Music is a powerful memory stimulant. Just a few notes of a melody can transport you to the time and place when you first heard the tune, or trigger other special associations. You may share a special song with that special someone, or like our Pops conductor Mike Krajewski, have your own theme song.
Today on stage during a Discoverer concert (a series of concerts we give for fifth graders from local school districts), I became locked in a reverie that took me from Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony No.3, to a palace in Vienna, to a classic pantless anxiety dream that unfortunately was all too real.
About twelve years ago, my string quartet had the honor of winning a special Austrian award for chamber musicians, the "Prix Mercure." We were to play a special concert at Vienna's Lobkowitz Palace, and receive our award at a presentation following the concert. The trophy itself turned out to be a ceramic boot-signifying Mercury, I suppose -and from then on giving new meaning to the term "getting the boot." The concert was held in the very room where Beethoven's Eroica was first premiered. Though as a string quartet we weren't performing it, I did manage to play a few lines from the viola part of the symphony into the historic space, putting myself in the shoes of a violist long gone. The room itself is actually quite small, not much larger than the stage of Jones Hall. Orchestras back then were smaller, and instruments not nearly as powerful as they are today; but the marble walls and floors probably did much to fill the hall with the glorious sounds of this heroic work.
So there I am on stage, in Houston in 2006, recalling the peaceful greenish-bluish hue and sonorous resonances of the Eroicasaal not only in 1994, but also my 1994 imaginings of 1804...when my brain comes to a dead halt-on my pants. Our cellist had packed all of our concert clothes in the groups' garment trunk before setting out on the 2 hour drive from the small town where we had been staying. All, that is, but the bottom half of my outfit. Which left me, dressed in khakis and a t-shirt, in front of the concert hall an hour before the show was to start, armed with the phrase "Entschuldigen Sie bitte, konnen Sie mir bitte Ihre Hose/Rock leihen (Excuse me please, can you please lend me your pants/skirt)?" and "shopping" for prospective outfits from incoming concertgoers. The good news: I didn't get slapped, or arrested. Bad news: no one going to the concert was Rita-size. Ultimately I ended up wearing the dress pants from a visiting American professor. So to Professor Bob, wherever you are-I'll never play the Eroica without thinking of you... and sorry you had to spend the concert pantless in the dressing room, it really sounded great! All that marble, you know.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Knock On Wood
Just like in baseball, superstitions and pre-performance rituals run rampant in the music world. This goes way, way beyond not changing one’s socks or touching/not touching the plate. See if you can match up the following rituals with their practitioners:
1. Would never begin rehearsing new music on a Friday
2. Walked around with his pants off right up until the moment on stage
3. Requires backstage personnel to say “Don’t F**K it up” to him before going onstage
4. Traveled with a portable altar
5. Crosses himself, then trips himself on his way onstage
A. Conductor Robert Spano
B. Conductor John Barbirolli
C. Maestro Bob Cobb
D. Conductor Alexander Lazarev
E. John Denver
Composers are even worse. Symphonic composers since Beethoven have been loath to compose a ninth symphony because of the “curse of the ninth.” The number of composers that have died after completing, or even in the course of writing, nine symphonies, makes this curse almost as reliable as that of King Tut or the curse of “that Scottish play” by William Shakespeare.
Some of the victims of the “curse of the ninth” include: Beethoven, Dvorak, Vaughan-Williams, and Bruckner. Horribly superstitious, Mahler at first declared that all of his symphonies were "ninths", then referred to Das Lied von der Erde as a song cycle rather than number it as the ninth symphony it would have been. However, he still died after writing his ninth numbered symphony (leaving his tenth unfinished to be completed from his sketches). D’oh! Schubert went the creative numbering route as well and completed his Ninth Symphony, but left the eighth unfinished. Recently, Russian composer Alfred Schnittke died, leaving his ninth unfinished.
The curse, in addition to depression and self-doubt, may have led Sibelius to the destruction of his Eighth Symphony; though the full reason for the musical silence of his final twenty five years has remained a mystery.
A few have survived, such as Shostakovich (fifteen symphonies). Alexander Glazunov stopped work on his ninth due to fear of the curse and never wrote another symphony. He prolonged his life by another twenty six years. Current composer Malcolm Arnold has completed nine symphonies but will not do a tenth.
Now, skeptics can say that to write nine symphonies would logically take years and years of creative genius and that most of these men were old and would have died anyway. The varied ages of these men at the time of their passing would belie that statement, and to you skeptics I give the evil eye, and spit three times in your general direction.
1. Would never begin rehearsing new music on a Friday
2. Walked around with his pants off right up until the moment on stage
3. Requires backstage personnel to say “Don’t F**K it up” to him before going onstage
4. Traveled with a portable altar
5. Crosses himself, then trips himself on his way onstage
A. Conductor Robert Spano
B. Conductor John Barbirolli
C. Maestro Bob Cobb
D. Conductor Alexander Lazarev
E. John Denver
Composers are even worse. Symphonic composers since Beethoven have been loath to compose a ninth symphony because of the “curse of the ninth.” The number of composers that have died after completing, or even in the course of writing, nine symphonies, makes this curse almost as reliable as that of King Tut or the curse of “that Scottish play” by William Shakespeare.
Some of the victims of the “curse of the ninth” include: Beethoven, Dvorak, Vaughan-Williams, and Bruckner. Horribly superstitious, Mahler at first declared that all of his symphonies were "ninths", then referred to Das Lied von der Erde as a song cycle rather than number it as the ninth symphony it would have been. However, he still died after writing his ninth numbered symphony (leaving his tenth unfinished to be completed from his sketches). D’oh! Schubert went the creative numbering route as well and completed his Ninth Symphony, but left the eighth unfinished. Recently, Russian composer Alfred Schnittke died, leaving his ninth unfinished.
The curse, in addition to depression and self-doubt, may have led Sibelius to the destruction of his Eighth Symphony; though the full reason for the musical silence of his final twenty five years has remained a mystery.
A few have survived, such as Shostakovich (fifteen symphonies). Alexander Glazunov stopped work on his ninth due to fear of the curse and never wrote another symphony. He prolonged his life by another twenty six years. Current composer Malcolm Arnold has completed nine symphonies but will not do a tenth.
Now, skeptics can say that to write nine symphonies would logically take years and years of creative genius and that most of these men were old and would have died anyway. The varied ages of these men at the time of their passing would belie that statement, and to you skeptics I give the evil eye, and spit three times in your general direction.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
A contest
This mysterious instrument appeared on the stage of Jones Hall today at the rehearsal for the Elvis Costello concert. What is it?The first person to correctly identify it will win the opportunity for themselves and a guest to attend a selected rehearsal of the Houston Symphony, for a firsthand experience of the madness "behind the scenes."
Special extra credit: tell me in which recent film this instrument was used, and which character it represented. Not only will I meet with you before the rehearsal for coffee, you will be able to impress all your friends with your studly nerdiness at parties for years to come.
Good luck and no cheating!!! Hint: I myself had no idea what it was, though I have heard it, and bet that over 90% of Americans have heard one in the last 4 years. There are probably only 6-7 such instruments in the United States.
mooohahahahaha
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
My Hovercraft is Full of Eels
It is said that music is the universal language. Admittedly, it can take some rehearsing for us onstage to all be in the same universe. And orchestral musicians being the relentless animals that we are, small language-snafus of foreign-born conductors can provide some eagerly anticipated material. Recently:
“Tromboni, put yourselves out of the living room!”
“okay, clari-NYETS, (as opposed to clari-DAs?), thees part not about the springtime for the gots. Ees about the speereets. Speereets!! No GOTS. Now, rehearsal 45. GO!!!”
Though that particular speech prompted a “But Maestro, I don’t understand what WORD you are saying” from the back of the orchestra, translation is mostly near-spontaneous. Throw in accompanying hand gestures and relevant musical material, and we’re good to go. GO!
Often conductors for whom English is not a first language will seize upon a phrase and use it over and over. Sometimes, it’s just a word. (GO!) If you know these “catch words” you can often tell which orchestra under which conductor may have last written in the rental music part that is now on your stand. Once I got a part for a piece I know I had never performed before that had the word “smooooz” written at the juncture of every cadence. My educated guess: the last orchestra to play that piece worked with Christoph Eschenbach. I myself have written that very word over various Mahler parts (though I spell it with only 3 “o”s) throughout his tenure here. I bet that at least 50% of the musicians of the Houston Symphony can’t even say the word correctly in a normal conversation.
Sometimes it’s just one or two letters that make all the difference. As in “disturbulence.” Used in a sentence, “the disturbulence of the contrabassoon must be all-encompassing,” it actually becomes more than the sum of both the words it once was. It takes on a life and meaning of its own. Especially when written 97 times in the parts and sent on a trip around the world.
Me, I don’t even pretend to be the great communicator. I’m a first-generation American of Greek-Chinese descent, who worked for a time in Germany but had French as my first foreign language. My Chinese is limited to useful phrases like “I’m sleepy,” “Do you have any roast pork?“ and “Oh my gosh, she’s not wearing any underwear!” As for Greek, I can read it but have very little idea what I am saying, sailor-worthy curses aside. Of course, a little knowledge is dangerous. On one trip to Greece to visit relatives, I purposely got an old boyfriend to tell a (female) friend of my dad’s that she had a big gluteus maximus (he thought he was telling her she had a nice dress). I also got him to walk into a bakery and politely say “I would like to have a little turd, please.” Now there was a case where both adding a syllable and one’s intestine do the same job-turning a “cookie” into a “turd.” Can’t say that often, can ya? But karma has a way of catching up: this summer, on a bike trip in France, I unintentionally treated my hosts to this little gem after being complimented on my (lack of) an accent in French:
“My French pronunciation may be good because I learned it as a child, but since I’ve never gotten dressed in France, I don’t know much grammar.”
“Tromboni, put yourselves out of the living room!”
“okay, clari-NYETS, (as opposed to clari-DAs?), thees part not about the springtime for the gots. Ees about the speereets. Speereets!! No GOTS. Now, rehearsal 45. GO!!!”
Though that particular speech prompted a “But Maestro, I don’t understand what WORD you are saying” from the back of the orchestra, translation is mostly near-spontaneous. Throw in accompanying hand gestures and relevant musical material, and we’re good to go. GO!
Often conductors for whom English is not a first language will seize upon a phrase and use it over and over. Sometimes, it’s just a word. (GO!) If you know these “catch words” you can often tell which orchestra under which conductor may have last written in the rental music part that is now on your stand. Once I got a part for a piece I know I had never performed before that had the word “smooooz” written at the juncture of every cadence. My educated guess: the last orchestra to play that piece worked with Christoph Eschenbach. I myself have written that very word over various Mahler parts (though I spell it with only 3 “o”s) throughout his tenure here. I bet that at least 50% of the musicians of the Houston Symphony can’t even say the word correctly in a normal conversation.
Sometimes it’s just one or two letters that make all the difference. As in “disturbulence.” Used in a sentence, “the disturbulence of the contrabassoon must be all-encompassing,” it actually becomes more than the sum of both the words it once was. It takes on a life and meaning of its own. Especially when written 97 times in the parts and sent on a trip around the world.
Me, I don’t even pretend to be the great communicator. I’m a first-generation American of Greek-Chinese descent, who worked for a time in Germany but had French as my first foreign language. My Chinese is limited to useful phrases like “I’m sleepy,” “Do you have any roast pork?“ and “Oh my gosh, she’s not wearing any underwear!” As for Greek, I can read it but have very little idea what I am saying, sailor-worthy curses aside. Of course, a little knowledge is dangerous. On one trip to Greece to visit relatives, I purposely got an old boyfriend to tell a (female) friend of my dad’s that she had a big gluteus maximus (he thought he was telling her she had a nice dress). I also got him to walk into a bakery and politely say “I would like to have a little turd, please.” Now there was a case where both adding a syllable and one’s intestine do the same job-turning a “cookie” into a “turd.” Can’t say that often, can ya? But karma has a way of catching up: this summer, on a bike trip in France, I unintentionally treated my hosts to this little gem after being complimented on my (lack of) an accent in French:
“My French pronunciation may be good because I learned it as a child, but since I’ve never gotten dressed in France, I don’t know much grammar.”
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