7:30 AM: Sunday morning and I\u2019m up too freakin\u2019 early- I\u2019ve got a short window to meet my dear old friend, the marvelous horn player Nancy B, for breakfast. I\u2019ve got to walk to Central Park South in time for a 9 AM meetup, then David Y can pick me up at 10:30 to head to Brooklyn for our concert.<\/p>\n
9:00 Against all odds, I have found the restaurant on time, and Nancy is there.<\/p>\n
10 AM: Breakfast is a delight, and with our stomach\u2019s full and a line forming outside the restaurant, Nancy and I decide to vacate the table and have a walk around Central Park.<\/p>\n
10:15 my phone rings. It\u2019s David Y, who sounds collected but urgent-\u201cHey Ken, change of plan. My back just gave out on me while I was on the phone- I actually fell over. I think it\u2019s better if I don\u2019t drive. Can you come back here and drive us?\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, I agreed, said a quick goodbye to Nancy and hopped in a cab back to 51st<\/sup>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 10:45: I arrived at the house, however, David Y was far from waiting to get in the car. Instead, he was balanced precariously against the mantelpiece in his room, in obvious agony. My back gave way completely about a year ago while I was in Portland conducting Rose City Chamber Orchestra. I recognized what David was going through right away and instantly realized our concert was in jeopardy. After last year, I travel with some strong muscle relaxants\/pain pills in case of another attack- I offered one to David Y then went downstairs to meet David E, who had just arrived.<\/p>\n 11:15: I go upstairs to see if the medicine has had any positive effect of David Y- apparently not. He has collapsed to the floor and is unable to move without agonizing shooting pains. We begin to discuss our options- we can give the drugs a little time to work. Since a muscle spasm is not quite the same thing as an injury, it is possible that if the electrical storm in his back passes, David could play, but not until he can move\u2026<\/p>\n 12:00 David E and I are not optimistic, but David Y is determined. We decide I\u2019ll bring the viola upstairs and see if he can sit up and play a bit- if he can\u2019t do this, there\u2019s no point in braving the horrors of the stairs. The experiment fails completely before I can get the viola. He tries to sit up a bit, but the man cannot move at all.<\/p>\n 12:15: We\u2019re looking at options- we can do the Schubert Trio Satz without viola as there is an alternative 2nd<\/sup> violin part. That gives us 10 minutes of music. We can still do \u201cLet\u2019s All Go Down The Strand,\u201d which we\u2019re playing from a piano score anyway (except we haven\u2019t looked at it yet- that was a job for the sound check). Good- that gets us to 12 minutes of music. Shit. David Y asks if I\u2019ll play some Bach- I could probably do the 3rd<\/sup> Suite if I had the music, which I suppose I could print off the internet. That gets me thinking- maybe we can print a few more 2 violin cello trios off as well? Actually, I could play the 2nd-5th Suites if I had the music. Damn!<\/p>\n 12:35: David takes a call from the presenter, and has to tell him about his condition. \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d he promises \u201cyou will have a concert, and a good concert\u201d In the background I hear what sounds like blind panic.<\/p>\n 12:45 I\u2019ve had a better idea than printing off Bach Suites- \u201cDavid, this is New York, can\u2019t we find a decent violist who can come in and at least do a Mozart quartet or 2 that we all know?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGood idea, man. Can you bring me my laptop?\u201d<\/p>\n 12:50 David is still on the floor, in his concert trousers, holding his laptop gingerly against his knees, looking for a number. He finds one and calls- \u201cTanya, David here. How are you? First thing- are you free this afternoon? Good! I\u2019ll explain\u2026..\u201d In a minimum of words he recaps our predicament. \u201cso we were hoping we could at least do a Mozart you all know and have some kind of a concert with a solo piece or two.\u201d Tanya says something I can\u2019t hear, then David answers, \u201cJanacek 2- that\u2019s right, Intimate Letters. You do? You would? Really? Don\u2019t feel pressured to- we\u2019re just trying to make sure the presenter has something for his audience, it doesn\u2019t have to be the concert of the century\u2026.. Cool- look I\u2019ll talk to David E and Ken and call you right back.\u201d1:00 David E joins us upstairs for a conference. David Y updates us \u201cTanya can play- she\u2019s wonderful. You know her, don\u2019t you David?\u201d David E nods. \u201cShe says she knows the piece well- studied it in grad school and played it a lot and is willing to have a go at it.\u201d<\/p>\n What she\u2019s proposing sounds too good to be true, and bordering on impossible, or bordering on the insane. The piece is so sectionalized that the likelihood of us getting through it without discovering some radical discrepancies between how she played it and how we\u2019ve been playing it is very small. The three critical editions we worked from this week all have huge discrepancies- what if we are playing something ppp she\u2019s used to playing ff?????<\/p>\n David E looks at me and says \u201cdo want to even try something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n In a twisted way, I realize, it sounds fun\u2026 \u201cYes. I think so. What have we got to loose?\u201d<\/p>\n Moments later Tanya is in a cab, headed our way.<\/p>\n 1:30: Tanya and the cab pull up to David Y\u2019s house in Manhattan- we\u2019ve got 30 minutes to do a 20 minute journey to Brooklyn, which is cutting it fine in New York, even on a Sunday. Tanya pulls out her score and David E begins graciously and calmly talking her through our interpretation- this we speed up a bit, slower here, very long eighth notes there, you lead this, about 144 to the quarter, yes like that\u2026..\u201d In the end, we have five minutes for us all to make chit chat and catch up.<\/p>\n 1:50: We arrive at the hall. Yonah (2nd violin) has been waiting ages for us, since we couldn\u2019t catch him before he left home to warn him- he does’t have a cell phone. The last violinist on earth without one. What a player, though. We introduce Tanya. \u201cLet\u2019s play,\u201d says Yonah. I tighten my bow \u201clet\u2019s play,\u201d he pleads again. David E is changing into his concert clothes\u2026<\/p>\n 1:55 Bows on strings. Pencils are flying- every mark is a potential disaster averted. We\u2019ve begged the presenter to give us 10 minutes (10 MINUTES!!!!!!) in the hall to go over things. He promises to hold the audience until 2 PM and agreed to a 2:10 start.1:58: Someone has let the damn audience in. Robbed of 20% of our rehearsal time. \u00a0We repair to the green room- actually a kitchen storage room. It reeks of stale cumin, and the fan whirs noisily at 436 hz, painfully close to our A\u2019s. Just flat enough to be obnoxious and to make backstage tuning impossible<\/p>\n 2:04 So much for the 2:10 start. With the audience in place, it is getting awkward and the manager begs us to start. David E, Tanya and I make our way to the stage for the Schubert. This we\u2019ve not played a note of together, nor had time to discuss. Once on stage, the auditorium is comfortingly darker than when we were rehearsing. We check A\u2019s, safely away from the horrible fan, then begin. It feels, well\u2026 er\u2026.. pretty good.<\/p>\n 2:20 We\u2019ve decided to ditch the Mozart\/Bach Prelude and Fugue because there just wasn\u2019t a moment to discuss it and it\u2019s quite stylized now the way we play it. Instead, Tanya, who just played a recital last week, is going to play a movement of Biber. I love the irony of sending the sub out to do the solo piece while the rest of us sit backstage and arrange the silly \u201cLet\u2019s All Go Down the Strand.\u201d<\/p>\n 2: 35 The Biber finished, we take the stage for the first time as a quartet to sight read this silly song. Just before we start, I realize that Tanya missed the most important part of our conversation backstage- \u201ctake the repeat!\u201d I whisper\u2026. The audience laughs loudly at the end and claps, but they seem a bit baffled. Apparently, Ron left it off the program- they were expecting Janacek. Ron makes a lovely speech explaining how his Mum, from England (she loved this song, it appears) started and ran this concert series for many years.<\/p>\n