Tuesday, July 18, 2006

memories

cathedral

Goodness gracious, it must have been seventeen years ago….

I had cute short sea green hair and I was playing in the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. At the helm were Haydn and Nicolaus Harnoncourt and at the heart was a mammoth love. From the person listening in the back row of the stalls to the principal violin, to the 5th cello to the folk up in the Gods to the second trumpet, and through the coaxing of our conductor, it was clear from the outset of the project that EVERYONE, at every moment, was equal in creating this happening. We were all in service.

Rehearsals were like magic shows: In the third variation the first fiddles had a series of showy but impossible runs in prickly E flat, and they were falling off the fingerboard in embarrassment at their dire intonation. Harnoncourt ignored them and went straight to the violas and second violins, who carried a babyish theme which could have been featured in ‘Tune a Day’. He spent the next hour making them pump it out, not like fourteen frustrated inner parts but like two proud classical trumpets. The first violinists meanwhile twiddled the heads of their instruments wondering when it would be their turn (after all they surely had a much more important part…?). When he had finished with the theme, the conductor added the firsts. Like a delicate trellis around a bouncy castle, they threw their perfectly tuned scales up into the ether, watched them linger and caught them on the way down, weaving in and out of the theme with sudden technical perfection and a lyricism the likes of which is near impossible from twenty prime donne in unison.

Did he secretly steal away their egos? Was it just a matter of getting priorities right - of making them drink from the source rather than snatch from the air?

When egos come knocking, mine of course included; when a flourish feels like a square, when violins are struggling with intonation and a conductor is getting cross, I try to remember these moments, so vivid, so precious, and to remind myself that, if we are lucky, they come once in a life time, but that they are with us for ever and they can always quench our thirst. Would that everyone could have such a moment to treasure.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who were the fiddles, and who were the violins?

Which violinists twiddled their bits while they were waiting for themselves to be added?

I enjoy your blog, and I appreciate the fact that your memories are nice too. But please be a little more careful while bouncing around that castle!

5:15 PM  
Blogger Zhoen said...

Zen mind, beginner mind.

6:12 PM  
Blogger ruth said...

Thank you for pointing this confusion out anonymous (but as always I think I know who you are so you might aswell say!). Hopefully I have made it more clear.

Bear in mind that when I am on the road I am often writing late at night and using a hasty overpriced hotel internet connection to post, so editing can get short shrift. I suppose I am lucky to have readers that do it for me!

6:40 PM  
Blogger MB said...

Was it just a matter of getting priorities right - of making them drink from the source rather than snatch from the air?

Beautiful!

8:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a evocative description of the joys of a great rehearsal. Thank you for putting it into words.

3:44 AM  
Blogger Rob said...

"Like a delicate trellis around a bouncy castle..."

A marvellous simile in a marvellous post.

11:21 PM  

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