Category: music

You would think that a performer who is truly moved by the music s/he is playing would be exactly the kind of performer an audience would want most to hear. But in reality, emotional connections can be both a blessing and a curse for performers, who must battle “trembling limbs, nerves, [and] memory problems. All these can intrude between the musician and the music, and between the music and the listener. Some of the most outwardly emotional music requires enormous control.”

Few regular concertgoers would likely be able to recognize more than a few members of their home orchestra. After all, there are nearly 100 musicians on stage for most orchestral works, and apart from the concertmaster and a few select wind and brass principals, most of the musicians seem fairly anonymous. But being a section musician in a major orchestra is hardly a low-pressure job. “Section players such as violinists or cellists play the same music everyone else in their section plays. Regardless of their individual approaches to their instrument, they are required to perform as an ensemble, not as 10 or 20 individuals. They are essentially willing cogs in a big music machine.”

So what’s it like to audition for a job with one of the world’s great symphony orchestras? In a word, terrifying. The process involves multiple rounds of competition, with candidates performing the most difficult excerpts of the orchestral repertoire one after another, before a committee hidden behind a screen. One slip-up, one wrong note, one skipping bowstroke, and the months of preparation and hundreds of dollars in travel expenses can all be for nought.

Richard Dyer is intrigued by John Rockwell’s recent analysis of two prominent pianists with distinctive styles, one of whom Rockwell adores, and the other of whom drives him up the wall. “Many of the greatest artists overturn convention and provoke controversy; most of us would rather hear a risk-taker than someone who’s playing it safe.” Still, the unique qualities that make a performer worth hearing are the same ones that will cause many members of a given audience to turn up their noses at a performance that sounds substantially different from what they’re used to hearing. Dyer: “All of us have artists whose work we enjoy; all of us have encountered performers who fail to leave us begging for more. But every listener has to be open to surprise.”

Josh Kosman ponders why conductors such as Simon Rattle prefer to lead European orchestras than American bands. “The crucial distinction is that American audiences still need to be sold – constantly, repeatedly, and with tireless effectiveness – on the very premise of orchestral music. No conductor of an American orchestra, not even in the bastions of old-world Europhilia along the East Coast, can ever entirely take for granted the importance of what he’s doing. For many music directors, especially the Europeans who still constitute nearly the entire conductorial population of the United States, that uncertainty can rankle.”

Eighteen months ago, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra was in serious trouble, running deficits it couldn’t afford, and facing a revolt from its own musicians after the board dismissed music director Grzegorz Nowak. Since then, the ESO has brought its finances under control, added several orchestra players to its board, and this week, the musicians ratified an extension of their current contract, which will keep the orchestra on a slow but steady path to recovery.

New software can make anyone sound like a (good) singer. “The software, which is due to be released to consumers in January, allows users to cast their own (or anyone else’s) songs in a disembodied but exceedingly life-like concert-quality voice. Just as a synthesizer might be programmed to play a series of notes like a violin one time and then like a tuba the next, a computer equipped with Vocaloid will be able to “sing” whatever combination of notes and words a user feeds it. The first generation of the software will be available for $200. But its arrival raises the prospect of a time when anyone with a laptop will be able to repurpose any singer’s voice or even bring long-gone virtuosos back to life.”

“After two years at the helm of the financially troubled San Antonio Symphony, Executive Director Steven Brosvik is stepping down. Brosvik, 38, pledged to enhance the symphony’s image and boost fund raising when he took the job in March 2001 and began work that summer. But many potential donors didn’t open their pocketbooks during Brosvik’s tenure. This year, the orchestra cut its season short and declared bankruptcy.” There is speculation that Brosvik’s resignation may have been part of a quid pro quo for the SAS’s musicians, who recently signed a contract which officially cancelled the 2003-04 season and gutted their future salaries and benefits.

French operas are not like other operas. Where German and Italian operas feature endless melodrama and tragic heros who die unspeakable deaths, French composers have traditionally preferred lighter plots and happier endings. (Ambroise Thomas even composed an operatic Hamlet in which the title character survives to become King of Denmark.) So it’s no surprise that North American companies, steeped in the Italian and Germanic traditions, have traditionally avoided French opera. But in Quebec, where the two leading opera companies in the province are led by the same man, French conductor Bernard Labadie, a distinctly French flavor is beginning to take hold.

For the first time, a glass harmonica is being played as part of a performance at Covent Garden. “Even in Donizetti’s day, glass harmonica players were so scarce, and the original performer was looking for such an outrageous fee, that by the second production the composer ditched him and re-scored it for a flute.”