Orchestral Perspectives

Roughly 150 years ago a Polish Prince decided to compose a mass and called it, "Mass in F."  He had hoped to bring it to America, but sadly fell ill and it never made it.  Until now.....

Tonight's concert was the first performance of the piece in New York, orchestrated from the original organ score for a small ensemble.

But what to do with those squirrelly sextuplets in the 5th movement?  They move along so quickly, voraciously devouring B-flat minor and everything around it.  The searching spotlight, scanned each member, the timpanist, the bassist, the trumpet, the horn, and fell upon.....the poor bassoon.  An extremely accomplished musician, she was certainly up for the task, but in the middle of so many projects, the unending string of deedledeeedleees was just really not fun.

So she called me, and we devised a plan of passing off the unwanteds, hopefully in a beautiful graceful arch.  We cut and pasted the measures, practiced in and outside of rehearsal, and things were going to be ok.

But somehow in the concert, there was confusion about which measures belonged to whom.  It seems that she had penciled and repenciled so many times, that the "play here" and the "don't play here" all fell together.  Some measure left hanging.

It's funny to be on the leaving side of things, to have nothing I need to prove in this group or to these people because I'm not climbing anywhere here.  To make a mistake is not terribly troubling.  And it is noticeably easier to be compassionate to those around me because of this security.  I'm willing to take a risk, to work it through.  And it is so natural to let things fall away and dissipate.  Again, there is nothing to lose.  I'm leaving.  This is the last gig, things will be forgotten.

And the funny thing is, that is always the case.  Yes, it matters to play well overall, but the stress and insecurity that result in orchestral musicians is fanatic and eats away at some of the more important parts of music making- the people we are sharing it with.  It's a fortunate thing to be able to have this perspective.  And also to have been able to play with this great group of people.