tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80180294295666370942024-03-12T19:07:17.185-07:00Life in Flow:Flow in LifeLife as an after-hours musicianBecky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-21641011707859544212017-06-09T09:31:00.001-07:002017-06-09T09:31:17.409-07:00Treacherous High CsI'm very excited to be playing Mahler's Symphony #2 this Sunday with the <a href="http://evanstonsymphony.org/">Evanston Symphony</a>. This symphony call for a lot of extra players beyond the normal orchestra roster. The horn section is eight onstage horns and 4 offstage horns.<br />
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I am one of the offstage horns, who play only in the fifth movement. Playing this symphony is a blast, literally and figuratively. There's lots of very loud playing, especially for the offstage players, who include four trumpeters and a percussionist in addition to the horns. And it's also so much fun to play this incredible music with a fine orchestra and conductor. Unlike other offstage parts in other orchestral works, Mahler wrote these horn parts starting offstage, then the four of us go onstage, wind our way through the bass section to get to our seats, and play for a bit, walk offstage to play more horn calls from a distance, then come onstage again for the end of the symphony.<br />
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I am playing 8th horn. In the horn universe, the odd number parts are high parts and the even numbers are low. 8th should be a low part. However, all four offstage horns end one of our horn calls with a high C! Not only that, but it's held for ten counts, in 4/4 time at a moderately slow tempo. (Note: though there are a few pieces that go higher than high C, it is generally considered to be the top of the horn's range.)<br />
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I am a low player, though I have been playing quite a lot of high parts lately, but that high C has become kind of a mental block for me. High B flat, high B, no problem. So how is the C different? I thought it was the way I was thinking about it, as a place beyond my normal horn world. What would be the solution? Practice, of course. And complaining to my horn-player friends.<br />
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Complaining to your friends inevitably leads to advice, which I am thankful for! There are a number of tricks for getting that high C. One friend told me he had heard that depressing the first valve halfway and playing it on the F side (no trigger) would make it easier. I tried it and it seems to work sometimes. Another friend told me that horn players since the 1700s have been using another trick: keeping your hand in position in the bell, have your middle finger braced against the opposite side of the bell. The evidence for this method is antique horns with a worn spot where the third finger pressed for many high Cs. This trick also seems to help.<br />
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I still have a couple days to decide. At this point I'm planning to use the third finger trick and play the C on the F horn. And practice, practice, practice.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-6645975068889273502016-08-04T12:48:00.001-07:002016-08-04T12:49:10.268-07:00Critics and CriticismIn June, Dan Gingrich, acting principal horn of the Chicago Symphony, performed Mozart's Horn Concerto #3 with the CSO. We were at the Friday night concert. The Mozart was elegant, tasteful, Mozartian, and flawless, truly a pleasure to hear.<br />
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I read two reviews of the concerts, one in a newspaper and the other online. While both were positive reviews of the Thursday night concert. both mentioned that Dan bobbled a note. One note in a three-movement concerto. This the horn we're talking about, the most treacherous of instruments. Why would two critics feel it necessary to include a single chipped note in their reviews?<br />
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This got me thinking, <a href="http://lifeinflow.blogspot.com/2010/10/critics.html">again</a>, about the purpose of critics. I, along with many other people, read movie and play reviews to see if I want to spend my time and money on them. It's a public service of sorts, though I also ask my friends what they think because I have enjoyed many movies that were panned by critics. Music reviews are also helpful in learning about works and performers, beyond a single performance. These are benefits to me, a reader of reviews.<br />
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Laura Collins-Hughes wrote an interesting <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/theater/the-kritik-harbor-stage-company.html?_r=0">review</a> recently in the New York Times of a play that deals with the place and purpose of critics. The reviewed play was "The Kritic" by Brenda Withers, and is, in Collins-Hughes' words, an "exhilaratingly impassioned, many-layered challenge to critics, delivered with unusual sympathy." The lasting wounds of harsh comments, the question of boosterism in reviews, and support for artists versus telling the truth as the critic sees it are some of the ideas explored in the play. What Collins-Hughes concludes is that while telling the truth matters, how critics communicate negative criticism -- problems and failures in a piece -- is important. A character in the play argues that reviews are important for artists to learn and improve, and Collins-Hughes concludes with extending that argument to critics as well, that feedback from readers should help them "learn how they could do better, too."<br />
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I like that vision of critics. I would phrase it as telling the important truths about a performance or artwork in ways that will help both the ticket-buying public make informed choices and give constructive feedback to artists, along with the critic's personal take on the performance and works. With that in mind, I believe that pointing out one missed note in an otherwise wonderful concert does not fall into that definition.<br />
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Beethoven gets the last word: "To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable."Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-51565873845820165772016-07-20T14:28:00.000-07:002016-07-20T18:19:56.389-07:00The Modern Music Store<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I first moved to Chicago in the 1970s I went to Carl Fisher's on Wabash Avenue to buy music. It was in an old, old building and I would walk upstairs where the instrumental music was. The horn music was in several file cabinets tucked away in a corner alcove and you could look through the files undisturbed for as long as you liked. I would spend hours there looking for music for myself and later for my students.<br />
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Carl Fisher closed in 1999, "the last vestige of historic Music Row." Music Row referred to Wabash Avenue from Madison to Congress (for non-Chicagoans that is five city blocks!) where stores including Lyon & Healy, Conn, King Instruments and more filled both sides of the street. Carl Fisher had four floors of music, from current popular music to classical, and many out-of-print editions. [This information is from this Chicago Tribune article of March 6, 1999, <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1999-03-06/news/9903060086_1_sheet-music-music-publisher-orchestra-hall">"The Last Waltz."</a>]<br />
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We know what happened -- fewer people read music and play instruments. With so many choices of entertainment and recordings of all kinds of music readily available, very few people play piano at home anymore. In earlier centuries purchasing a piano score or chamber music arrangement of current pieces and playing them yourself was often the only way of hearing music.<br />
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But a new industry has appeared that solves most of the problems of finding the sheet music you want. That is, of course, the internet. There are large companies selling music online and frequently you can download your purchase. There is <a href="http://imslp.org/">imslp.org</a>, a free source of downloadable public domain music. And there are zillions of tiny publishers who specialize in narrow markets, like French horn players. Sometimes these small publishers are hard to find even when you know what you're looking for.<br />
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Because the music I buy falls into this last category - horn music or chamber music that includes the horn - I now buy music online. I know that several businesses that specialize in horns and horn products carry these elusive horn works that don't appear in a Google search. <a href="https://www.poperepair.com/">Pope Instrument Repair</a> in Massachusetts is one such business, <a href="http://www.siegfriedscall.com/">Siegfried's Call</a> in New York state is another. Both carry sheet music that is hard to find anywhere else.<br />
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I have no reason go to music stores anymore, but a very kind parent of a student gave both my husband and me gift cards to a local music store. It's a lovely store - open, airy space with practice rooms for private lessons. Like basically all music stores in 2016, they sell guitars, accessories, sheet music and books for piano, vocal, guitar, and drums. The first time I went I bought a music stand and case and a bottle of valve oil. They had my brand of valve oil! And who doesn't need another folding music stand.<br />
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We still had lots of gift card credit left and the website says they will order anything they don't have. I have gotten somewhat bored with Kopprasch, Kling, and Maxime-Alphonse, so I made a list of etude books that I wanted. I got a well-informed, engaging, patient employee. He diligently looked up all six of the books I was looking for and was able to find only one -- Gallay etudes, which are published by Alphonse Leduc, a major French publisher. He said he'd keep looking for the others, but later that day I got a call explaining that they could not find the other publishers in any of the sites that they can order from. He kindly told me where online I could order the other books directly (though I already knew that, I wanted to use up the gift card!)<br />
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I know that I am not a normal music store customer. It was only the gift cards that brought me in and my experience with the store was completely positive, except for not being able to obtain the music I wanted. I'm glad there are still music stores in towns throughout the country. Music buying has changed for musicians looking for mostly classical pieces or more advanced or unusual music. In 1999 when Carl Fisher closed in Chicago, stores in New York City were also closing, stores in both cases that had been in business since the 1800s. In 1999 the future was unsure. There weren't many places online yet to buy music, but in the last 15 years or so online stores have flourished and small publishers have been able to reach their niche audiences (like horn players!). We may miss the old music stores with their old world charm, but we can't complain about not having many choices of where to purchase music of all sorts.<br />
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I'm going to order my etudes online. The gift card? Another folding stand, the Gallay etudes, and a lifetime supply of valve oil and slide grease.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-62739568810524615242015-11-29T18:33:00.002-08:002015-11-29T18:33:43.982-08:00A Midsummer Night's DreamThis past July I was lucky to have an opportunity to play in the orchestra for the Benjamin Britten opera A Midsummer Night's Dream. I would guess that most people immediately think Felix Mendelssohn when they hear Midsummer Night's Dream, and I was lucky to get to play the complete incidental music to the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream, with singers, a few years ago. It is a beautiful, evocative, iconic piece.<br />
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The Britten opera is not so well-known, but it is also a beautiful work that evokes the fairy kingdom as an otherworldly realm with definite dangers to both the young human lovers and the rustics, who venture into the forest to plan and rehearse their play. If you are unfamiliar with the plot of Shakespeare's play, you can read a detailed <a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plots/midsps.html">summary here</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.chicagosummeropera.com/">Chicago Summer Opera</a>, an organization that provides training to young singers and affordable opera to the public, presented A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of the 2015 program. The venue was Mayne Stage, in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.<br />
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This Midsummer Night's Dream begins with eery glissandos in the strong bass, setting the mood for the world of the fairies - beautiful and enchanting, but treacherous as well. Oberon, the king of the fairies, is sung by a countertenor, which again gives an otherworldly tone to the fairy forest. Puck, or Robin, is a speaking role, though it is a rhythmic speaking. This also sets the fairy world apart from the other realms in the play. The costumes and make-up in Chicago Summer Opera's production added to the otherworldly feeling.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tytania, queen of the fairies, with Puck<br /></td></tr>
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Besides the misty world of the fairies, there is also a lot of humor, as seen particularly in the rustics. At one point they are accompanied by a raucous polka and later one of the men has an aria in which he sings off-key. According to one commentator, Britten included both musical homages and satire in the opera. (<a href="http://www.theopera101.com/operas/dream/">The Opera 101</a>)<br />
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As much as I enjoyed watching and listening to the singers, I was there to play in the orchestra. I have played in opera orchestras before, but this was a unique experience. The orchestra for this opera is quite small, almost a chamber orchestra except for a large percussion section. The brass section consisted of two horns, one trumpet and one trombone, and with the small string and woodwind sections, everything we played was noticeable. I played second horn, which seemed to me to be a more challenging part than first horn, though my colleague on first might disagree. The parts were very independent of each other most of the time. There are also long, long sections when we did not play, during which we had to count measures through changing meters and tempos.<br />
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My biggest challenge, though, in the whole opera was a repeated low F, an octave and a half below middle C (on a part in F). This is close to the lowest pitch a horn can play. At this point in the opera, the rustics were presenting their play to the now un-enchanted quartet of young lovers and the duke and duchess, all from Athens. One of the rustics sings a comic recitative punctuated by the second horn's low F. The second horn is the only instrument playing at this point. Though I can usually easily hit that F, this section comes after a fairly long stretch of not playing. In addition, the hall was cold! The note did not want to speak. If it didn't speak, then the singer was all by himself. I decided I would be able to hit it if I could "warm up" close to the time I would need to play it. In the dress rehearsals I realized that right before the recitative, the Athenians had a short section in which they just talked, loudly, as they were settling themselves for the entertainment. I could warm up the note without anyone hearing, under cover of their conversation. I played it, fairly softly over and over while they talked. It worked, and a lovely F came forth.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.maynestage.com/">Mayne Stage</a>, where A Midsummer Night's Dream was staged, is a restaurant and performance space. It reminds me of Second City here in Chicago, where you can have a drink and something to eat while you watch the show. Most of the audience sat at small tables. It seemed to me to be an ideal space for attracting an audience to opera - an audience that might not go downtown to an opera at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Because it is a smallish space, the orchestra was on the floor, with the brass section on a slightly higher level on one side next to the tables where patrons sat, and the percussion of the other side next to the tables. The action took place both on the stage and on the floor in front of the orchestra. It was a creative and practical use of the space.<br />
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I'd also like to mention our conductor, Codrut Birsan. He was knowledgeable, helpful, and clear! It was a pleasure to play under him.<br />
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If you have a chance to see this opera, go!Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-12845870374864941822015-09-27T16:29:00.000-07:002015-09-27T16:29:01.714-07:00IHS LA - The Search for a New Horn CaseOne of my goals during this year's International Horn Symposium was to choose a new horn case. When I bought my Jerry Lechniuk horn a couple of years ago, the previous owner threw in an old Marcus Bonna case with it. It was a usable case, but the straps were held together with added clips, the handles started wearing out, the backpack straps were uncomfortable, and the lining began ripping in places. It was time to replace it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original horn case</td></tr>
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One of the pleasures of attending a conference is visiting the exhibitors and, usually, buying stuff. There were many top-notch exhibitors at IHS LA. I planned to begin my search by looking at the very popular Marcus Bonna cases, but his booth was unmanned when I first visited, so I ended up looking at the Wiseman cases.<br />
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The <a href="http://wisemancases.com/">Wiseman</a> cases aren't like any other horn case. The opera case looks like a large briefcase. It opens from the top and you slide your bell and corpus into the slots made for them. It is called the opera case because it was made for working in tight performing areas, like the pit at an opera house. All Wiseman cases with zippers come with detachable zippers for easy replacement if the zipper breaks. You can just pull the whole zipper off as it is attached with super strong velcro. So practical.<br />
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It's an impressive design, but the newest case is even more impressive. It's made of carbon fiber, so it's almost indestructible, and it very compact, though unusual looking. I was really impressed with the design - The interior is structured to fit everything safely in the least amount of space.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wiseman carbon fibre horn case</td></tr>
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The story behind the company is quite interesting. Howard Wiseman made his first case, a bassoon case, for himself as a teenager who had to walk two miles and then catch a train to school and was concerned about the weight, awkwardness and size of his bassoon case. His teacher then wanted one, too. By the time Mr. Wiseman was 17, bassoonists throughout Europe had ordered cases from him.<br />
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I really liked the Wiseman case, however they are the most expensive cases I looked at. They do have a lifetime guarantee and would be ideal for an instrumentalist who travels a lot. I generally put my horn in the backseat of my car and drive to rehearsals, so I couldn't justify spending that much on a case. At the IHS Symposium the one pictured here was available for $1,800.<br />
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I went back to <a href="http://www.mbcases.com.br/en/tipo/brass/horn/">Marcus Bonna</a>, who was very helpful and happy to spend time talking with me. His company is located in Brazil and he makes a wide variety of horn cases, which are very popular. His newest cases include "baby" versions of larger cases and wheeled cases! I learned from him that my horn has unusually large corpus and would not fit in his compact cases. (The corpus is the body of the horn, minus the bell. These cases are all for horns with detachable bells.) Mr. Bonna had not brought his whole line of cases with him, so he suggested I go visit the booth of <a href="http://www.siegfriedscall.com/">Siegfried's Call</a>, a horn shop in Beacon, New York.<br />
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At the Siegfried's Call booth I met Scott Bacon, owner of the shop. He also had only a few cases with him. (It's expensive to bring large items and then you have to take them home if you don't sell them.) He offered free shipping on a case from his shop in New York. By now I was somewhat confused by the Marcus Bonna model numbers, and I did not want to accidentally buy a case that my horn wouldn't fit in. Scott sent me back to Marcus to find out exactly which model numbers would work. Back to Marcus Bonna, who suggested that the M5 or M7 were my best options. Back to Scott, who chatted with my daughter and I about why he doesn't stock the MB7, my daughter's case. The design has the bell, in it's soft slip case, sitting atop the leadpipe, because the corpus rest below the bell. Scott said the leadpipe can cause tiny dents in the bell when it presses down on the leadpipe.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEg4l8dEvnb8yOdvOVKnz9XfNpIadV2PypwO1bR5-g9v2h-YlK0MJg3MFXtTNmDYME_DR5C-8sOPW6uS8Vj3VB_zLmOIkyGGS09QS4KBpJ5oobMmFrpWLs9BxzRZM0ssDSu7meT4ulwG5T/s1600/MB5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEg4l8dEvnb8yOdvOVKnz9XfNpIadV2PypwO1bR5-g9v2h-YlK0MJg3MFXtTNmDYME_DR5C-8sOPW6uS8Vj3VB_zLmOIkyGGS09QS4KBpJ5oobMmFrpWLs9BxzRZM0ssDSu7meT4ulwG5T/s200/MB5.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marcus Bonna MB5</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marcus Bonna MB5 interior</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marcus Bonna MB7</td></tr>
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Both Marcus and Scott suggested I visit another vendor at the Symposium, so my next stop was a room filled with cases. A friendly young man helped me try both of the models. He did not feel that the MB5 was a good fit for my horn. Again, the large diameter of the corpus was the issue. It fit, but the horn pressed up against the sides of the case, which could mean potential damage. He suggested the MB7 was the best choice.<br />
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Back to Scott to see if he would order it. He again expressed and clarified his reservations about the MB7. Then he showed me yet another case! This one was a Cardo case. This had dense foam instead of soft padding. This was a case you could even check when you flew, it was so protective. It was harder to pack up the horn because the foam fit so snugly around it. It was more expensive than the Marcus Bonnas but less than the Wiseman case. I went off to think.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cardo case</td></tr>
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All of the cases I looked at are designed for cut-bell horns, and all come with backpack straps as well as shoulder straps and handles.<br />
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Just as I had when I was looking at the Wiseman cases, I came back to the idea that I don't travel much with my horn. In fact, this trip from Chicago to LA was the first flight I had taken with my horn. I don't need the extra protection of the Cardo case. I don't want to inadvertently damage my bell, so the MB7 was out. The MB5, the case that so many of my horn player friends have, was the one. I went back to Scott, ordered the case, and it arrived at our house in Illinois a few days later, before we did! I started my search for a case on Monday of the conference and placed my order on Thursday. It was time well spent and boy, did I learn a lot about horn cases.<br />
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<br />Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-51824657778887691332015-09-06T14:22:00.003-07:002015-09-06T14:22:37.478-07:00IHS LA, Number 1 Highlight!The International Horn Symposium in Los Angeles was seven days of highlights, but for me the biggest highlight came on Friday.<br />
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Our daughter Jamie had come with us. She and three other DePaul graduates, Renee Vogen, Parker Nelson, and Alex Laskey, competed in the IHS Horn Quartet Competition, non-professional division. They found out on Tuesday of the Symposium that they tied for first place, which was awesome! The prize was playing a short concert before one of the Symposium programs. On Thursday, they were told that they would open for the Berlin Philharmonic horn quartet the next day! Then if that wasn't exciting enough, the Berliners said they'd like to play a piece with them as part of the recital!<br />
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The piece they agreed on was "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," because the DePaul quartet, which goes by the name #Quartet, had that Berlin Phil arrangement in their repertoire. They had a brief run-through with all eight of them at Disney's BP Hall right before the recital. We waited impatiently downstairs in Disney Hall until the ushers let us up the escalator.<br />
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BP Hall is in an open area of Disney Hall, tucked in a corner but not walled in. It's a pretty space, but somewhat boomy.<br />
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The #Quartet opened with "Chicago." After the applause, an audience member asked, "So who are you?" After a brief chat with the audience, they continued with the Divertimento from Francaix's Nocturno e Divertimento. They finished with the very entertaining "If you were the only girl in the world," by Alan Civil. [Side note: I heard this quartet at the 4th IHS symposium in Bloomington, Indiana, played by Mr. Civil along with Shirley Civil, James Buffington, and, I think, either the 2nd or 4th horn players in Cleveland. Mr. Buffington improvised in the middle and Mr. Civil hammed it up. They had the audience rolling on the floor.)<br />
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Then the four of them took their bows and went to sit in the audience while the Berlin quartet performed their recital. The program was taken from their Four Corners collection and included the charming"Sous le Ciel de Paris," and the beautiful "Nessum Dorma." They not only play incredibly well, but they are very entertaining, talking between pieces in a light-hearted way. Before "Sous le Ciel de Paris" each horn player offered his or her favorite part of France:<br />
Sarah: "Fashion!"<br />
Stefan Dohr (patting stomach): "The food!"<br />
Stefan Jezierski: "The wine!"<br />
Andrej Zust: "The ladies."<br />
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They finished their program, took their bows and then invited the #Quartet up to play "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" with them. Jamie played first with Stefan Dohr and he graciously told her to take the solos. It was a lively, fun performance. Afterwards, there was much picture taking!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jamie and Stefan Dohr!</td></tr>
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<br />Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-67574458120370927502015-08-31T18:28:00.000-07:002015-08-31T18:28:26.230-07:00IHS Los Angeles, Memorable PerformancesIt is said that people who spend money on experiences instead of things are happier. My husband, daughter, and I attended the International Horn Symposium in Los Angeles at the beginning of August. We all agreed it was an amazing musical experience, sometimes overwhelming, but inspiring. There were so many different aspects of the week that I want to write about that I decided to focus on one aspect at a time. Today, performances.<br />
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There was an incredible line-up of horn players at IHSLA. The Berlin Philharmonic horn quartet, Dale Clevenger, <a href="http://www.andrewbainhorn.com/">Andrew Bain</a> (who was also one of the hosts), Tim Jones (principal of the London Symphony), <a href="http://www.shilkloper.com/en/">Arkady Shilkloper</a>, <a href="http://www.gailwilliamshorn.com/">Gail Williams</a>, Julie Landsman, <a href="http://www.jeffnelsen.com/">Jeff Nelsen</a>, <a href="http://www.hornquartet.com/home.html">The American Horn Quartet</a>, and on and on ...<br />
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Dale Clevenger is, in my opinion, one of the finest musicians alive today and his part in a recital that he shared with two others was a highlight of the week. He performed the Strauss <i>Nocturno</i> and several Mahler songs. These are not showy, virtuoso pieces - not technical, high, or fast. My husband described the performance as "transcendent" and "stunning." It was both. Dale is possibly the most musical musician I know. His son Jesse once said that when Dale plays, he lets the audience see into his soul. That was certainly the case in this recital. I feel very lucky to have been in the audience for this recital.<br />
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On Tuesday night we all trekked from the <a href="http://www.colburnschool.edu/">Colburn School</a> to the Hollywood Bowl to hear a Los Angeles Philharmonic concert titled "Hail, the Mighty Horn." The program was the world premiere of <i>Fanfare for 16 Horns</i> by Bruce Broughton, Schumann's <i>Konzertstuck</i>, <i>Der Rosenkavalier Suite</i>, and <i>Til Eulenspiegel</i>. A big horn night! The soloists in <i>Konzertstuck</i> were <a href="http://www.stefandohr.com/">Stefan Dohr</a>, Andrew Bain, Tim Jones, and <a href="http://sarah-willis.com/">Sarah Willis</a>. They were all wonderful. It was an exciting concert, especially sitting amongst scores of horn players. Conductor James Gaffigan announced to the audience that LA had been taken over by horn players and asked all the horn players in the audience to stand, which everyone did with great enthusiasm and loud whoots. I had never been to the Hollywood Bowl before (or to Los Angeles). It's a unique performance venue. We were sitting quite high up, so the sound was distant. I still think that Tanglewood is the ultimate in summer concert venues, but I'm glad to have experienced the Hollywood Bowl and very happy that I was at this concert!<br />
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The first night of the Symposium Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band played a concert at Cal Plaza Watercourt. This outdoor site is very attractive, with water fountains and plantings, and the weather was perfect for an outdoor concert. The program featured a number of horn players. The one who made the biggest impression on me was Arkady Shilkloper, a Russian jazz musician who plays horn and alphorn. The alphorn is a very long instrument, made of wood, that can only play the natural overtone series. This would seem to be very limiting, but Arkady does amazing things with it. The band was also excellent - a really fine big band. Here is a short example of Arkady on alphorn:<br />
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Friday night of the Symposium was the final concert of the American Horn Quartet. (Sadly, the Quartet is disbanding because of scheduling difficulties.) The concert was in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown LA. It is a huge, modern cathedral and the quartet looked quite small in the big, open space. We were fortunate to find seats near the front, and the sound was very good. The program was a variety of pieces from their repertoire, which includes everything from Bach to contemporary pieces they commissioned to Broadway and Mancini. They are an impressive ensemble - so tight, exciting, musical, and stylish. I feel very fortunate to have heard them. It was a bittersweet evening.<br />
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On Wednesday evening, the IHS took us all to the Los Angeles Theatre, an old movie theater from the 1930s. It seats 2,000 people and is a beautiful example of theaters of the time. It's very ornate. The ladies room in the basement features a round mirrored room (where I guess you would comb your hair?) and a nannies room, where parents would leave their children with the nanny while they watched the movie upstairs. The nannies room is decorated with a circus mural. We were at this particular theater to celebrate "The Horn in Hollywood." All the performers in this program were or had been studio players in Hollywood. The concert was a variety of horn ensemble pieces, some with additional musicians, interspersed with clips from <i>Hollywood Horns of the Golden Years</i>, a documentary. Both the concert and the theater itself made this a special evening.<br />
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I feel like I have included an awful lot of superlatives, but it was that kind of a week. There were many other memorable concerts and recitals - some I missed and some I heard. These are the ones, with one exception, that stand out the strongest in my memory. I will write about that exception in my next post!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The interior of the Los Angeles Theatre</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Stage for the concert.</td></tr>
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<br />Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-68917173419136397112015-06-06T16:32:00.000-07:002015-06-06T16:32:10.696-07:00Mozart vs. Korngold, or Why Mozart should not be the Poster Child for the 10,000 hours crowd<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mozart is frequently used as the example for how having three key elements - 10,000 hours of practice, an excellent teacher or coach, and focused practice - lead to extraordinary performance in any field. I have written before in <a href="http://lifeinflow.blogspot.com/2013/10/talent-nature-or-nurture.html">blogpost</a> and also in a <a href="http://horninsights.com/what-makes-a-mozart-video/">comment</a> about this idea, which is the topic of several books, including <i><a href="http://thetalentcode.com/">The Talent Code</a></i>. The basic idea is that talent is not inborn, it can be developed if you have those three elements. If you read <i>The Talent Code</i> it's clear that it's more complicated than just that, but many people reduce it to a sort of formula.<br />
<br />
It has always bothered me that Mozart is so often the example of the success of this formula. I kept thinking about <u>why</u> I didn't believe that Mozart's opus and legacy was the product of just these three elements, which he clearly had as a youngster.<br />
<br />
Mozart was both an extraordinary composer and a world-class concert pianist of his time. He also played violin and viola well enough to play in professional orchestras of the time. He is revered today as one of the greatest composers of all time and his music is frequently played. He had a profound effect on musical composition, innovating in opera, piano concerti, and symphonies, which changed those genres for all composers who came after him. His works are clearly his lasting legacy.<br />
<br />
Erich Korngold was a child prodigy, too. Born in Moravia in 1897, he began playing piano as a small child and composed his first works at age 8. He was often compared to Mozart. He was encouraged and his early compositions were acclaimed by Mahler and Richard Strauss for their originality and bold harmonies. He was asked to come to Hollywood and compose for films, which he did while continuing to write "serious" music. His film scores, such as <i>Robin Hood</i> and <i>Captain Blood,</i> are exceptional. After World War II, however, musical tastes had changed in Austria, and Korngold's work received poor reviews and small audiences. Today his concert music is rarely played and he is remembered mostly for his film scores. [Much of the biographical information here comes from the <a href="http://www.korngold-society.org/index.html">Korngold Society </a>webpage.]<br />
<br />
I heard one of Korngold's concert pieces recently and thought it was a very pleasant piece. When I listen to Mozart, I am drawn into the music because it is so much more than a pretty piece or an interesting work.<br />
<br />
Returning to the three elements for becoming an extraordinary performer in any field, I came to two conclusions. There is a difference between being an extraordinary performer and an outstanding composer/creator. The composers whom we consider great - Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, etc. - not only wrote outstanding music, they changed music for everyone who came after them. By changing forms, harmonies, and instrumentation, they pushed music to new places. No amount of coaching or focused practicing leads to this level of creativity.<br />
<br />
Second, look at the difference in Mozart's legacy and achievements and Korngold's. Both were child prodigies, both must have put in the 10,000 hours and the focused practice. Mozart may have had a better coach in his father than Korngold had. Alexander von Zemlinsky was his teacher, though for a much shorter period of time than Leopold Mozart taught and mentored Wolfgang. Overall, very similar background and opportunities, but quite different results. It's more complicated than a formula.<br />
<br />
I'm not saying that the formula of thousands of hours of focused practice and a great coach won't have results. I think that it will, along with a few other factors, like a strong desire and some helpful genetics. You are less likely to be an exceptional basketball player if you're short, or a top gymnast if you're tall. The same holds true for musical instruments, for example, I am a terrible woodwind player because I have double-jointed fingers. But I don't believe that you can create a creative genius on the level of Mozart with a formula.<br />
<br />
Tempting as it is to use Mozart as the poster child for the efficacy of developing extraordinary performance, he doesn't work for this. He went so far beyond extraordinary performance that he is in a category by himself.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-37331834703037556282015-05-11T20:17:00.000-07:002015-05-11T20:27:17.280-07:00L'enfant et les sortileges, truly enchanting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Chicago Symphony is currently presenting <a href="http://cso.org/uploadedFiles/8_About/Press_Room/Press_Releases/2014-15/FRENCH%20FESTIVAL.4.17.15.pdf">French Reveries & Passions</a> with <a href="http://www.esapekkasalonen.com/">Esa-Pekka Salonen</a>. We attended the concert last week that included Ravel's <i>Mother Goose Suite</i>, Debussy's <i>La damoiselle elue</i>, and a very unusual work, an opera by Ravel titled <i>L'enfant et les sortileges</i>, or "The child and the enchantments."<br />
<br />
The entire concert was wonderful. Mother Goose was quietly enchanting, and the Debussy was a very interesting piece, using a poem of Dante Gabriel Rossetti that tells the other side of Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven." In "The Raven" a man longs for his lost love who is now in heaven. In <i>La damoiselle elue</i> (The Blessed Damsel) the woman, in heaven, longs for and awaits her lover still on earth. It was an interesting, rarely heard piece, but the piece that really charmed and intrigued me was <i>L'enfant et les sortileges</i>.<br />
<br />
This short opera, with a libretto by Colette, tells the story of a young boy, possibly 6 or 7 years old, who doesn't want to do his homework. When his mother finds out, she tells him he must stay in his room until he finishes with only "tea with no sugar and dry toast." After she leaves he has a tantrum in which he smashes the teapot and cup, pokes the pet squirrel in his cage, pulls the cat's tail, knocks over the kettle, swings on the grandfather clock's pendulum and breaks it off, tears up his books and rips the wallpaper with the poker. When he collapses the enchantment begins. The furniture comes alive, singing that it's glad the boy will no longer attack it with his heels. In a series of arias and duets, the various objects express their points of view. Some of these are poignant, while others are quite funny. The CSO not only had supertitles projected onto the stage, but also pictures of which characters were singing at the time. So, for example, when the shepherds and shepherdesses come to life, we saw a silhouette type illustration of them on the screen. Of the eight soloists, only Chloe Briot, who sang the boy, had a single role. The others played several different characters.<br />
<br />
The interesting preconcert talk was given by <a href="http://cso.org/About/Performers/Performer.aspx?id=26410">Derek Matson</a>, a dramaturg who works with many Chicago arts groups. Among the insights he shared was that Ravel specified that the teapot must be a black Wedgwood and the cup was a Chinese cup. Mr. Matson explained that a Limoges teapot would be more typical for a French household, but Ravel wanted his teapot to be an American boxer, singing a sort of pidgin English during a foxtrot, while the Chinese cup answers in a French version of Chinese. Manuel Nunez Camelino, the tenor who sang the teapot, was a wonderful actor in all his roles. As the teapot, he used his arm as both the spout and a boxing stance, jabbing now and then.<br />
<br />
Another highly unusual duet is the Duo miaule, a duet between the boy's cat and a female cat, sung entirely in miaows. Mr. Matson told his preconcert audience that the first audiences had been outraged by this duet and made so much noise of their own, adding miaows and catcalls, that it was difficult to hear the music. Another of my favorite parts was when the boy discovers that only his mathematics book has survived his rage. "Mathematics" comes to life as an eccentric professor type, singing incorrect equations, and then the children's chorus, representing numbers, streams on stage to join him.<br />
<br />
The second part of the opera is more serious, moving into the boy's yard as the moon rises. There the animals confront him with the pain and harm he has done them and finally attack him. He realizes how cruel he has been, and when his squirrel injures his paw, the boy bandages it. This shows the animals that he has learned his lesson and they sing, "he is a good boy."<br />
<br />
Until this concert, I didn't know all that much about Ravel. I knew Bolero, of course, and the Mother Goose Suite, Rapsodie Espanole, Daphnis and Chloe, and of course every horn player knows Pavanne for a Dead Princess. I had generally thought of Ravel lumped together with Debussy, both impressionists. With this concert, I realized that Ravel lived further into the 20th century than I had realized. He died in 1937. This charming opera also demonstrated that Ravel was definitely part of 20th century music and is distinctly different than Debussy. At one point he has the chorus speaking their lines in rhythm, like sprechstimme, used by Arnold Schoenberg as well as other 20th century composers. The orchestra includes a lutheal, a hybrid piano invented in the early 20th century. There is whimsy and humor in the musical numbers, as well as experimentation.<br />
<br />
Requiring a full orchestra (including the rare lutheal), small chorus, children's chorus, and eight soloists, this an expensive piece for an organization to present. It's too bad because this is a delightful and eye-opening opera.<br />
<br />
Here is the cats' duet from the Glyndebourne Opera production:<br />
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<br />Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-62278677221609424142015-05-05T19:16:00.004-07:002015-05-05T19:16:45.592-07:00A Slice of Musical Life<div class="MsoNormal">
This past Sunday was a special day for me musically. The
concert band that both my husband and I play in had its last concert of the
year and our daughter, who also plays horn, and I were featured on a solo.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The road to this solo performance was winding and full of
roadblocks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every fall, any band member who is interested can audition
for a chance to play a solo with the band. Generally two or three players are
chosen. The first couple of years it was all woodwind players and I thought the
brass really needed to be represented. However, I didn't want to play a solo by
myself. So, I asked one of the other horn players if he wanted to audition with
me on a concerto for two horns. I picked this piece because it is one of a small handful of pieces for two solo horns with band. My horn player friend said sure. He also felt that we needed to
give the woodwind players some friendly competition. We planned to work on it
over the summer. Well, it seemed we were never in town at the same time. Fall
came and he said he just didn't have time to learn the part, which was quite
challenging. End of story, I thought.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was telling my daughter Jamie what happened and she said,
"I could do it with you." Well, she's not a member of the band. She's
a busy graduate student. She doesn't live with us, making rehearsing more
difficult. But she already knew one of the parts. So I said I would ask the
conductor if we could audition even though she isn't in the band. Much to my
surprise he said yes. She had filled in at one concert, so he said that was
close enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next challenge for me was that the part Jamie already
knew was the part that I had planned to play. So I needed to learn the other
part, which is very high. Both of us are really low horn players. Like training
for a marathon, learning this part required a lot of practice time to build up
the endurance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The piece in question is a "double concerto" for
two horns was written by Antonio Rosetti, a contemporary of Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart. Rosetti was German, despite his name, which he changed, probably
because Italian musicians were paid more than Germans in the 18th century. He
was a court musician in one of the many small courts in what is now Germany. He
had two outstanding horn players in his orchestra, for whom he wrote at least
17 concertos, plus 6 double concertos. His music is rarely played today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We auditioned last September and were one of three soloists
chosen. Our concert date was in May.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Next roadblock: The Band music is rental only. The school
district that sponsors our band ordered the music. Through some
miscommunication somewhere, the wrong concerto arrived. It was only 4 weeks
before the concert. The conductor told me he thought it was not possible to
return the parts and get the correct music in time to prepare it for the
concert. End of story, I thought.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But no, my husband was determined that we would play. He
called the rental company the next day and explained the problem so
persuasively that the correct music arrived at our house two days later! We had
two rehearsals with the band and then it was concert time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People are surprised that I get nervous when performing, but
it's true. This time, though, it was such a joy to play this charming little
piece with Jamie that my mind was only on the music and the pleasure of
playing. A perfect performance? No, but I think we communicated the spirit of
the piece. And we had fun!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seize the moment! So many roadblocks along the way and this
may very well be the only time that Jamie and I solo together in public. It's a
great memory to have. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2yzqLiBwXFmxQ2gXySopr4Of_ifpG5w5rIU2fHGe0dv13pnO3LRk7fNdGO6SB1mGk25GvS81Wwqc1vA9HNDi_sG6EFIDS2mDQGnsaAXQ9TAUnV1Eg_a9N5DXfIgijTOs7PYGdMmiVmpt/s1600/Rosetti.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2yzqLiBwXFmxQ2gXySopr4Of_ifpG5w5rIU2fHGe0dv13pnO3LRk7fNdGO6SB1mGk25GvS81Wwqc1vA9HNDi_sG6EFIDS2mDQGnsaAXQ9TAUnV1Eg_a9N5DXfIgijTOs7PYGdMmiVmpt/s320/Rosetti.png" width="278" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Antonio Rosetti<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">
A version of this post appears on my blog <a href="http://sherlockesque.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-slice-of-musical-life.html">The Game's Afoot!</a> </div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-15489043343015357032015-05-03T10:56:00.000-07:002015-05-03T10:56:01.170-07:00Five Things: A ChallengeThere was a challenge traveling around the education part of Twitter recently with the hashtag #makeschooldifferent. The challenge, begun by Scott McLeod (<a href="http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2015/04/we-have-to-stop-pretending.html">Dangerously Irrelevant</a>) was to post a list of five things that all start with the statement "When it comes to education we have to stop pretending..." I was inspired by the many lists I read, and I wrote my <a href="http://teachinglightning.blogspot.com/2015/04/makeschooldifferent.html">own</a>.<br />
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Then I began thinking about whether I could do the same for classical music - write a list of five things that we need to stop pretending about. We have all known for several decades that classical music has some serious challenges in today's world. Declining ticket sales, aging audiences, lack of music education in the younger public because of cuts in school music programs, perceived lack of relevance, and a limited repertoire are problems faced by American orchestras today. All these issues are acknowledged by the people who run orchestras. Many different ideas have been tried to bring new audiences in, to go out to the public, and to vary the types of programs that orchestras present. I don't see a lot of pretending going on. Orchestras know what the problem is, but haven't hit upon a surefire solution.<br />
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On the other hand, young musicians training for a career in classical music also face problems that previous generations did not have. There are so many music majors graduating every year that there is no possibility that even most of them will be able to get jobs in orchestras or related classical music areas. Robert Freeman, former director of the Eastman School of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music has written a book, <i>The Crisis of Classical Music in America </i>sharing his views on this problem. In a recent interview Freeman stated that 30,000 music majors graduate from American colleges each year. Not all of these will be instrumentalists seeking positions in orchestras, but it's still way too many instrumentalists for the number of orchestral openings each year. This means, Freeman says, "When you're in school, you're hoping to be the principal oboe. Then you get out of school and it turns out there are 500 candidates for the job, 100 of whom are perfectly well qualified." When I was an undergraduate, my teacher, Milan Yancich, told me that he used to get calls from NYC asking him to "send down a few boys to audition" (yes, boys). Music organizations actually had to solicit to get players to come audition. It was no longer like that when I was in music school, but it's much, much worse now.<br />
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So here is my list of five things. I'm writing as an audience member, music lover, and the parent of a young aspiring musician.<br />
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We need to stop pretending:<br />
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<ul>
<li>that technical perfect playing equals a musical performance. With so many well-qualified musicians auditioning, orchestras seem to be focusing much more on technical perfection. Quite a few great players of the past would have a difficult time winning an audition today because while the examples I am thinking of were outstanding musicians, they missed some notes.</li>
<li>that even a fraction of the music students now in school will be able to support themselves with traditional playing jobs. </li>
<li>that the traditional classical music concert is not intimidating and confusing to newbies. I was struck by a friend's first experience at the symphony. She didn't know how to find information in the program and so had no idea who was performing or what they were playing. And yes, this was an intelligent woman.</li>
<li>that the event of recordings, followed now by a tsunami of ways to listen to performances hasn't caused all interpretations to move to the middle. The eccentric, and often interesting, interpretations of the past are now a rarity. It can also be an incentive to stay home and listen rather than dress up and travel to hear a live concert.</li>
<li>that change isn't necessary. Change might be just the thing classical music needs. There are already signs that this could be true. Classical musicians are giving concerts in unusual locations, like bars. Musicians are talking to the audience at concerts. </li>
</ul>
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I go to a lot of concerts. I love classical music and the standard repertoire. I sincerely hope that classical music will continue to be important - it communicates with us in a way that no other art form does, and connects us to the past. It is a lively world with great ideas and wonderful people. May it evolve and thrive! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-21157681289573453232015-03-26T14:42:00.000-07:002015-03-26T14:42:37.578-07:00Dipping a toe into arrangingThe school where I teach has an annual Martin Luther King, Jr. assembly every January. It's quite a big production. There's music, skits, excerpts from MLK's speeches, and faculty and students, and often outside experts, are all involved.<br />
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I had taken part in 2013 by playing a duet with my husband - horn and tuba. We played Amazing Grace, which he arranged for us. It went well and added to the overall program, we thought. This year, though, the organizer, a fellow teacher, asked if I could put together an instrumental ensemble and "play something." I knew right away that this would mean arranging something. We would never have a standard instrumentation for any known ensemble. So I said yes.<br />
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I had not arranged any music since college. First I sent our a call for instrumentalists among the faculty and staff. I got one trumpet, one horn (me), one tuba (my husband), one clarinet/oboe, a mandolin/cello, and a percussionist. The only members of this new ensemble who played regularly were my husband and I. The percussionist told me very honestly that she hadn't played since high school.<br />
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Next, I went to IMSLP to search for spirituals in the public domain. I printed off a three-part arrangement of "We Shall Overcome" and an organ arrangement of "Deep River." I decided to set "We Shall Overcome" and wait and see if I had time to do something with "Deep River."<br />
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I had ideas about using the instruments to vary the texture and move the melody around. The biggest challenge for me was choosing a key that would be comfortable for everyone and still have a range that was musical. I also had to search online for a mandolin piece so I could see what the written music looked. I most definitely did not have time to learn Finale or Sibelius, so I had to write everything by hand.<br />
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Once it was done and I had copied the parts, we had a rehearsal. It sounded quite nice! There was an odd harmony in one measure, but we left it. The brass dominated, which was fine for this occasion. The mandolin could not be heard at all, so my friend the mandolin/cellist first thought he might amplify his mandolin. His second thought was that he was really more comfortable reading bass clef than treble, so he decided to move his part into bass clef and play it on cello. Since the parts were simple and the rehearsal had gone just fine, and everyone in the group was very busy, we decided against having another rehearsal.<br />
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We were scheduled to play first on the program, as people were settling down. Four of us were set and ready to play in the gym. Our cellist was playing with an amplifier in the music room, thinking maybe he would amplify his cello. I think the volume from the brass had him worried. Our percussionist was missing. We waited, but finally the teacher-organizer asked us to begin. So we played as a quartet, and except for one phrase of the melody that was too faint, it was good. I found out later that the percussionist thought we were playing at the end, not the beginning, so she wasn't there at the right time.<br />
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And so I learned 1. why band directors are so obsessed with details and making sure everyone knows exactly what they need to do and when, and 2. that arranging is fun! I plan to try it again. I have some ideas for horn quartets that I hope to try this summer. And the third thing I learned, or relearned, is that trying new and challenging things is rewarding.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-91653329386173006472014-12-07T08:13:00.000-08:002014-12-07T08:13:22.006-08:00Poking Around in the New York Phil's ArchivesThursday's New York Times arts section included a short feature about a bass part to Dvorak's New World Symphony, which the New York Philharmonic will be performing this week. The bass part can be seen online in the Philharmonic's Leon Levy Digital Archives, and is interesting because it was used at the premiere of the New World in 1893. It is even more interesting because of a drawing of a face on the part, a face that resembles Antonin Dvorak, who attended rehearsals for that premiere. You can see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2014/12/04/arts/music/20141204-DVORAK.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A5%22%7D&_r=0#1">the doodle here</a>, along with a slide show of other pages.<br />
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The Archives are full of interesting material. Being a horn player, I did a search for horn parts. Once I chose horn, I had a choice of composers and pieces and also of marked parts. I browsed several marked parts and was interested to see that the New York Phil horn players markings are much like the markings that all horn players everywhere make. Horn parts are often in a variety of transpositions and often change transpositions during the piece. While the key is marked, horn players everywhere write it in larger or circle the key since there is nothing more embarrassing than playing the wrong transposition. (For non horn players, this is a carry-over from the hand horn, before valves were invented. The horn player would change tubing to change key. Now we transpose - play different note than are written.)<br />
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Then I selected a second horn part to "Harold in Italy" by Hector Berlioz marked by horn player Robert Schulze. He seems to have had difficulty remembering the transposition change for the 4th movement, as it is marked with a circle, arrows, and a <a href="http://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/9c7c3bc3-5ecb-444f-94d1-4e6b012a08cd/fullview#page/6/mode/2up">skull and crossbones</a>. Schulze was a member of the horn section in the early 20th century.<br />
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Besides parts, you can search scores, programs, images, and business documents. I'm sure this is useful to music students, but also very interesting to music lovers in general.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRUGGwEynfxHLnv13u2NVaxrTwdR1RXTbu3ouEJDUOhyuyjIo2aLG0R0jTyO0L-1vA4kRUh9T-_ELdXIYcBjvmZ4V9emEsfpCohjKpB3A5wXI05Cs4ew7tVXit2kvYYrXtJzXlNziqfMm/s1600/Dvorak+photo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRUGGwEynfxHLnv13u2NVaxrTwdR1RXTbu3ouEJDUOhyuyjIo2aLG0R0jTyO0L-1vA4kRUh9T-_ELdXIYcBjvmZ4V9emEsfpCohjKpB3A5wXI05Cs4ew7tVXit2kvYYrXtJzXlNziqfMm/s1600/Dvorak+photo.png" height="320" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of Antonin Dvorak<br /></td></tr>
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<br />Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-81964788182353505622014-07-28T14:50:00.002-07:002014-07-28T14:50:39.908-07:00Perfection versus Musicality"To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable."<br />
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An article in the Sunday Chicago Tribune of July 20, 2014, titled "<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/la-et-cm-classical-auditions-20140713,0,1762699.story">A classic case of tryout panic</a>," delved into the audition process that aspiring symphony players must go through to win a job in an American orchestra. The article, written by Donna Perlmutter, focuses on the difficulty of winning an audition in an American orchestra today and the process involved in auditioning. What struck me most were quotes from several orchestra members stating that musicians auditioning today must be perfect. "'Today perfection is a requirement,' says David Taylor, assistant concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 'You must have flawless intonation, you must be a machine.'"<br />
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This theme of needing to play perfectly in an audition and the negative side effects has popped in a number of places recently, one of them being a remark by Glenn Dicterow, the retiring concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/arts/music/glenn-dicterow-discusses-leaving-new-york-philharmonic.html?_r=0">New York Times article</a>. "'It's a given that you're supposed to play perfectly, virtuosically,' he said. 'But maybe there's a bit of the generic quality in music making - people don't have as much individual style. I think that's just a product of the age we live in.'" Here in Chicago those great musicians with individual style included Adolph Herseth, Arnold Jacobs, Ray Still, and Dale Clevenger. You would not mistake their playing for someone else's.<br />
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A talented young musician of my acquaintance who has been taking auditions commented in frustration that at a time when orchestras are worried about selling tickets and continuing to have an audience for classical music, that the newer musicians joining orchestras are perfect, but boring, players, because that is what orchestras are looking for and hiring. <br />
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The Tribune article went on to discuss the audition process and how it has changed from an informal audition with the music director, often in his hotel room, to a structured process with much more involvement of the orchestra's members. Auditions today are behind a screen until the final round. Aspiring orchestral musicians spend endless hours practicing excerpts, the small parts of pieces that include solos and difficult parts for the instrument.<br />
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I was taking auditions 30-some years ago, mostly for smaller orchestras. Screens were becoming more standard at that time, which almost immediately increased the number of women in orchestras. Getting a job in an orchestra was becoming more competitive and difficult. I remember my teacher in college telling me "in the old days" orchestras would call up and ask him to send some players to an audition in order to give themselves enough to choose from. Part of the increase in competition when I was auditioning was from women, who dramatically increased the number of professional musicians when orchestras started hiring women more. Another factor was probably more graduates from more music institutions.<br />
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One of the auditions I took was for the Portland Symphony; probably 2nd or 4th horn. They were also auditioning for a trumpet position on the same day. The horns went first and took longer than the audition committee had expected, so they announced the finalists (including me!) and that they would hold the trumpet preliminaries next, then have the horn finals. After waiting hours for the trumpets to finish, the committee decided to continue with the trumpet finals, so we continued to wait, into the evening. Once we had finally all played, the committee talked and then announced that they couldn't decide. They would let us know later and we should all go home. My impression that day was that the orchestra was astonished at level of the musicians who had come to the Portland Symphony audition and this was why they had such a difficult time making a decision. In the end, they chose the local horn player who had been filling in.<br />
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The number of outstanding players has only increased in the years since. It appears to me that with all these wonderful players, orchestras have grasped at perfect playing as a way to pick musicians. What is lost, at least sometimes, is musicality and personality. The quote at the top of this post is attributed to Beethoven. It is undoubtably true. But to young musicians looking for a position today, it may sound like a luxury.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-60557485211646294832014-07-03T09:59:00.002-07:002014-07-03T10:01:02.340-07:00Technique and Interpretation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last week I had the opportunity to hear a short recital by a former student of mine. He was preparing to appear on the WFMT radio show <a href="http://blogs.wfmt.com/introductions/">Introductions</a>, which features pre-college musicians. He is a percussionist and played marimba on this recital program. He chose a varied program that was very enjoyable.<br />
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One of the pieces on his program was the Prelude from the Bach Cello Suite No. 1, which I have been working on, off and on, and which I <a href="http://lifeinflow.blogspot.com/2014/02/reading-listening-thinking-about-bach.html">wrote about earlier</a>. He played it technically very well and also did some lovely phrasing with ritards and dynamics. When we talked with him afterwards I complimented him on how musical that piece was, and he said that the interpretation was the challenge for him. He had learned the notes in about a week, he said, but then his teacher had him listen to numerous recordings and work on making it musical.<br />
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I know that technique is different on different instruments -- what's easy for me on horn is hard for you on some other instrument, and vice versa, but - a week! Of course, he spent much more time on everything that comes after you learn the notes and rhythm. That got me thinking about why we choose the music we choose to learn.<br />
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The Bach Suite is an excellent technical challenge for me - it's so difficult on horn. It's also been an opportunity for me to listen to recordings of the Suites and think about how to play this very notey music expressively. However, until I have more command of the technique, I can't really do much with the musicality. On the other hand, when I played the Symphony #4 by David Maslanka this past year, the notes were simple. But making musical sense was a big challenge. This extremely demanding work for band begins with a solo for horn alone. It is 29 measures of mid-range playing with easy rhythms and lots of long held notes. (The technical difficulties come a little later.) There aren't many expression markings. I was quite nervous about the whole piece, but mostly those 29 bars, so I got some coaching from a teacher. He didn't know the piece at all, but was a huge help in thinking about ways to use dynamics, articulation, and silence to create an effective introduction to the piece. I was happy, the conductor was happy, and hopefully the audience enjoyed it. I worked as hard on this solo as I am on the Bach, but in a different way.<br />
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The point of playing a piece is to make music and to communicate with your audience, and both technique and interpretation are important in achieving that. The balance of challenge between those two elements varies from piece to piece and from performer to performer. I knew this already, but sometimes there's a reminder, like my student and the Bach Suite.<br />
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If you'd like to hear the Maslanka symphony, there is a very good <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2xcMoQ6ML4">YouTube recording by the U.S. Navy Concert Band</a>, conducted by Mallory Thompson. There are lots of great recordings of the Bach Suites, including ones by Yo-Yo Ma, Pablo Casals, and Mstislav Rostropovich.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-38491872839060911802014-06-19T08:45:00.000-07:002014-06-19T08:45:25.425-07:00Mozart and SalieriLast week we went to a rehearsal of the Chicago Symphony. We usually get two invitations a year to open rehearsals and since it's now summer and school is out, I was able to go! Ricardo Muti was conducting and the program being rehearsed was Schubert Symphonies number 1 and 6 and the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with David McGill as soloist. Rehearsals are always interesting to watch, even when you can't hear what the conductor is saying to the orchestra, but Muti's are especially fun because he loves to talk to the audience.<br />
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In talking about the Schubert and Mozart works on this program, he brought up the fact that Antonio Salieri was Schubert's teacher. He added something along the lines of, "This was not the fictional Salieri, but a different Salieri." This real Salieri had in fact been very helpful to Constanze Mozart after Mozart died as well as being a respected teacher, according to Maestro Muti. Muti blamed the bad reputation that he has today on Pushkin.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang A. Mozart</td></tr>
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Pushkin! I have seen Peter Shaffer's play <i>Amadeus</i> twice, once when it was fairly new and again more recently. I've also seen the movie a number of times. I've also read the play, but I don't remember ever hearing that Pushkin was the first to have the idea of an evil Salieri driving Mozart to his early death. So I looked it up on the Internet. There are lots of discussions of Pushkin's short play, titled <i>Mozart and Salieri</i>, and you can even find the <a href="http://prosoidia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mozsal.pdf">complete text, in English</a>. It is twelve pages in all. Salieri is depicted as the well-trained, ardent, but uninspired musician, who admires Mozart's work and praises his genius. Mozart is immediately shown to be less serious, laughing at the way an old man mangles an aria from Don Giovanni on his violin. Salieri invites Mozart to dine with him, deciding that he must poison Mozart because Mozart is so superior to every other composer that none can ever match him. Mozart creates exquisite music that affects everyone who hears it and then he flies away, leaving no successor, so the sooner he dies, the better. A confusing argument; I think he is saying that Mozart is going to ruin things for everyone else, who all appear second rate in comparison.<br />
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The fictional Mozart and Salieri as drawn by Pushkin are clearly the basis for the characters in the play and movie <i>Amadeus</i>. Both Pushkin and Shaffer are using these fictional characters to explore ideas -- how does mediocrity respond to genius? What does genius look like? Why can't everyone with the desire who works hard also be a genius?<br />
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In <i>Amadeus</i>, Salieri hounds Mozart to death (no poison) by being the mysterious figure who commissions the Requiem, causing Mozart to believe that the Requiem is somehow intended for his own funeral. Salieri is driven to do this by the dichotomy between Mozart's incredible music and his silly behavior and scatological humor. Near the end of the play, however, Salieri obliquely tells the audience that he made the whole thing up. Unfortunately, what everyone remembers is that Salieri "killed" Mozart and that this fictional Salieri is, in the character's words, "patron saint of the mediocrities."<br />
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As Maestro Muti stated, Salieri has been unfairly maligned over the centuries as the evil nemesis who did Mozart in. Mozart has also been unfairly depicted, reduced to a child-like genius, his music somehow completely divorced from his personality. <i>Amadeus</i> helped with that misrepresentation, but didn't start it.<br />
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Incidentally, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote a one-act opera using Pushkin's play. The opera is also titled <i>Mozart and Salieri</i>, and it is performed now and then. There are several youtube recordings, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdMUBz55Ly8">this version</a> by the Chamber Opera Theatre of New York. The opera is about 45 minutes long. You can also get the <a href="http://imslp.org/wiki/Mozart_and_Salieri,_Op.48_(Rimsky-Korsakov,_Nikolay)">complete score and parts as a free download from IMSLP</a>, in case you want to follow along or stage your own production. IMSLP, the International Music Score Library Project, posts thousands of music scores, all in the public domain.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-73389705457802241152014-05-25T08:16:00.000-07:002014-05-25T08:16:04.234-07:00Gazing into the Crystal BallCatching up on my reading this weekend, I just read the New York Times article "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/arts/music/orchestras-in-albany-rochester-and-buffalo-stay-nimble.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DSectionFront%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3Darts%26t%3Dqry333%23%2FTested+Out+Upstate%3A+Classical%27s">Tested Out Upstate: Classicals's Future</a>," by Zachary Woolfe. The article begins with the demise of the Syracuse Symphony, and a look at what three other upstate New York orchestras, Rochester, Buffalo, and Albany, are doing to remain viable. As the mother of an aspiring orchestra musician, as well as a lifelong classical music lover, the future of classical music is of great interest to me.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The beautiful Eastman Theater, where the Rochester Philharmonic plays</td></tr>
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What are these orchestras doing? Much more outreach, more popular music, more themed concerts. The Chicago Symphony is doing all of these things, too, but on a more secure footing financially. The CSO has movie nights, where the orchestra plays the sound track to movies like Casablanca and audiences watch and listen. The Beyond the Score concerts take a multi-media look and one work per concert. There are concerts with receptions after them, aimed at younger concert-goers. The current themed concerts are "Truth to Power," a series on Soviet composers.<br />
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Some musicians and music lovers worry that some of the efforts to bring in ticket buyers waters down the mission of classical music. If we're playing and listening to movie music or Disney tunes or a crossover concert, is that destroying the essence of a symphony orchestra? Or is it simply a way to bring in needed ticket revenue? It probably depends on how much time is devoted to these ventures and how the orchestra handles them. Musicians have always had to play some "popular" music, though, along with the standard repertoire.<br />
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The Albany Symphony has the most radical solution and now hires its musicians on a per service basis, saving the orchestra money. This is certainly not ideal for the musicians who are now more like freelancers, working a number of jobs without the benefits of full-time employment. This situation is similar to that of "adjunct" teachers at colleges, who make much less than full-time professors and have no job security or benefits, such as health insurance, through work.<br />
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European orchestras don't have these problems. Funding for classical music seems to be a priority there. The Vienna Philharmonic has double sections of players because they also play the Vienna Opera, and there is something like a ten year wait for subscriptions to the Philharmonic concert series. I know, there are significant cultural differences between Europe and the U.S.<br />
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A comforting thought from Zachary Woolfe is that classical music has pretty much always been in trouble. Every new technology, from the grand piano to the Internet and iTunes, has been seen as a threat. This issue of new technology threatening the valuable aspects of the status quo is not new or limited to music. A wonderful book about about this phenomenon is <i><a href="http://www.williampowers.com/">Hamlet's Blackberry</a></i>, by William Powers. From the invention of written text, which threatened the oral tradition, to our current struggles with technology, change and the resulting upset are a constant in human existence. The title refers to a new tech tool in the 16th century, called a table in the play. This table was an erasable device, called a table book or writing table. It had coated pages that could be written on and then erased with a sponge quite an innovation in 1590. Hamlet refers to it several times in the play.<br />
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What does all this mean for young musicians like my daughter and her friends? They will need to think creatively and be flexible. Musicians are looking for new venues and ways to bring classical music to audiences. <a href="http://www.shuffleconcert.com/">Shuffle concert</a> in New York City presents audiences with a list a possible pieces, then randomly calls on audience members to choose the next piece. I recently wrote about <a href="http://lifeinflow.blogspot.com/2014/05/42nd-parallel-orchestra.html">42nd Parallel</a>, the new conductorless orchestra in Chicago. Concerts are being presented in places other than concert halls, including <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2012/feb/06/classical-music-in-a-pub">London pubs</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/us/05bcculture.html">bars and cafes </a>in U.S. cities. Interestingly, in Johann Sebastian Bach's lifetime there were no concerts as we have today, music mostly taking place in the church or the home. But, he did have some secular cantatas performed at coffee shops.<br />
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I love going to the symphony and other music performances. I am hopeful that our great symphonies and opera companies will continue and be strong, but I am also hopeful that new ways to connect with audiences will be successful, without "dumbing down" the music.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-63294536521068055772014-05-12T12:37:00.001-07:002014-05-12T12:37:20.756-07:00Mozart in Fiction: Mozart's MotherIt seems so appropriate that I should write about Wolfgang Mozart's mother on Mothers' Day, but it is really coincidental. I finished reading the historical novel, <i>Stitiches in Air</i>, a few days ago. The author is Liane Ellison Norman, who has written several other historical novels. <i>Stitiches in Air</i> is out of print, but can be found <a href="http://www.alibris.com/">used</a> and in <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/">some libraries</a>.<br />
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Anna Pertl Mozart is a shadowy figure. Not much is known about her. Her father was a part-time musician, as was her maternal grandfather. Her father died when she and her sister were very young, casting the family into poverty. Her sister died as a child. Anna married Leopold Mozart, had seven children of whom only two survived. From a letter that Leopold wrote to her asking her to find and send a piece of music, it's clear that she could read music. Anna died in Paris at age 57 of an unknown illness. Leopold blamed Wolfgang for Anna's death and accused him of neglecting her while he went out each day having fun.<br />
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Because of how little is known about Anna, any story written about her life will have be mostly invented, which is what Ms. Norman has done. I found the beginning of the book very interesting - a picture of Anna's childhood before her father's death in the village of St. Gilgen, followed by several years in a nunnery. The nunnery education of Anna and her sister is fictional, but it fits the story well. The "stitches in air" of the title refer to the bit of lace Anna holds in the one portrait of her, which may have been a way of showing that she was a lace maker, though we don't know this for sure.<br />
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Unfortunately, the remainder of the novel, though interesting, becomes more and more a statement about how the author views the plight of women in the 18th century, using the Mozart family as a canvas. I have written before about t<a href="http://lifeinflow.blogspot.com/2013/07/mozart-in-fiction-last-nannerl-novel.html">ruth versus fiction in historical fiction</a>, and I felt the same annoyance with this book as with several other historical novels about the Mozarts and other historical figures. Ms. Norman depicts Anna as a repressed musical genius, and Leopold as both a tyrannical husband and father and a lesser musician who passes her compositions off as his own. She hints that Wolfgang's early works were either written by Nannerl or Leopold. Later, Nannerl also becomes stifled as a musician, but who accepts her lot in life, giving up composing and performing, and even her desire to marry Franz Armand d'Ippold. In actuality, Nannerl probably did compose and give it up, but she continued to be a performer and teacher.<br />
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As the story continues, Leopold becomes increasingly tyrannical, turning against Anna, telling her that women composing is unnatural. There is quite a lot of discussion of witchcraft trials, related to women trying to do "unwomanly" activities. From the author's notes, her research shows that Salzburg had many accusations of witchcraft against women and a number of trials. Interestingly, Ruth Halliwell, in her very thorough investigation of the Mozart family, their correspondence, and the social, economic and political milieus of the time, does not mention witchcraft at all. To me this indicates that it was most likely not a concern to the Mozart family.<br />
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The picture of the Mozart family's life I carried away from this novel was very different than the snapshot I got from Halliwell's <i>The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context</i>. Ms. Norman paints a somewhat deary, isolated existence, with a few friends and social activities few and far between. Halliwell's study of the family documents shows that they entertained several times a week, frequently having friends over to make music, play cards, and shoot air guns at targets. Their circle of friends and acquaintances was huge. The family also regularly attended the theater. In their letters to each other, the Mozarts regularly shared jokes, including quite a bit of off-color humor. These fun-loving parts of life are missing from <i>Stitches in Air</i>.<br />
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The author includes an afterword in which she explains what parts of the story are factual and which events she created. In her afterword she refers to Ruth Halliwell's book, incorrectly referring to it as <i>Mozart's Family</i> and calling it "an elaborate defense of Leopold's good name." She does not list this book in her extensive extensive bibliography of references consulted. This leads me to believe that Ms. Norman did not read Hallliwell's book, as it is not a defense of Leopold, but an attempt to accurately depict each member of the family without the layers of myth that have accumulated.<br />
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Anna Pertl Mozart has appeared in novels as everything from an uneducated, coarse woman who swears frequently, to the musical genius of <i>Stitches in Air</i>. She was probably courageous, to have undertaken so much traveling in the 18th century. She was surely musical. As part of a fun-loving, sociable family, she must have enjoyed much of her life. But she will remain a mystery.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-16619820477487941352014-05-06T21:05:00.000-07:002014-05-06T21:05:03.068-07:0042nd Parallel Orchestra<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">42nd Parallel Orchestra at Unity Lutheran Church, Chicago</td></tr>
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We had the pleasure of attending a concert of the new chamber orchestra, the 42nd Parallel, this past Saturday. This was only the second concert of this group, based in Chicago. They are a conductorless orchestra. We found out about the ensemble because our daughter was playing horn in this concert. The members are all young musicians, many of whom are members or former members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. Civic members have been able to work with Yo-Yo Ma the last few years, and one of his techniques with the orchestra is to have rehearsal without a conductor. This sets the musicians up to listen more to each other and to discuss musical issues. We were told by a member of the 42nd Parallel that this was the impetus for starting a conductorless orchestra.<br />
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We really enjoyed the concert, which included the Overture to the Magic Flute, Haydn "Bear" Symphony, and Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. The theme of the program was classicism. The playing was energetic and enthusiastic. The players are very good and the group had an audience-friendly format with several members talking about the pieces. Unfortunately, sitting in the balcony we couldn't hear these introductions very well, but the downstairs audience was appreciative.<br />
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These musicians deserve credit for creating their own opportunities for music-making. As established orchestras continue to struggle to keep and grow audiences, and orchestra jobs are so difficult to find, new groups like the 42nd Parallel may be part of the future of classical music - musician-run and audience friendly, but still playing the great composers and pieces of our cultural history. I look forward to seeing what this orchestra does in future concerts.<br />
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If you are interested in learning more about the 42nd Parallel, the best place seems to be their Facebook page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/42ndParallelOrchestra?ref=br_tf">https://www.facebook.com/42ndParallelOrchestra?ref=br_tf</a>Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-1404799948127320472014-05-05T10:40:00.002-07:002014-05-05T10:40:21.427-07:00Memories and InstrumentsAn article in a recent New York Times, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/05/arts/music/a-critic-donates-his-cello-his-musical-past-to-wqxr.html">After Playing, Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow</a>, chronicled the bittersweet decision to give away the musical instrument sitting in one's closet, unplayed for years. The author is music critic Zachary Woolfe, who explains his own decision and feelings about deciding to donate his cello to the WQXR instrument donation drive. (The instruments will be donated to needy public school music programs.) He writes, "Those who have been musicians, even casually, will understand how unimaginable such a life can seem." Each person in the Times story had some regrets and a sense of loss, even while being pleased to help such a worthy cause. Perhaps the instrument is a reminder of good times, or maybe, like Mr. Woolfe, they hope that they'll take it up again someday. In Mr. Woolfe's case, he realized that he is much more involved in music now as a music writer, than he was as a cellist. That realization helped him donate his cello happily.<br />
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Of course, professional musicians who play constantly and depend on their instruments feel even more strongly about them. In 1979, Eugenia Zuckerman wrote an article for the New York Times magazine titled, "Rhapsodizing Over Instruments." She interviewed prominent musicians about stolen instruments, near losses, and injuries to their instruments. The quote from Isaac Stern, "It becomes an extension of the total you - body, head, fingers. You don't realize how close it is to you, how much a part of your body, until it is gone," summarizes quite well the feelings of most of the musicians interviewed.<br />
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She focused mostly on string players and the rare Strads and Guarneris, dismissing brass instruments with their lower prices. In fact, the article is a reminder of how much prices for all instruments have increased. At the time of the article's publication in 1979, a Stradivari had recently sold for a record $400,000. Today Strads sell in the millions of dollars.<br />
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Reading the article brought thoughts about my own unused horn, sitting under the piano in the living room. My situation is not he same as the people in Mr. Woolfe's article. All of them had stopped playing their instruments, usually decades ago. I still play, almost every day, in fact, but after purchasing a "new used" horn, I have stopped playing the old one. My new horn is so much better than the old one. It has made many aspects of playing easier and a lot more fun. However, I'm not giving up the old horn. It's an unusual model, made by the <a href="http://www.gebr-alexander.com/9.0.html?&L=1">Alexander</a> company of Mainz, Germany. Alexander makes outstanding brass instruments; the <a href="http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/ensembles/group/horns-of-the-berliner-philharmoniker/">Berlin Philharmonic horn section</a> all play Alexanders. My Alex is the model called the Heldenhorn, one of only about 20, designed and exclusively sold by my teacher, <a href="http://www.hornsociety.org/ihs-people/punto-recipients/46-people/punto-recipients/380-yancich">Milan Yancich</a>. He modeled it on his Geyer horn and convinced Alexander to make it.<br />
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I played that horn for more than 35 years, though I barely took it out of the case for quite a few of those years. It served me well. And, it's a connection to my past and to Milan Yancich, who was a huge influence on my playing. So, though my new horn is a definite step up, I will keep the Heldenhorn for now.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-28100314940151584462014-02-01T19:11:00.000-08:002014-02-01T19:11:25.793-08:00Reading, listening, thinking, about Bach<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We have a backlog of books at our house, waiting for someone to read them. A couple of weeks ago I was perusing the shelves after finishing the excellent <i>Island at the Center of the World</i>, a history of New Amsterdam. After slogging through decades of Dutch politics I was looking for something completely different and picked up <a href="http://www.arnoldsteinhardt.com/">Arnold Steinhardt'</a>s <i>Violin Dreams</i>. I had read his <i>Indivisible by Four</i>, a memoir about the Guarneri Quartet, several years ago and really enjoyed it. <i>Violin Dreams</i> is another memoir, this time about Steinhardt's musical education and his violins. He is an excellent writer, and I enjoyed this book as much as his first. A significant part of the book is about his teachers and how they taught and about how he worked on a number of solos. The Chaconne, from the Partita in d minor, by J.S. Bach, is a continuing theme through much of the book. Steinhardt worked on this piece throughout his career, each time approaching it with different questions and new ideas. For me, this was the best part of the book. The book includes a CD with two performances by Steinhardt, on different violins, separated by about 20 years.<br />
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Back in the early fall, I had signed up for a Coursera class from the Curtis Institute titled "From the Repertoire: Western Music History Through Performance." This was my first experience with Coursera, which offers free online college classes in all kinds of subjects. At the time I signed up, the school year was not yet in full swing and neither were my music groups. I also thought I could handle this class because I took several music history courses in college, so I had a head start! I successfully completed the first two weeks (out of 7) and then became overwhelmed by real life and threw in the towel. It was a demanding class, in a good way.<br />
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Week two of the class was on the Baroque and focused on the Bach Chaconne, the same piece featured in <i>Violin Dreams</i>. This included a video lecture, listening to a video recording, and an assignment to pick a variation in the piece and discuss the affect and how the variation fit into or differed from the variations before and after it. The lecturer had discussed the three big sections of the piece - major, minor, major - easy to see and hear! - and also that the variations were short - each being about 4 bars long. The challenging part for me was figuring out what was going on in the variation I had chosen, as well the ones before and after. This is a piece for solo violin and the harmony and melody are woven into one line. It's not like looking at a composition from the Classical era, say, where you hear a nice, clear melodic line. This is what I ended up submitting:<br />
<br /><br />The variation I have chosen to write about is from measures 80-83; by my count this is variation 19. <br /><br />I picked this variation because it has a plaintive, nostalgic feeling. In addition, the affect could be described as a sad longing, or a pensive melancholy. After the fireworks of swooping runs and arpeggios from measure 63 through 75, the melody begins to slow and calm in variation 18. Then in measure 80, the violin ritards even more and leaps into its upper register, then descending in sighing couplets. The last measure, 83, has an overall ascending line leading into the next variation. Though the rhythm is written in sixteenth notes, the tempo has slowed. The dynamic also gets softer, to piano, also lending itself to the contemplative, pensive mood. <br /><br />As stated above, this variation comes after an bravissimo section, with fast tempo and note values of sixteenths and thirty-seconds. At measure 76, the tempo becomes slower, marking a change and a new section. This variation, 18, has a repeating melodic figure that begins with an upward inverted arpeggio, then descends and once again ascends with a 7th chord. Variation 19 breaks this pattern with a leap from the ostinato pitch up and octave and a half, then followed by descending thirds or seconds, slurred. The following variation again has a different melodic structure, with groups of 4 thirty-second notes running up and down in groups of 4. Variation 20 also sounds faster because of the shorter note values, changing the mood with its quicker sounding pace.<br /><br />Variation 19 is toward the beginning of this section, which I think begins with variation 18. The texture here, in both 18 and 19, is a single line, with no double stops, while the rhythm in 19 is sixteenth notes slurred in pairs with an occasional thirty-second note figure added. This section is still in d minor. The harmonic progression is quite different from the opening statement of the theme. We now have a number of accidentals cropping up, making analysis much more difficult. The ostinato holds the section together, as the descending progression can easily be heard on the downbeat of each measure from 80 to 83. I hear variation 19 as standing apart from the technical fireworks that come before and after. It is a moment to step back, take a breath, and feel the longing in the line before we come to variation 21 with its impressive arpeggios. <br /><br /><br />My homework was successful. I got a good grade from my peers. <br /><br />Skip to January 2014. The music groups I am a member of all take breaks starting sometime in November or December and continuing into January. In January our Chicago weather caused some cancellations of rehearsals. Therefore I had no ensemble music that I needed to learn, so I decided to tackle the Bach Cello Suites, adapted for horn, as a challenge. They are a major challenge. I am working on the first and second movements of the first suite. The first challenge is purely technical - this was definitely written for a string instrument. It's not hornistic. Working out the runs and jumps has been a good challenge. But I also want to make music with these (even though I have no intention of ever playing them anywhere other than my practice space). It would be very easy to make them sound like etudes instead of a musical masterpiece. Bach didn't write much for horns, so I haven't played much except for the chorales, which aren't at all like the cello suites. It's such a different kind of music than what followed it -- Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler and on into the 20th century. I don't really know how to interpret the piece in a way that makes music and makes sense. I bought a recording of the Suites played by Yo-Yo Ma and have been listening to it. He makes it sound so natural and easy, though I know it's not easy even for cellists. I think I also need to read more about Bach's music to understand it on a deeper level.<div>
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Which brings us back to books! John Eliot Gardiner's new book, <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/books/bach-music-in-the-castle-of-heaven-by-john-eliot-gardiner.html?_r=0">Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven</a></i>, has gotten great reviews. I bought it and have started to read it. I'll report back in a later post.</div>
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Why all this work for a piece I won't be performing? It's much more fun to push to learn new things and test your limits than it is to remain exactly as you are. I expect to grow as a musician, with more ability and knowledge, which will make playing all kinds of music that much more interesting.<br /><div>
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Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-44160026869558469742014-01-28T09:40:00.000-08:002014-01-28T10:48:55.369-08:00Double TonguingSomehow I never learned to double tongue. Actually, I know how this happened. I had, and still have, a very fast single tongue, so for most of the times when one might double tongue, I single tongued.<br />
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For the non-brass playing readers, brass players start notes with a "ta," "tu," or "da," using the tongue against the top front teeth. When the speed of the notes is too fast to keep up by single tonguing "tu-tu-tu-tu," brass players switch to double tonguing, "tu-ku-tu-ku" etc., using the tongue for the tu, then pulling it back and saying ku for the next note. It's a very useful technique.<br />
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My teacher in college, Milan Yancich, assigned me double tonguing exercises, which I did half-heartedly. So I continued through grad school and Civic Orchestra single tonguing, occasionally faking a passage that was too fast for me to single tongue. <br />
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I have learned along the way that I'm not alone. A number of musicians have told me how difficult they find double tonguing. And I recently read that Rafael Mendez did not need to double tongue, because his single tonguing was incredibly fast. Mine is not that fast.<br />
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Fast forward several decades and I find myself playing first horn in an excellent band in my community. Several pieces on the program this past fall demanded double tonguing, including the Maslanka Symphony #4. The time for faking was over. So I pulled out the Arban book and started working on double tonguing, very slowly, every day. Progress was slow. If I tried to increase the tempo of the exercises too much, they would crash and burn. I thought I would never master even one page - Arban page 175. I really didn't know if I was going to be able to play the passages that needed double tonguing by the band concert date. There's the popular theory now that a person can become an expert by spending 10,000 hours of focused practicing. I have certainly spent more than that much on horn playing overall, and I really hope I don't need to spend 10,000 hours just on double tonguing. But focused practice is the answer, whatever one is trying to learn.<br />
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I did get better. I was able to use double tonguing on the concert, though not at full volume. For me, the experience of trying to learn something new that required both physical and mental effort was very fulfilling. Though I learn new things all the time, this particular technique was challenging in a way that most things in my life are not. It required concentrated effort, patience, and weeks and weeks of practice. And no, I have not mastered it yet.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-62761951447256596352014-01-05T15:47:00.000-08:002014-01-05T15:47:02.312-08:00The Alexander TechniqueOver the years, studying music and knowing musicians, I learned about a number of methods that have helped musicians, and other people, with physical problems. Most are methods based on learning to move correctly or naturally, including the Alexander Technique. I was interested, but there were various roadblocks to trying either -- scheduling, lack of practitioners in my area, cost.<br />
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Then the youth symphony that my daughter had belonged to sent out a notice that they were sponsoring a free demonstration of the Alexander Technique. My husband and I went. The Alexander teacher worked with several young musicians, including a pianist, a singer, a clarinetist, and a cellist. He worked with them one at a time, starting by having each play something of their own choice. It was clear they were all fine young musicians. He then worked with them - adjusting the way each stood, having them stand up and sit down, and walking each around while he gently guided by holding the nape of the neck. He suggested in a few cases that the young man or woman should be more still when playing -- that is, not bob around. Then he had the individual play again, the same piece as before. Every the difference was striking. Musicality improved, as did tone, and these were young people who already played extremely well! It was a very impressive demonstration.<br />
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I again thought about trying the Alexander Technique, but again put it aside because of my busy schedule.<br />
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Then some time ago -- maybe two years? -- I started developing a pain in my right shoulder when I played horn. It grew from annoying to "this really hurts" status over time. It also began hurting at other times, like when I used the computer mouse. Then I irritated my rotator cuff -- same shoulder, different spot, excruciating pain -- and went to the orthopedic doctor, who sent me to physical therapy. I told both the doctor and the therapist about the non-rotator cuff pain, but of course everyone' main goal was fixing the rotator cuff. Both thought maybe the same exercises might also fix the other problem. My rotator cuff got better (hurray!) but there was no change to the other problem.<br />
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So this past summer I decided that there was no better time than the present, and I contacted the teacher we saw do the demonstration. He is not close by; it is close to an hour's drive to get to his studio. However, he is an excellent teacher and a musician himself. I don't think I could have found a better teacher for myself.<br />
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So what is the Alexander Technique exactly? It's hard to explain. At my first lesson, my teacher asked what my goals were. I said I'd like no pain, or at least less pain, and maybe better posture. He replied that the Alexander Technique doesn't work on posture per say, but I could expect my posture to improve. <a href="http://www.amsatonline.org/">The American Society for the Alexander Technique</a> explains what it is in part as a way "to change faulty postural habits" and therefore enabling "improved mobility, posture, performance, and alertness and relief of chronic stiffness, tension, and stress." Many people learn it to reduce pain, but others, including actors and dancers, use it to enhance their performance. The technique was created by an actor who was having problems vocally. He began observing how he stood and adjusting to try to reduce tension, which solved his vocal problems. My teacher likes to call it "learning to leave yourself alone." You will feel much more relaxed at the end of a session, somewhat like you may feel at the end of a yoga class, though without the physical workout.<br />
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In a session, the teacher guides the student with hands-on adjustments in standing, sitting, and walking. There is also table work, in which the idea is to relax and get all body parts in balance. There are no exercises, like in physical therapy, to go home and practice. It took a number of weeks before I could keep the gains I made in sessions throughout the week, but it does happen. A bonus for me was having not just a musician, but a brass player, as a teacher. He gave me specific advice on holding the horn, breathing, and so on. I haven't finished with lessons, but the pain is mostly gone and usually controllable when it does appear, and my playing has improved in some keys ways, including breath control and use, phrasing, and less tension. All together this results in less nervousness, something I didn't expect. In addition, I usually just feel more comfortable, not just pain-free, but in balance.<br />
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It's not a fast fix and it's not cheap, but it really works! If you're interested in how the Alexander Technique helps musicians, take a look at this <a href="http://www.alexandertechnique.com/musicians.htm">site</a>. This site also has information and links to blogs and videos that will be useful to anyone interested in the Alexander Technique.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-171816612216161392013-12-30T10:12:00.001-08:002013-12-30T10:12:43.953-08:00Memorable ListeningA few months ago I got an email from ArkivMusic, publishers of Listen magazine as well as being a wonderful online source for classical recordings, asking me to participate in a survey. When I clicked on the link, the single question was "Please share with us your most memorable experience with classical music. This could be the greatest live performance you have ever seen or the most inspiring moment with a piece of music, a musician, a teacher or a place. If there is a single experience that stands out for you, we would love to hear about it." I closed the window. It's a great question. After thinking about it, I decided I couldn't answer it - there were too many memorable experiences to choose just one. I decided to write here about some of the many memorable experiences I have had with classical music.<br />
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Their question is really open-ended, but I decided for now to limit it to a few live concert listening experiences that made an impact on me.<br />
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The first concert that I remember going to was in the high school gym of my town, Neenah, Wisconsin. Rafael Mendez gave a concert. I was about 10 years old, sitting in the bleachers with my family. I was blown away by the sound of his trumpet. I was so focused on the music that I was oblivious to everything else. Shortly after that, when it was time to sign up for a band instrument, I started trumpet. Amazingly, I still have the program from that concert.<br />
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When I was 15 or 16, my high school band/orchestra director organized a trip into New York City to hear the Cleveland Orchestra with George Szell. By this time, my family had moved to Connecticut and I had switched to horn. The concert was in Carnegie Hall, my first visit to this wonderful hall. I don't remember the details of the concert anymore, but I remember the feeling of hearing this great orchestra, sitting at the top of the beautiful hall.<br />
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The summer after my freshman year at Eastman, I went to the International Horn Symposium at Indiana University. This is more than one concert, but the week-long symposium is one experience in my memory. This was the 4th IHS Symposium and there were a lot of big names of the horn world there, all of whom I had only heard on recordings (LPs!). Hearing the Chicago Symphony horn section, Dale Clevenger, Tom Howell, Richard Oldberg, and Norm Schweikert, playing the Schumann Conzertstuck with piano accompaniment in a recital hall packed with a totally silent audience of horn players was an unforgettable experience. I had never heard playing like that -- so perfect and exciting. I was also wowed by Alan Civil in recital, a completely different style than the CSO hornists, but equally exciting and very impressive. One of the pieces he performed in recital was Hunter's Moon by Gilbert Vinter. It's a novelty piece, very fun to listen to and play. At the time of this symposium, it was not well known, at least in the U.S., and was out of print. Now it's back in print and you can find performances of it on Youtube. No one plays it like Alan Civil did, though. Everything I heard him play was full of life and good humor. He also performed with a quartet made up of his wife Shirley Civil, Jim Buffington and Martin Morris, on a program that included a hilarious medley incorporating Der Freischutz, Jingle Bells, and a jazz improvisation by Buffington.<br />
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Jumping forward three years, I graduated college and moved to Chicago to study with Dale Clevenger, having convinced him to accept me as a student. (Go <a href="http://lifeinflow.blogspot.com/2010/10/morris-secon-remembrance.html">here for that story</a>.) There were lots of great reasons to be in Chicago in the mid-1970s, including the Chicago Symphony. It was the Solti era and the renowned brass section was amazing. Just listen to recordings from that time. As a member of the Civic Orchestra (the training orchestra of the CSO) I could buy tickets to Friday afternoon concerts for one dollar. The tickets were almost always for gallery seats, often in the last row, but that didn't matter. For reference, the regular price of the gallery seats was $6. The first Chicago Symphony concert I went to was conducted by Claudio Abbado and included Brahms 3rd Symphony. What I remember best, of course, is the horn solos, which were beautiful -- intrinsically musical, with an ease that made it seem easy (which it is not!). I have gone to many. many outstanding CSO concerts over the years, but this first one still stands out in my memory. You couldn't ask for a better introduction to the symphony.<br />
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I wondered what other people wrote in response to Listen's question. There are some wonderful stories in the winter edition of Listen, of concerts attended, recordings heard, and interactions with great musicians. You can read them <a href="http://www.listenmusicmag.com/feature/memorable-moments.php?page=1">here</a>. How would you answer?<br />
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<br />Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018029429566637094.post-78042939297364301132013-10-12T13:55:00.000-07:002013-10-12T15:11:24.428-07:00Mozart and ... Vampires?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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While I was searching online for yet another Mozart book, the novel <i>Mozart's Blood</i> popped up on the screen. It's a vampire novel! With Mozart as a character! How bizarre and ridiculous! I thought.<br />
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Then I started reading the reader reviews and many people liked the book. They complimented the historical and musical details and the interesting story. So I checked it out of the library.<br />
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I am not a reader of vampire novels. I read the first Twilight novel, mostly to see if it was appropriate for 4th graders (it isn't), and I was a fan of <i>Dark Shadows</i> when it was on TV long ago. But I haven't been interested in the avalanche of vampire novels and television shows that have appeared in recent years. As I read <i>Mozart's Blood</i>, it sometimes seemed to me that the vampire story was an awkward addition to an interesting story of a young soprano trying to succeed in the 18th century. This might be due to my own disinterest in vampires.<br />
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The historical details of 18th century Europe, as well as 19th century San Francisco, ring true and are a highlight of the novel. There are abundant musical details of the 18th century, too. I learned more about castrati than I realized there was to know. Author Louise Marley, who is a former opera singer, has also captured the essence of what it's like to perform in an opera and also the way musicians see and hear music, whatever the century. The main character, soprano Teresa Saporiti, was a real person and did premiere the role of Donna Anna in Mozart's <i>Don Giovanni</i>. Mozart is an important part of the story, though he only appears briefly, and his music is also important to the entire novel. And there's also a werewolf!<br />
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When I was reading this outside of my house, I kept trying to hide the cover. No one ever commented on it, but I felt somewhat like I did two summers ago when I was reading <i>Shades of Gray</i> by Jasper Fforde, which is a wonderful dystopian novel set in the future. Everyone who caught a glimpse thought I was reading <i>50 Shades of Gray</i> and wanted to know how I liked it.<br />
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Author Louise Marley has written a number of novels, several of which are about musicians. You can find out more on her website: <a href="http://www.louisemarley.com/">Louise Marley: Words and Music</a>.<br />
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If you want to check out the bizarre worlds of Jasper Fforde, he also has a website: <a href="http://www.jasperfforde.com/">http://www.jasperfforde.com/</a>.Becky Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02601160747887596384noreply@blogger.com0