re listening to the 100th<\/sup> performance of some hackneyed old warhorse, thank the publishing industry and the copyright laws for making it not only ridiculously expensive and cumbersome, but apparently\u00a0ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE in this case, to do interesting and unusual repertoire.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n c. 2007 Kenneth Woods<\/p>\n