Bass Blog

Sunday, July 12

2009-07-14T11:30:00.001-06:00

12:30-3 Rehearsal
Ravinia C
Conlon, Fried
TCHAIKOVSKY
TCHAIKOVSKY
TCHAIKOVSKY

5 Concert
Please note: live cannons during 1812
Overture
Ravinia C
Conlon, Fried
TCHAIKOVSKY
INTERMISSION
TCHAIKOVSKY
TCHAIKOVSKY

the year that was

famous overture
battle scarred – mighty number
bad time for my ears

Saturday, July 11

2009-07-14T11:05:00.002-06:00

off

screens beside the stage
heads turned see only the thing
right in front of them

Friday, July 10

2009-07-13T21:25:00.001-06:00

2:30-5 Rehearsal
Ravinia B
Conlon, DeYoung, Skelton
MENDELSSOHN
MAHLER

8 Concert
Ravinia B
Conlon, DeYoung, Skelton
MENDELSSOHN
INTERMISSION
MAHLER

the beat elusive
hopeful glance at podium
gone before I played

Thursday, July 9

2009-07-10T12:17:00.002-06:00

10-12:30 Rehearsal
Ravinia B
Conlon, DeYoung, Skelton
MAHLER

bird above the stage
singing with the orchestra
this year - still not deaf

Wednesday, July 8

2009-07-08T15:35:00.000-06:00

day off

lengthy Adagio
right on time – the train whistle
never so welcome

Tuesday, July 7

2009-07-07T10:29:00.002-06:00

2:30-5 Rehearsal
Ravinia A
Conlon, Bronfman
MENDELSSOHN
BRAHMS

8:00 Concert
Ravinia A
Conlon, Bronfman
SMITH
MENDELSSOHN
INTERMISSION
BRAHMS

parking lot soliloquy

slow people walking
right in front of my bumper
what if I nudge them?

Welcome Back

2009-07-05T21:20:00.005-06:00

Ravinia week 1

Concerts this week

A Tuesday July 7, 8 PM
Mendelssohn Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 11
Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83
James Conlon, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano

B Friday July 10, 8 PM
Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90 ("Italian")
Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth")
James Conlon, conductor
Michelle DeYoung,mezzo-soprano
Stuart Skelton,tenor

C Sunday, July 12, 5 PM
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Tchaikovsky - Nutcracker Suite No. 1
Tchaikovsky - “1812” Festival Overture, Op. 49 (with live cannons)
James Conlon, conductor
Miriam Fried,violin

Monday, July 6
2-4:30 Rehearsal
Ravinia A
MENDELSSOHN
BRAHMS

I'm off concert A. Also, since I'm quite busy these days with non bass blog activities, I'm going to have to limit the amount of writing I do. With that in mind, all posts about this season at Ravinia will be in Haiku form.

first day

thrumming cicadas
heat waves on asphalt – the guard
wary of my bike

In the beginning...

2009-06-04T18:25:00.004-06:00

Bernard Labadie, conductor
Benedetto Lupo, piano
Haydn - Symphony No. 94 (Surprise)

Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 18

Mozart - Chaconne from Idomeneo
Mozart - Symphony No. 39

Wordy conductors arrive at our concert hall carrying their verbiage like the penitent's burden. Already looking at an uphill trek to Golgotha, the early music specialist ascending our podium might fair better lightening his load a bit. While it may be possible to teach an old dog new tricks, it is probably wise not to talk to him about about it.

Bernard Labadie brought with him some good ideas and a different viewpoint than we are accustomed to. Less vibrato, more open strings, holding off on the sostenuto, among other things, are IMO valid suggestions. I have no problem with trying to play something differently. In fact I think playing it the same old way causes me more heartburn these days. Unfortunately, the preponderance of instructions, suggestions, reminders, admonishments, notifications, rejoinders, talking points, etc. etc. began turning the music into a bit of a minefield.

The Kapellmeister more adept with the word than the baton is a phenomenon I've come across a number of times, especially in the early music realm. There, I have no problems with it. Most of that music is not conductor dependent anyway (possibly why I enjoy it so much), predating the rise of the stick waving, tyrannosaurical conductor of the modern era. The period instrument players also, not subjugated by constant baton beating, have a different approach to holding an ensemble together.

The Mozart/Haydn concerts began showing a few cracks in the ensemble which only grew more serious with repetition, as if the fragmented assembly in rehearsals came unglued under the pressures of performance.

The Unknown

2009-05-28T09:27:00.001-06:00

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld
—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Ellington - Three Black Kings

Intermission
Turnage & Scofield - Scorched for Jazz Trio and Orchestra

(Redacted) Symphony Orchestra
Steven Sloane, conductor
John Scofield, guitar
John Patitucci, bass
Peter Erskine, drums
Donald Harrison, alto saxophone
Willie Pickens, piano

Rodgers and Hammerstein at the Movies
(Redacted) Symphony Orchestra
Emil de Cou, conductor

A fine week to begin blogging again. A lot of interesting things have gone on. The most interesting unfortunately, if I value my metaphorical kneecaps, figuratively speaking, I better not mention.

The Ellington/Turnage&Scofield show brought a stellar group of musicians to the front of our stage. These 'fusion', 'crossover', (or whatever you want to call them) type of concerts often leave me less than satisfied, sometimes embarrassed. The featured group usually knows the piece well and has performed it several, if not many times, while we (the orchestra) are sight reading (OK, I confess). They are comfortable with the idiom – we are decidedly not. The tag-team nature of a lot of these things often highlights how painfully square we are in contrast to our guests.

I'm not sure how they do it – the technical means must have come about in the last few years,since that is when these type of concerts began to appear on our schedule – but the movie night concert where we play along live with the vocal tracks from old movies is becoming more common. I'm not sure what the point is, since the spontaneity of live performance is here reduced to a series of minor emergencies when the conductor can't keep in sync with the film. Something like arriving at the honeymoon suite only to don a straight jacket. I confess to deriving much of my enjoyment of these concerts observing the amount of discomfort on the podium – the usually dictatorial conductor reduced to marionette dancing and jumping at the pull of invisible strings.

Boulez times Deux

2009-03-17T20:00:00.001-06:00

Stravinsky - Symphony in Three Movements
Stravinsky - Four Studies for Orchestra
Carter - Réflexions
Varèse - Ionisation
Varèse - Amériques

Janácek - Sinfonietta
Szymanowski - Violin Concerto No. 1
Stravinsky - Pulcinella
Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin
Roxana Constantinescu, mezzo-soprano
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Kyle Ketelsen, bass-baritone

Boulez came to town with a heap of ‘modern’ music. Maybe that should be amended to ‘scary’ modern music seeing how the concerts were so poorly attended, both here and in that somewhat larger city to the east. Too bad really, since I’m quite fond of Ameriques – the savagery of the piece is right in our wheelhouse!

The Stravinsky pieces were all recorded for our (Grammy winning!) in-house label [Redacted] Resound. (That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) Sometimes Boulez’s nonchalance and understated approach has had a very positive, calming effect, the perfect antidote to Solti or that other guy who followed him. But now that we have two elderly uncles as caretaker music directors, both of whose podium personae tend towards the soporific, I’m not quite so sold on the effectiveness of the mere flip of the wrist and the shrug. We seem to require a bit more to play together nowadays. The Stravinsky pieces felt pretty loose, to the point of mushiness. I will be curious to see what sort of recording they got from those concerts, although I’m not sure I’ll ever have the heart to listen to them.

The highlight of the two weeks had to be the backstage announcement by our personnel manager that took an unintended turn towards the sci-fi when he requested “All musicians on stage for ionization!”

About a week after my last blog post poking fun at our (hopefully) interim junior senator, I ended up finding myself in a strangely parallel situation – complete with all the backstabbing and other niceties of the political world that seem to find a welcome home in the concert hall. Talk about karma!

This is what he meant to say….

2009-02-25T08:20:00.002-06:00

Lincoln Bicentennial Tribute
Root - The Battle Cry of Freedom
Payne & Bishop - Home, Sweet Home
Harris - Symphony No. 6 (Gettysburg)
Bennett - Selections from Abraham Lincoln (A Likeness in Symphony Form)
Copland - Lincoln Portrait
Beethoven - Symphony No. 5

James Gaffigan, conductor
James Earl Jones, narrator
Kevin Gudahl, speaker
Gerard McBurney, speaker

I think the last time our orchestra performed the Lincoln Portrait the junior senator from our state did the narration. Since he went on to bigger and better things James Earl Jones stepped in and schooled everybody in the meaning of star power. Still, having the current junior senator do the honors might have made for an entertaining evening. Program notes or a post-concert press conference could have clarified and revised the senator’s narration. Besides, we might have been able to boast hosting one of his final public appearances.

Not sure what Beethoven 5 was doing on this concert – Lincoln’s favorite piece? Fate knocking at the door? Music that brings on a headache?

Blog of the tour – part seven

2009-02-21T07:28:00.001-06:00

The Forbidden Concert Hall

Friday, February 13
Beijing

We may have finally found a venue on this tour to match the massive inhuman scale of our repertoire. While exploring Tianamen square I kept bumping into the ghost of Anton Bruckner. Out for a stroll, hands clasped behind his back, the venerable composer nodded in silent approval, dreaming of ways to subjugate another string section beneath his musical fist of iron. It seems as if regular-old socialists and their ‘national’ brethren share some taste in architecture.

The scheduled 2-hour morning rehearsal was converted to one of the 45-minute pre concert warm-ups so I did not arrive in the vicinity of the ‘Egg’ (National Center for the Performing Arts) until about 4 in the afternoon. I enjoy arriving at a new concert hall alone, not with the group, in part to see how these architectural marvels yield up their secrets to a more or less ordinary person encountering them with the modest goal of entering, perhaps finding a bathroom, my instrument, and finally the stage. The ‘Egg’ proved a tough nut to crack, if I can scramble up a tasty hash of metaphors.

Most concert halls have stage doors or performers’ entrances at the back, or the side. Being round and surrounded by a defensive moat, the ‘Egg’ did not present an obvious point of entry for a footsore double bassist. A preliminary circumnavigation revealed two subterranean entrances 180 degrees apart. Looking decidedly more ghetto, one of them seemed the obvious choice.

Approaching the guard on duty, I produced my orchestra photo ID card and said (Blah, Blah) Symphony Orchestra, musician. I made the universal symbol – playing air violin and tapping my chest – but the guard shook his head and smiled sheepishly at my antics before summoning over a gentleman in a suit who had been chatting loudly on a cell phone a few feet away. This fellow seemed genuinely put off at having to end his call. When I presented my card he made a face as if I had just waved something extremely foul smelling under his nose. He shook his head violently and said in English, no, No, NO! and then something in Chinese that sounded like ‘getthehellouttahere!’ (but in all fairness could have been anything) while waving me off in the direction of the other entrance.

At the other side I was able to penetrate two sets of doors before arriving in what seemed to be a lobby for audience members. The guard at the roped off entryway was already shaking his head before I had my ID out, but I repeated my air violin performance for him anyway. Noticing a large photo of Bernhard Haitink hanging above his head I added what I hoped would be clarification (but probably only made me look irredeemably silly) by pointing to the photo, making motions of shaking the Maestro’s hand, and him warmly reciprocating by patting me on the back. (Incidentally, there is a photo of this very spot in the New York Times of February 16, page C3, where you can see the guard in ominous silhouette, the photo of Haitink in the distance.)

Beside the guard sat an officious looking lady at a small desk. When asked if she spoke English, she responded ‘a little bit’ and so I repeated my attempt at self-identification, downplaying the visuals somewhat. She gave a look of what I mistakenly took to be understanding until she led me to what appeared for all the world to be the ticket counter and left me there. Again, I repeated the charade for a group of bemused young ladies who had no idea what I was about. After I rejected the ticket they pushing in my direction, three of them huddled in conversation for a long time before one of them turned back to me, beaming. You, she said, finger pointing to the ceiling, are an actor! Her smile froze. Apparently that was the end of the line as far as she was concerned.

Heading back towards the guard and the lady at the desk, I noticed one of my colleagues, who appeared to be taking the first steps down the same rode I had started off on, now some forty minutes ago. The presence of two babbling foreigners in the lobby was enough to spur somebody to action. We were eventually taken to a room where my colleague spoke to somebody on the phone and I handed over my passport (?), which was returned along with a pink slip of paper. Whatever was written on the paper proved to be pure gold, because the formerly recalcitrant guard waved us through without another look. All that remained was the metal detector, a frisking, and a couple more locked doors that could only be opened by the person whose job it was to open them, but we were on our way!

Blog of the Tour – part six

2009-02-18T06:36:00.001-06:00

Shanghaied...

If someone on the street in Shanghai offers to take you to a tea ceremony or an art gallery, my advice would be to respectfully decline, that is if you value the contents of your pocket book. Unfortunately, anybody who wants to ‘practice English’ is probably up to no good. Having made a brutally honest assessment of my appeal to members of either sex, I have to conclude the countless offers for more personal sorts of attention attracted while walking alone were nefarious as well.

Another depressing fact: the 300 kph (!) train ride from the airport is more than 10x faster than the creaky, lurching transit system in my hometown.

Tuesday, February 10

Breakfast: thank heaven for the in-room coffee maker! Another rehearsal this morning, devoted to Bruckner and Haydn. Graciously acknowledging the presence of many Shanghai musicians and students, Haitink changed his usual rehearsal routine and offered up a read-through of the Bruckner 7 Finale before hitting the same old spots again.

Wednesday, February 11

More free in-room coffee to start the day! Freedom until the short pre-concert rehearsal of Mahler 6.

Drivers in Shanghai are pretty well insane as far as I can tell. Two-wheeled vehicles, motorized or not, seem to be exempt from obeying traffic signals altogether. To a four-wheeler, a red light is merely a suggestion that may be nullified by sounding the horn and flooring it. Pedestrians, like ninepins, are best knocked over in groups. In fact, watching people cross the street proved enlightening.

From a huddled mass of pedestrians waiting to cross a street somebody begins by making a leap of faith and steps bravely, maybe foolishly, in front of oncoming traffic. It could be anybody, and not always the one you would expect to grasp the mantle of leader – the little old lady who just about spat on my shoe a moment earlier, the twenty-something guy on his cell phone who doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anything at all. The important thing is that somebody gets their foot out in front of the onrushing cars first, then safety in numbers takes over and everybody else seizes the moment by piling across. Even if a few are crushed, the odds of any one person making it are increased. The similarity to playing in a string section is truly uncanny.

Blog of the Tour – part five

2009-02-17T07:09:00.000-06:00

Cursed!

Friday, February 6

Hong Kong. Breakfast of fruit in my room, compliments of the hotel. Afterwards, another rehearsal 11 – 1 devoted to Mozart and Strauss. Same passages covered as at previous rehearsal in Tokyo. On my way out the door after finishing, I glance at my watch. It’s 11:23. There were some warnings about the acoustics at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. It’s sort of a smallish place and the sound was not too clear, although I’m not convinced we did our best to adjust our playing to the room. There is no backstage there to speak of, so much of our stuff had to be stored at the hotel, which was a bit of a drag.

After the brief rehearsal, while soaking up some of the nice warm sunny weather, a man in a turban approached me, introduced himself as a ‘Yogi from India’ and began telling me I had a lucky face, along with a number of other insightful observations about my personality – all of them way, way off. This shifty-eyed gentleman was impossible to get rid of, and I waited for the moment he would try and pick my pocket while he read my palm, where he failed to notice I have unusual markings that get most palm readers attention right away. Next, he gave me a small folded up piece of paper to hold in my fist while he asked me for a number between 1 and 5 along with the name of a flower. I’m still kicking myself for picking the obvious – 3 and Rose – but was still pretty impressed when I unfolded the paper and, sure enough, it hade 3/Rose scribbled on it. He then asked for 300 Hong Kong dollars (about 40 US) and warned it might be unlucky for me if I didn’t pay up. Not noticing any accomplice around, I felt confident in giving him only 10 HKD (about 1.20 US), already kicking myself for making such obvious choices but acknowledging a nice magic trick on his part. At that point the mood turned a bit ugly and he demanded more money. When I refused, he cursed me (literally: “I curse you!”) and walked off muttering probably much worse in Hindi.

Saturday, February 7

Breakfast of coffee at Starbuck’s. (They have them here too!) Nothing scheduled until the evening when we had a 45 minute rehearsal, 90 minutes before a 90-minute performance of Mahler 6.

Blog of the Tour – part four

2009-02-13T19:48:00.002-06:00

Breakfast of Champions

Tuesday, February 3

Today, the titular breakfast – diet coke and a handful of aspirin before heading off to rehearsal, already the fifth one of the tour. Haitink certainly love to rehearse! Today the task at hand was the Bruckner 7th, which for me is kind of like a trip to the dentist – in the wrong hands truly painful, and even with the most skilled practitioner avoiding discomfort becomes an end in itself. Kudos to Haitink for scraping off some of the tartar.

Wednesday, February 4

Breakfast at Starbuck’s again and another one of those, creamy, dreamy sandwiches. Today I ate in Shibuya, at the famous Starbuck’s overlooking the intersection where every time the light changes about ten thousand people swarm across.

In the evening, another one of those little rehearsals, 5:30 - 6:15 before a 7 PM concert of Mozart 41 and Heldenleben. There’s a pattern forming to the way we rehearse Heldenleben – start at the beginning, then jump to (oops, forgot the number, 15?) the cackling woodwind passage, then check the offstage trumpets (flawless again!) and end with, well, the end. For those not playing Mozart, enough time for a nap before the performance.

Blog of the Tour – part three

2009-02-05T23:31:00.000-06:00

Coffee and Fish

Sunday, February 1

Breakfast at Starbuck’s again today, coffee and a sandwich with a deliciously creamy but unidentifiable filling – tasted vaguely like tuna, which is hardly reassuring.

Rehearsal and concert of Mahler 6 today at Suntory Hall, mercifully in walking distance from the hotel. I found the experience of playing Suntory much better than Minato Mirai – easier to hear the inner voices and not at all muddy. Rehearsal was scheduled from 11- 1:30, but Haitink wisely called an audible and let us out early, so there was time for a quick lunch and a quick nap before the concert at 4.

Monday, February 2

Due to excessive sake tasting Sunday night, I’m in no mood for breakfast today. Technically, if breakfast is the first thing I ate, I have to include the large quantity of kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi eaten at about 2 PM. The rest of the day was ‘off’ in every sense of the word.

(Internet service is getting more and more expensive so I am growing more creative trying to find free wireless. This post courtesy of Mr Default, resident of Hong Kong.)

Blog of the Tour – part two

2009-02-03T00:55:00.000-06:00

Saturday, January 31

The first post veered way off topic, I’m afraid. I’ll try and stick to the subject matter at hand – a group of Americans flying g to Japan and China to play German and Austrian music under a conductor from the Netherlands.

Breakfast today – Grande Latte at Starbucks. Returning to the Hotel, I stopped in the lobby to glance at the bulletin board set up for orchestra members and noted about half of the space was dedicated to breakfast in one way or another. I wonder if any Japanese folks curious about what is going on have had a peek at our board (it’s hard to avoid if you come in the front door, actually) and wondered if the Culinary Society of Ohio might be in town, with the primary mission of tasting the breakfast options available and an auxiliary function of putting on a few concerts.

Haitink is pretty adamant about wanting a lot of rehearsals on tour – more than we are used to. Today we had one of these ‘acoustic’ (or sound-check, or warm-up) rehearsals from 4:30 – 5:15 before the 6 PM concert in Yokohama. I’m not convinced we needed to do that since we spent the day before rehearsing there. For those playing the entire program (Mozart 41, Strauss Ein Heldenleben) 45 minutes seemed too short to get a square meal in a strange land, and those of us only playing Heldenleben had two hours to wander aimlessly around the Minato Mirai complex. Despite those minor annoyances, the concert was a smashing success.

Blog of the tour – part one

2009-02-01T18:28:00.002-06:00

Order of Lenin, hold the Mayo

The last time the orchestra came to Japan I flew with the group and found myself assigned to a uncomfortable center seat beside two of my more talkative colleagues. About eight hours into a thirteen hour flight, when my interest in the shoes sizes of offspring, what was eaten for lunch on certain day, the cost of various consumer items and so on and so forth reached its nadir, I began hatching a bold plan about what to do should I ever be called upon to return to the land of the rising sun. Hardly worth mentioning now, at the time it seemed entirely reasonable to chart an overland journey across Canadian provinces, the frozen tundra of Alaska, fording the Bering Strait, before island hoping my way down out of Siberia, eventually arriving comfortably by bullet train at Tokyo station, twenty two months late. Eventually it struck me that what I ought to do is simply book myself on a different flight, so that’s what I did.

There are a few ‘jetlag days’ at the beginning of a tour, free of rehearsals or concerts, sorely needed to get over the time change. Things really began on Friday, January 29.

Breakfast came in two installments today. 7:30 AM, coffee at the Dotour coffee shop in the Shibuya train station. Later, the ‘Breakfast Set’ at Cafe de Crié in the Minato Mirai complex, consisting of coffee, toast, and some of the strangest scrambled eggs encountered to date – at least I hope they were eggs – served with lettuce tomato and a large blob of mayonnaise (!). After such an auspicious start, the two rehearsals at Minato Mirai Hall could not but go swimmingly. The acoustic, like most places, is more resonant than we are accustomed to, so ther was some sorting out to do. Haitink mentioned the jet lag and gave the orchestra a compliment – something to the effect that we could probably wake up in the middle of the night in Siberia and still play well – and I thought, to be honest, we’ve already done that. Back in 1990 (or was it ’91?) when we toured the Soviet Union, we made a recording of the Bruckner eighth symphony in (then) Leningrad the day after arriving. I recall waking up during the slow (actually in that symphony, the slowest) movement, realizing I had been playing in my sleep for an undetermined length of time. I have no idea if that is a good recording or not. If so, everybody involved should probably be awarded the Order of Lenin.

The passage of our most dread Sovereign

2009-01-23T06:50:00.001-06:00

A good week to think about new and better leadership.

Riccardo Muti taking the podium the week after Dudamel gave audience and orchestra a good chance to compare and see if ours is greater than theirs, so to speak. They were both quite good, actually.

Muti stayed on focus through all the hoopla surrounding his brief 3-concert run here. As a result, the Verdi Requiem hasn’t sounded better, at least not in this zip code. In the wrong hands the piece all to easily turns into a lurid sort of Opera buffa for the dearly departed. Perhaps disappointing a few, Muti took some of the John Philip Sousa out of the Requiem and restored a much-needed degree of sobriety. He had our long-suffering chorus in fine form as well.

As before, the Maestro proved capable of making his mark in a gracious and even entertaining manner. In rehearsal, anecdotes, jokes, and various other remarks can easily bore or infuriate an orchestra when handled ineptly. In this case they mostly served to focus attention on the task at hand rather than distract. Throughout the week Muti seemed aware that in addition to putting together an excellent performance of the Verdi, it might be in his interest to develop a good working relationship with the orchestra. As obvious as that sounds, not all Maestros tend to proceed in such a way.

All in all, a good start for a new era.

Dudamel

2009-01-14T08:26:00.000-06:00

Last week Gustavo Dudamel made his 2nd, 3rd or 4th appearance here. I’m a bit foggy on the number because before last week I’ve managed to be off every time he came to town.

Some conductors are better in theory than in practice but Dudamel mostly delivered the goods and managed to live up to the hype preceding his arrival. Sold-out houses, in spite of some horrible weather, were also very encouraging to see.

Dudamel accomplished the unlikely feat of attracting the rapt attention of both audience and orchestra alike, with only a few of the usual exceptions among the latter. There was some debate as to whether his long drawn-out pose at the end of the Barber Adagio might have been over the top, but not all conductors have sufficient cachet with the audience to prevent the loutish, premature applause that so often mars the endings of quiet pieces. If you’ve got it flaunt it, I guess. And considering how often in this business greatness and self-indulgence find each other locked in an unbreakable embrace, I consider a little of it entirely forgivable.

We used to have another conductor around here from South America – name escapes me – and there were a few times during the week when Dudamel reminded me strongly of that other Maestro. Dudamel’s Brahms was not always to my taste, however he proved very capable of getting what he wanted from the orchestra and it was quite enjoyable doing things a little differently – even getting what you want all the time can become disagreeable. His manner and the resulting fine performances he got out of the orchestra made a strong case for the argument that putting forth ideas in an agreeable manner might be a more efficient way of doing things.

More of the Same for 2009?

2009-01-10T07:46:00.000-06:00

Well, not entirely. First, a couple New Year’s resolutions.

This year, I will try and be more responsive to emailed questions. I get a fair number of those and although I have read them all, chuckled or gnashed my teeth where appropriate, I acknowledge being pretty lousy about answering them. I will try and respond to comments posted on the blog as well. However, if you have a question you really want answered by me – for what that is worth – better to email it. I may even paste it into the blog and use it for a post – god knows I’m running short on material. Let me know if you don’t want that to happen. Speaking of the deity, please don’t send me quotes from the Bible, or any other religious tome for that matter, I have no idea what to do with those. I will also try and post more regularly. A few readers commented on the boring posts listing rehearsal times, etc. – and those were for the most part people who didn’t even have to attend the boring rehearsals in question – so I don’t think I will be returning to that format. However, I will try and keep fans of the world’s 5th greatest orchestra abreast of what is going on here.

Number 9…

2008-12-17T09:27:00.003-06:00

Ein Heldenleben, undoubtedly a masterpiece, nevertheless rubs me the wrong way. I know as a (working) bassist I’m supposed to like it, love it even, since it is chock full of popular audition passages, but I can’t get past the things I don’t like about the piece, its gigantism, all that bombast, to name a couple. Not my cup of tea, as they say. I wonder if any hero ever dared to play softly? Anyhow, when the option to take those concerts off presented itself, the choice seemed obvious.

As mentioned, Heldenleben contains more double bass audition passages per page than almost any other piece in the literature. The passage at (rehearsal) number nine has probably ruined more dreams of an orchestral career than any other.

Sometimes you might see a few gummy old bass players, veterans of auditions long past huddled toward the back of the bar. Over a stale pint or two they recount in hushed reverent tones disastrous failures, successes won at terrible cost. Their Ypres, Verdun, The Marne, unknown beyond their circle, sound strange in our ears; Number 9, the Battle Scene, 49, 77. “Nine measures after number 15, there I stood, alone, without a mute…”

So friends, next time you go to a performance of Ein Heldenleben, cast a sympathetic eye towards the bass section. Number 9 comes up only a few minutes into the piece – top of the second page. Then you will see the page turned, a deep breath taken, perhaps an eye rolled heavenward in memory of a colleague who didn’t make it. And as they begin to play, without doubt, you think to yourself – what a delightful passage for the horn.

Boo!

2008-12-13T12:25:00.001-06:00

Never in my life have I received such treatment. They threw an apple at me!
Well, watermelons are out of season.

Lasspari and Otis B Driftwood
(The Marx Brothers A Night at the Opera)

Boo…Boooo!…BOOOOO!!!!

Starting softly and getting louder, the gentleman got in three boos before the rest of the audience knew the piece had finished. Definitely not one of our fans who calls out Bravoooooo, these were unquestionably expressions of displeasure. But whether directed at the Lutoslawsky 4th symphony or our rendition of it under Haitink’s baton, nobody could tell. A brief scan of the composer’s biography makes me wonder if our pro Stalin fan (yes we have one) had returned.

I don’t know if it comes as a surprise or not, but the general reaction among orchestra members to audience boos isn’t very disapproving. Perhaps this comes from a sense of smugness about our self worth and the ability for each of us singly to fall back on the belief that the composer, conductor, soloist, or somebody else, is the true object of displeasure. But there is also a sense of relief that at least somebody out there cares enough to go against the grain and express themselves. One of the more disheartening things about this profession can be to see obvious signs of displeasure among audience members during the performance (i.e. yawning, sleeping, the rolling of eyes, head buried in the program or other reading material, or the ubiquitous 20th century music scowl) only to receive the same polite applause at the conclusion. Was that a standing ovation, or were those people merely donning their coats and shrugging? (I once saw a man sleep soundly through a piece only to jump to his feet and applaud.) At least a good hearty Boo shows somebody had an honest opinion.

We’ve had few memorable ones during my time here. The Enescu Symphony (sorry, can’t remember which one) ends conclusively. So when we performed it at the University of (the state in which the city I work in is located) the gentleman who got his boo off (say that fast three times: very funny) a split second before the rest of the audience erupted deserves special commendation. He (booing seems to be a male-dominated activity) obviously sat on the edge of his seat for a long time waiting for his big chance. Probably most famously, a local member of the 4th estate loudly booed the son of a prominent dissident for a lackluster reading of the Grieg piano concerto. That demonstration involved the spontaneous conversion of the program book into confetti.

This Post Rated XXX

2008-12-10T07:32:00.000-06:00

The other day somebody complained to me about the amount of selling on the Internet, what you might call the pornography of self-promotion – buy my gear, buy my CD, my method book, whatever. I thought it high time I dip my foot briefly into those waters.

The Chicago Bass Ensemble will be performing on Monday, December 15, 7 PM at Heaven Gallery, 1550 North Milwaukee, 2nd floor. Information about the CBE may be found here, and the Heaven Gallery, here.

I am also happy to announce, at long last, the re emergence of Discordia Music –publishers of music for the double bass. We’ve spent the last year or so reworking our editions, and five are now ready. Look for more soon.

Information about Discordia Music may be found here.

A few words about the editions:

Bach - 3 Sonatas
BWV 1027, BWV 1028, BWV 1029.
For Double Bass and Cembalo(originally for Viola da Gamba)
A005

The three Gamaba Sonatas are now combined in one volume. This edition is an arrangement for double bass, based on research of several sources, most notably the Neue Bach Ausgabe and the Peters Edition, edited by Lawrence Dreyfus. The double bass parts are at the original pitch rather than the usual one octave lower.

Brahms - Sonata in e-minor, Opus 38
For Double Bass and Piano
(originally for Violoncello)
A004

This edition, also at the original pitch, remains true to Brahms’ slurs, articulations and dynamic markings.

Rossini - Duetto
For Violoncello and Double Bass
A010

An arrangement of the Duo, with the double bass in solo tuning. Many of the composer’s simplifications of the double bass part have been eliminated.

Schubert - Sonata, D.821 “Arpeggione”
For Double Bass and Piano
A01201

This edition is based on the composer’s autograph score. The double bass part is in orchestral tuning, taking advantage of the similarities in tuning between the Arpeggione and double bass. All of the original slurs, dynamics, and articulations are maintained.

Tchaikovsky - Canzonetta
from the Violin Concerto, Op. 35
For Double Bass and Piano
A008

Some violinist may laugh at this… One of my colleagues, now retired , once sheepishly admitted having played this as a student. Make for a nice little bon bon.

Thar She Blows!

2008-12-04T18:30:00.000-06:00

Sorry, but due to non bass blog activities, I’ve managed to fall way behind again…

Mahler 2 is one of those ‘special’ events on the season schedule although it comes up almost every other season, or seems like it anyway. I’m always happy to see Mahler 2 programmed though, mainly because it reminds me of one of my favorite pieces, the Berio Sinfonia, which doesn’t come up nearly often enough unfortunately.

Haitink’s laissez-faire approach certainly has its merits, especially when applied to the large forms. When signing on for a long sea voyage you want a captain whose feet are firmly planted on deck, eyes forward, piercing the fog, steering a steady course towards the distant shore, not a man who frets and throws tantrums over every last rivet, or wastes time reshuffling the deck chairs while the ship drifts idly with the current. Then again, Mahler 2 has a lot of rivets holding it together. During the performances I found myself a little nervous about how many could pop before we all ended up in Davy Jones’ Locker. Fortunately, it seemed like we got home safe and dry every night.

There were a couple of complementary factors at play necessitating I sit behind the low brass for this concert. In the final analysis, it turned out to be an enjoyable, enlightening vantage point looking over their shoulders, although, to be fair, you could say the same thing about a firing squad. Nevertheless, I was able to observe firsthand some of the delicate valve-work involved and precision playing on display. As a bass player, I can certainly appreciate how moving something a matter of inches might still qualify as a minor adjustment. As always, the results were impressive.