On Symphonies and Operas.

I always have my breath taken away just before the conductor strides in from stage right.  Dozens of human beings, arranged in order, dressed in formal wear, clutching an instrument they have been with for thousands of hours of their lives before this moment, each of them an expert in not only that instrument but the entire orchestra, knowing all the roles, all trusting each other to do the right thing at the right time, all to produce music they themselves won't hear as well as I, because they have their mind on performance.

They adjust their posture, chat amiably in hushed tones, there's a flash of stifled giggles here and there, someone else is covertly adjusting a wardrobe problem.  It is this moment, when they are poised to take the risk of live performance, ready to receive the maestro, that causes joy to flash through my body in it's varied physical forms, a welling up of a tear sometimes, a lump in my throat in others. On my best days I think to myself the next time I'm complaining about how life sucks, I need to remember that I also get to do this.

Then the conductor strides out, patting a shoulder affectionately here, acknowledging someone with a smile and or a low wave there, weaving through the orchestra on the way to the podium, the master as servant.  Without these people the conductor is just someone standing with their back to the crowd waving a stick while humming.  This gesture of acknowledgment is moving.

The conductor will finally turn to the first violin and offer a handshake and poite bow, another acknowledgment that one requirement (of many) for sitting in this chair is the ability to take over for maestro.  Taking the podium the conductor will issue his first invitation to the orchestra by raising both hands, they all stand, the conductor turns, and they will bow together to the audience, an acknowledgment that if we weren't here no one would be.

This moment is one of the most sublime expressions of human social order.  No one coerced to participate, everyone has worked their entire life in an uncertain and often unrewarding profession to be in the seat they are in at this moment.  It's a musical moonshot, all of humanity travels with us.

Then the music begins...

With Opera, the task is even more daunting.  Not only does one have to burden all of the task of an orchestra to make music, but one must tell a story, act, move, jump from solo performance to chorus with the ease of a drunk mumbling to pigeons, all while in a heavy costume under hot lights.

The moments of amazement come to me when a soloist, or a duo, or a trio, transports me to a place where I literally forget that I am different from the music.  Then gently I am let down to touch earth, realizing that all these people, those on stage in the orchestra pit, just altered my very consciousness.  This takes my breath away.  Often I can only manage a weak and uncertain "bravo" because of the lump  in my throat.

I like a lot of different kinds of music.  I have been to thousands of live performances, from punk rock garage bands to jazz legends to open-mikes to folk festivals.  I plan to attend many more.  I like live music.  Symphony orchestras and opera consistently possess an intense concentration of human, voluntarily-imposed, order.

Chaos has it's place, and there's plenty of it in live music performance:  mistakes are made, cues are missed, off nights happen.  Just as consistently chaos works in another way to enhance the performance: performers are particularly on, the right harmony is struck dynamically, someone takes a risk that pays off.  There's an important place for chaos.

Something gets me about the order, though.  I find it so hopeful that humans can do this.

On Open Rehearsal

Today I attended an open rehearsal for the New York Philharmonic, which is about to play a series of shows here before embarking upon a brief Asian tour accompanying Yuja Wang performing Brahms First Concerto in D minor followed by the philharmonic performing Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major.

I've never been to an open rehearsal before.  Other than knowing the what the words "open" and "rehearsal" mean I had no idea what I was in for. There was at least one assumptions I made that was less than correct.

There was no seating chart for this event and the tickets were marked "general admission." I assumed that meant one went in the hall and sat down where one could.  Nope.

To the Philharmonic, "General Admission" apparently means "crammed in the back behind a bunch of empty, unused seats."  They had roped off the forward two-thirds of the orchestra level for tickets not available to the public.  There were not many of these people, and those who did attend sat on the aisle, which left vast spaces of open seats in front of people like myself relegated to a few rows behind velvet ropes, packed cheek to jowl.

If the Philharmonic seeks to encourage support for their organization by doing this they should perhaps rethink.  It left me, and everyone around me, angry.  First impressions count, and my first impression was the the Philharmonic had misled me about what I was purchasing with no seating chart and the word "general admission."

But, you may ask, who I am to expect egalitarian values from a symphony orchestra?  I grant you my naivete, but still, I probably would have joined their fundraising arm if I had known about this beforehand, or if I had been given the option once I arrived.  Packed in like sardines gazing across an ocean of empty seats in front of me was not fertile ground for self-reflection.  Seeing Ms. Wang perform in person is a rare opportunity for me, she keeps scheduling her NYC gigs when I am out of town.  I would have forked over an annual membership for the right to sit a few rows closer.


I dug into the information on the website with my phone while I was waiting for them to start and I see that THEY choose which open rehearsals one can cross the velvet rope for, so it's likely even that would have not been enough.  Oh well, enough about that, it is what it is.

The Philharmonic is led this year by a new musical director, Jaap Van Zweden, who just finished a ten year run as director of the Dallas Symphony.  He's something of a prodigy, conducting from the age of 19 in 1975, and he's serving this year as music director designate and debuts officially next season as the head honcho for the Philharmonic.  He's a good humored man, animated with the baton, and I was surprised that he and I found the same things worthy of more work during the rehearsal.

The orchestra played the entire piece, start to finish, which, owing to Prokofiev's parsimony, is only 40-something minutes long.  He stopped after every movement to ask everyone to return to something he heard that needed work, the orchestra would start over at whatever point he asked,"three bars before 68" is what he would say, and they were very responsive to his critique.  In each instance I believe I understood what he was after and I heard the orchestra make the adjustment.  That was cool.  By this time I had forgotten my disappointment over the relegation to the velvet-roped cattle pens in the back of the hall.

They broke after they finished rehearsal of the symphony, rearranging the stage to put the big Steinway out front, taking a break about the length of a performance intermission.  When musicians began warming up again, I returned to my seat just in time to see (barely, through squinted eyes) the diminutive Ms. Wang causally walk out and take a seat on the bench.

I had been waiting for this moment to see her on stage for a number of years.  Seeing her perform is actually on my bucket list, but I admit this moment was a little anti-climatic because she did not acknowledge the crowd in any way (perhaps she couldn't see us in the back of the hall).  She seemed a little shy, if anything, but once she sat down it all became very familiar to me as I have watched hours of her performances on YouTube.

Brahms 1st Concerto is heavily influenced by his mentor, the romantic Robert Schumann.  Brahms didn't write his second piano concerto for another twenty years.  This one was completed after Schumann's death, with the apparent assistance of his widow, who was a pianist.  It was politely received" at the time, which might explain why it was so long until Brahms wrote another.

More recently, when Glenn Gould rehearsed performing it with Leonard Bernstein in 1962 they had a bit of a musician's row over how to best interpret it.  Gould ultimately backed out of the performance, and retired from live performance soon after.

It is a flowing and romantic piece which is saved from being sappy by Brahms' light touch with subtle lyricism and dynamic crashes of forceful dominance by the orchestra.  Typically one can say, for a particular piece, that the pianist is the soloist and the conductor is accompaniment, or the other way around, but in this piece they trade off like new lovers not quite sure who should be on top.

During the rehearsal Maestro van Zweden offered no correction or suggestions to Ms. Wang, but she did offer a couple to him.  Overall the piece was an accomplishment, Ms. Wang's conservatism in choosing pieces she is comfortable performing comes through.  She has mastered this work, start to finish.  Don't misunderstand me, the orchestra has a huge part in this piece, and the orchestra is the whole show at certain points, but Ms. Wang owns this work emotionally, I broke out in tears twice during the rehearsal because she had so thoroughly nailed a passage.

Brahms' 1st concerto is a nice companion to Prokofiev's 5th symphony.  They are both lush in places, almost polyphonic in others. a kind of a conversation in classic form with a subtle homage to Baroque ancestry in various passages which follow a melody across polyphonic variations.  Both pieces have some element of this, and I think they make a nice pair.  That's encouraging.

Thanks to this open rehearsal I will see the premier performance in this tour tonight knowing a bit more about what to expect and what to listen for.  I'll let you know if it was worth the cattle call.