Symphony Shortcomings

Ok so I just got home from rehearsal and that was absolutely horrible. Now I know what IBMs policy is on blogging, but I just looked through my Musicians Manual and it has no policy (nor will it ever) against expressing publicly a musician's displeasure in his or her own forum. So that's what I'm going to do now.

Sorry for the negative tone to the blogs this week - next week will be much better, I PROMISE!!

We are playing two pieces by Beethoven. The first is the Violin Concerto in D which was composed in 1806, right after he published his Heiligenstadt Testament. This was a remarkable point in Beethoven's life when he suffered from depression due to the deterioration of his hearing to the point that his "most prized possession" was gone. While in Heiligenstadt, he wrote a letter to his brothers (the Testament) where he addressed his increasing deafness and his depression that was the result. What is so amazing is that he wrote some of the most incredible music after this point in time - most agree it was his best and the music that followed was the compositions of his soul and for the first time music history saw in a new music era, the Romantic Era.

So this concerto has a mixture between the Classical Era and the new thoughts of the Romantic Era that Beethoven helped create. Problem is, our Symphony is playing it in the style of neither. I'm not sure how to describe it but there is no style or phrasing that gives a concerto such as this its character. Ruggero Allifranchini who is Associate Concertmaster of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is the soloist and is doing a marvelous job on the solo part. Too bad our conductor and its players have the enduring fault of never being able to follow the soloist. For two rehearsals now he is trying to get everyone to play at his tempo (which is the proper way) but we fail him every time. The concerto features some amazing melodies for Beethoven who struggled endlessly to create melodies (opposite of Mozart who had millions of melodies in his head and are still some of the most recognizable tunes to this day). Beethoven would struggle for that melody, but when he found something, the variations or the harmonic texture that he could create around that melody was what makes Beethoven one of the Great "Demi-Gods" of classical music.

But the concerto is the highlight of the concert this weekend!! We are also playing Beethoven's Symphony Number 7 and this is a Romantic Symphony (especially the second movement that has passion through and through). During Beethoven's Second Period, he composed most of his middle symphonies (including #5 which you would all recognize from Fantasia and #7 that we are playing) and used this period to change the sonata form that had preceded him during the Classical Era versions of symphonies. He placed more emphasis on the slow movement and the emotions that can be evoked in a minor key (such as this symphony). His Scherzos (3rd movement) had more driving motion than in the past, and the 4th movements were as important as the first movements in form and overall structure. So with this in mind, let me critique our performance tonight during dress rehearsal.

1st movement... sure, we pulled it off and although not perfect, it's playable and sounds like Beethoven. There is no phrasing whatsoever and no passion behind what we're playing. There is no contrast of dynamics and no ability to make the listener really understand the style of the changing events in Beethoven's life at time of the composition. 2nd movement is one of Beethoven's most famous works. The first premier of the piece - it was so well received that the audience demanded an encore of the 2nd movement. There will definitely be no encore tomorrow night or Saturday night. The tempo is marked 76 I believe but we're playing it closer to 90 which allows no room for any characteristic playing. Now I know I have the late Bernstein Recordings with the NY Philharmonic of a lot of classical standards (I know my buddy Chad loves all of these Prince of Whales or whatever recordings as much as I do) and Leonard had a tendency to take things a lot slower and laid back in his later years but during this 2nd movement, this is VERY appropriate to go under tempo. Not way over like we are. Doesn't even sound like a slow movement, sounds like we have a scherzo in that movement.... then the 3rd is even faster. To the point that there's no longer any drive, but a bunch of chaos that sometimes comes through as notes, other times comes through as musicians trying to play catch up. By the 4th movement, all of us are either too tired or too upset to care anymore and then we finish.

The La Crosse Symphony is a wonderful set of musicians with a lack of proper leadership. You can blame who you want and I can blame who I want - deal? Problem is that most of the musicians have so much resentment for our conductor and there is a history to that tense relationship and nobody from the Board of Directors will address this issue. Till then, the symphony players will continue to be unhappy and play out of spite towards their conductor, and the community will eventually realize the loss in quality to the musicianship. We have lost many good players over the years due to these "political" issues that remain unresolved and worse yet: unaddressed!!!

If you're interested in this concert, give me a call and I'll send you some CDs with the concert music on it. Much better than suffering through the 2 hours required to listen to everything. It's actually a lot less with the faster than Beethoven intended tempos but we're adding some reading of Beethoven's original letters to his Immortal Beloved to the beginning of the program. I'm trying to keep an open mind about this part at this point.

Another thing that bothers me is the fact that the reviewer for the La Crosse Tribune will show up Friday night and write the same standard review that he always writes for us. "Wonderful, one of the best yet". He writes that for every concert because God forbid we actually tell a symphony when they suck and need some kind of improvement. If he wrote that, ticket sales would suffer Saturday and that is the sign of a bad review, not the sign of a symphony with growing issues. It happens with every smaller town symphony! I promise. I publicly Challenge Terry (forget his last name at the moment) to write a pure musical review of our concert tomorrow night and compare it to other professional organizations performances of the same standard pieces and then tell me we couldn't do better. I believe we have the talent, just lack the proper leadership.

On that note:

Song of the Day - Anything by Beethoven. Beethoven was a depressed character most of his life that brought out some of the most amazing emotions to create the Romantic Period. With Mozart, you generally laugh and smile and he honestly wants you to enjoy the genius and light playfull like structure of his music. With Beethoven, he wants you to see what he sees, feel what he feels, dream what he dreams. Thus the life of a Romantic. Make sense?

Video of the Day - on that note, go see Immortal Beloved. It came out while I was in High School and has Gary Oldman playing a wonderful Beethoven. While the story is somewhat based on true episodes of Beethoven's life (his struggle with his younger brothers throughout life and his writing of many letters and dedication to an "Immortal Beloved" - but the revelation at the end of the movie was never proven accurate. While many scholars have guesses, no clear defined woman will ever emerge at this point. Something to ask him in Heaven someday;)

Webpage of the Day - Original score for Beethoven's Gross Fuge found in Pennsylvania and will probably sell for more than $2 million!!! Amazing. You can see how many times he wrote, rewrote, rewrote and rewrote again and again in his quest for perfection. Mozart on the contrast wrote most of his scores in first draft and claimed everything written was perfect and needed no alterations. Both were geniuses in different styles and approaches!

I leave you with a quote from Immortal Beloved that is always one of my favorites:

Exalt? Utter nonsense. If you hear a marching band does your soul exalt? No, you march. If you hear a waltz, you dance. If you hear a mass, you take communion.

It is the power of music to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer. The listener has no choice - it is like hypnotism.

On that note, HAVE A GOOD DAY!!!