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02/18/2008
Musical Musings
Last weekend we had a concert with the orchestra I play with, and I think it went pretty well, all things considered. Some of the music was appropriate for the skill level of this orchestra, but at least one of the pieces, the Pines of Rome (by Respighi), shouldn't really have been selected in the first place. The Pines of Rome is one of those pieces that is quite beautiful if it's in tune. However, intonation is not the forte of this orchestra. Especially not in the cello section. To make things worse, for the third movement of this piece, the many of the string sections are split into 4 groups (within each group of Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello, and Bass) that each play different things. Ideally, this requires everyone to be able to hold their own in the section, but this is not really the case for the cellos. In my section, the people are great, but many of them just don't have much orchestra experience, and also, the piece is just too difficult for their level. All this to say, I was worried about the Pines of Rome.
It actually turned out OK from my perspective: no major disasters, no having to stop and start over, the conductor didn't have to yell out rehearsal numbers, and nobody in the audience fell of their chairs in fits of horror. However, I got comments at the end that the concert was a bit... um... well one person said boring... the other said something about how it was an "intellectual" or "thinking" kind of concert, rather than a sit-back-and-relax kind of concert. Oh well. We tried. It wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and a lot of the places that were supposed to sound kinda spooky, sounded kinda spooky for an entirely different reason from the one the composer had intended. But I was just happy that it actually sounded better than it had in rehearsal!
My favourite part of Pines of Rome is that the last movement involves 4 trumpets and 2 trombones who are offstage (in this case, standing at the back of the church behind the people), and towards the end, when the piece is picking up volume and going for the big blaring brass ending, the backstage players start to play as well. When they first started, it was quite funny to see the startled reaction of the crowd and everyone turning around to see where that came from. That reaction was worth it all by itself!
I also got to do a bit of a solo in another piece we did, the first suite of Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances. The third movement of that is a Villanella (I've never met a villanella I didn't like), which involves, for once, a nice lyrical cello solo. It's the sort of thing I'm actually good at. I did my best, and it wasn't perfect (my bow hit my stand at one point), but it was reasonably good. After the concert one guy, who plays in the orchestra I played in last year, said, wow, I didn't realize you were that good! It was in tune and warm-sounding and everything! I'll take it as a compliment, but it makes me wonder what he thought of me before this concert, if he thought I was principal cellist of an orchestra without actually being able to sound good...!
So overall I think it went well. Now I'm already starting the practicing on the new repertoire for the next concert. It's mainly dance music, which I like, and a lot of it has Spanish influences, which I also like.
The downside to all this orchestra stuff is that my brain won't leave me alone. I'm now constantly in the state where I'll have some tune or other stuck in my head, and the only way to get it out of my head is to get something else stuck in there instead. I'm beginning to wonder if I have some sort of obsessive or addictive personality. It's probably good that I don't have a taste for alcohol, or I'd be in trouble!
10:59 Posted in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this