Happy October everyone! We’re getting into the last quarter of 2012. It’s certainly been an incredible year and we look forward to many more. This week we’ll be closing out the series surrounding Ovation Press editor Helmut Lipsky that we’ve been running the last few weeks.
In the meantime, I’d like to share something I recently read by another legend in the industry. Violinist Janet Horvath is probably most well-known for her influential work in musicians’ health, illustrated by her treatise Playing Less Hurt among many other works. However, I recently came across a piece she had written on the website Interlude where she talks about the many things that can (and do) happen over the course of a career in the concert hall. I found it a particularly interesting read. Those of us who have performed countless times can probably identify with some of these unexpected possibilities.
Janet Horvath’s Symphonic Shenanigans
Anything can happen at a concert and in the three decades of my career I have experienced some unexpected and memorable incidents.
Flying Batons
Charles Dutoit was the principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra in the 1980’s. He conducted with French elegance — his moves suave and lithe. We were performing the Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances when suddenly Dutoit’s baton went careening out of his hand and landed point down onto the ebony fingerboard of my cello between the strings. It broke in two, bounced back into the air and the pieces landed on the stage…
Marriage Proposals
[One] time, [a brave] person arranged to come onstage to propose. A microphone was provided and he announced his intention in front of the entire audience…
Outbursts
I remember a concert when a lady who was sitting in the very front row talked throughout the entire overture and the first tenor aria in the Messiah. Every other word, or so it seemed, was a swear word. She could be heard quite well by the orchestra and audience members around her. No amount of shushing stopped her. A colleague was so annoyed that he got up during the performance walked to the edge of the stage and asked the woman in no uncertain terms to please stop talking. She was distracting both to the audience and the performers. After several more moments of music, she jumped out of her seat exclaiming that the performance was too long and terribly boring and she left in a huff…
Chair Disaster
…I was sitting principal cello. From my vantage point I could only see [pianist Garrick] Ohlsson’s head. The rest of him was hidden from my view behind the piano lid. We began playing the thunderous opening to the Grieg concerto. Suddenly I heard a little squeal and saw Ohlsson’s head drop about a foot! I wondered what had happened. We kept playing. I couldn’t help but notice the considerable mirth from my colleagues that soon degenerated into raucous laughter. Ohlsson to his credit played the entire first movement practically seated under the piano…
To see the full stories of each of these examples be sure to check out Janet Horvath’s original article.
And the next time you experience a concert mishap, take a deep breath and remember that something worse has almost certainly happened to someone else… and they made it through!
Other stories from the Classical Music World
- Recently Michael Tilson Thomas and the acclaimed San Francisco Symphony “got down to the nuts and bolts of serious concertizing,” presenting a performance of Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in C-sharp Minor. One author has posited that this move, and others by Tilson Thomas, represents a bold shift in programming.
- Speaking of San Francisco, violinist Andrew Jennings performed Rochberg at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The SFCM is one of the few places to host a major performance of Rochberg’s rarely heard music.
- Classical pianist Lang Lang, who had some words of inspiration for young musicians last week, was featured in an interview talking about “Chopin, Classical Music, and Mr. Bean.”
Finally, Lang Lang gets some exposure in a different way… highlighting the impact of cartoons! A post revealed that one of his biggest sources of inspiration as a kid was the popular cartoon Tom and Jerry:
Lang Lang became who he is today by a cartoon. When he was a boy growing up in China one of the first contacts he had with western culture was watching a Tom and Jerry short dubbed The Cat Concerto (1947) which displays the Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 and from that Lang Lang gathered strength to go on and become a contemporary genius.
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