Blog
Berlioz Study Day
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It’s Sunday evening, and I’ve just got home from the first ever study day organised by SCO Education. We were delighted to welcome David Cairns, well-known Berlioz expert, to talk to us about L’Enfance du Christ which is being performed later this week. Not only that, but Robin Ticciati came along too and it was a privilege to be able to hear what these two think about Berlioz the person, the composer, and his music. |
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We were in the lovely surroundings of the newly refurbished Usher Hall, and with plenty of tea, coffee and sandwiches to keep us going we spent the day in the company of Berlioz. David talked about many of Berlioz’s compositions, and told us lots of great stories about the resurgence of performances of this music during the 1950s and 60s, and the group of people that really championed it, including of course, Sir Colin Davis. David is giving two pre-concert talks this week in Edinburgh and Glasgow, so you still have a chance to see and hear him in person. |
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It was such a great day with lovely enthusiastic music-lovers attending, that I’m really delighted we’ve introduced study days into our education programme, and can’t wait for the next ones on Schumann in March. We’ll definitely do more next season!
A VIOLINIST SLEEPS
I have been playing the violin since I was three years old. I attended my first violin class in the womb, and I gave my first concert when I was four. As I lay on the sofa after my recent operation, my sister pointed out that I was due a sabbatical. People have asked me whether I am worried that I might forget how to play, while I’m in plaster, through lack of practice. Well, I don’t want to tempt fate, but the way I see it, I’m as likely to forget how to count, or how to speak English. The violin, I have to assume, is hard-wired into my brain. And my brain has been up to some tricks, during this injury.
If you will excuse the indulgence, I’d like to tell you about my dreams. The only other time I have been so thoroughly separated from my instrument is when I have been on holiday. When I am on holiday I do not dream about my violin. At least for a week. After about 10 days, the violin starts to appear in my dreams. No matter how nice a holiday I am having, once I start dreaming about it, I start to miss the violin. I long to play it, to hear it, to feel it.
But now, during this break-of-breaks, the longest time away from the instrument in 3 decades, what do I find? I think, perhaps, my brain has done something extraordinary. After the accident, right from the first night, I dreamt about the violin. Every single night for a whole week, I dreamt I was performing - sometimes without and sometimes with the plaster cast! Then for a few nights the violin would just appear - abstract, and not necessarily in my hands. And since then? Nothing - the dreams stopped completely.
And so, when my friends and colleagues ask, ‘Isn’t it awful for you? So frustrating not to be able to play?’ Well my answer is, it’s not great, but it’s not like you imagine. I’m not fretting over the closed violin case. At some level, I have accepted that I am not a violinist at the moment - for two months or so. Just as my body knows and accepts instinctively that my left arm is not available for use - I do not find myself reaching out to do things with my left hand when I’m not concentrating - so my mind does not reach for the violin, not even in my dreams. That first week, I sweated out the fever of violin-playing as I slept. At a level of which I am only dimly aware, something else struggled with the shock of not playing for me - my subconscious seemed to confront my temporary but prolonged separation from my instrument. It has put the violin away somewhere, somewhere it won’t trouble me - for now.
Music Factory
Our exciting Music Factory project is now in its final stage. Budding young composers from Moray, Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh, Fife, East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire have been working diligently since November on their new compositions. Composers Alasdair Nicolson and Stephen Deazley have been overseeing their progress, along with small groups of our SCO musicians.
Pupils have not only had the unique opportunity to hear their musical ideas played back to them, but some have also had the bright idea to include themselves in the ensemble and rehearse alongside the professional musicians! Next week we begin the final process of recording their ‘World Premiere’ pieces, and we’re all really looking forward to hearing the final products of the project.
Strauss Recordings
I am just back from our fourth recording session of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. Sir Richard Armstrong is doing a wonderful job of piecing together this glorious work with an amazing cast of singers. It is sublime music and I know we all feel very lucky to be playing it! I don't think the orchestra has played it for nearly twenty years! Though, the string section is much smaller than usual: only using six of our fourteen violins.
Sir Richard Armstrong talking to the 'box' © Su-a Lee
Recording a CD is an interesting exercise. Every single time that red light goes on, you are on full performance mode. But you've also got to get it exact! There's a very fine balance in achieving the spirit of performance and atmosphere at the same time as being secure each time! I suppose it's a little like the tennis serves at Wimbledon matches: you give it your best shot on the first serve and if it hits the net, your second serve may be just that bit more 'safe'.
David, happy after a particularly good take! © Su-a Lee
Recording a CD when we haven't actually performed the piece before in concert, is even more of an interesting exercise! We are making discoveries about misprints and corrections at lightning speed. And however much we have all prepared our own individual parts, there are still a lot of fast adjustments that have to be made! We are very lucky to have Sir Richard, who knows the work intimately and is very efficient indeed.
We will also be recording Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme this week. I am hoping that, despite its fiendish difficulty, it will feel like a homecoming after having performed it twice last week!
Our newest addition to the orchestra, Eric (left).And notice, I'm
not the only one taking photos! © Su-a Lee
Concerts with Sir Charles Mackerras
We had all been looking forward to the week with Sir Charles Mackerras performing the mainly Strauss programme with great anticipation. This week was to be followed by a CD recording of Strauss' opera, Ariadne auf Naxos and Le Bourgeouis Gentilhomme, also conducted by Sir Charles. Alas, due to ill health, Sir Charles had to pull out of the recordings, though thankfully he was still able to perform the concerts with us. He has handed over the reins of the recording to Sir Richard Armstrong, who will continue the project as planned.
The performance week itself was wonderful. Sir Charles is much loved by the SCO and the feeling is thoroughly mutual! We had a great time with Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, which was brought to vivid life by Sir Charles along with his colourful verbal descriptions of the unfolding events. Right now I am actually listening to the piece on the BBC iPlayer Listen Again transmission of our Glasgow concert, and I can recall how he described the passage that I just heard, during our rehearsals. It is a passage in the final movement "Das Diner", a presentation of delectable dishes, where he thought that the harp's contribution " is possibly supposed to depict the burps!"
A special mention should be made for our Guest Leader, Bradley Creswick, and our own Cello Principal, David Watkin, for their exquisite solos throughout Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Although to be fair, the whole piece was full of beautiful solos from players throughout the orchestra.
The rest of the programme was equally enjoyable with a welcome revisit to Mozart's 'Haffner' Symphony, having recorded it onto CD with Sir Charles just a few months ago. And a joyous performance of Strauss Horn Concerto, played by the most wonderful Radovan Vlatkovic. It was great to see our newly-appointed Principal Horn, Alec, chatting with his mentor during the breaks.
THE COLD SNAP
While my colleagues are busy rehearsing Strauss with Sir Charles Mackerras today, I am painting my nails. Why? Well it’s this Siberian weather we have all been enduring - I’ve broken my wrist.
How did I manage it? Extreme mountaineering in the Highlands? Skiing in Verbier? At least at a party in some aptly named killer heels? I wish. I was just walking down the pavement in Barnes. Theoretically, it doesn’t get more genteel than that. But of course I slipped on a patch of ice.
The following 9 hours in A&E were not very genteel, or gentle, either. Sitting out in the choked corridors while the heroic staff coped with the six-fold increase in accidents, my mother and I did our best to escape to another world, she reading aloud to me from Patrick Leigh Fermor’s account of his walk to Constantinople in the 1930s. Nobody seemed to mind. And one manipulation, one re-setting, one general anaesthetic, 3 wires and 3 x-rays later, I’m sat in front of the fire, half way through the first part of the ordeal.
What I didn’t count, however, was the number of times in that hospital I whimpered to nurses, surgeons, consultants and anaesthetists, ‘I’m a violinist.’ Sometimes they responded with a nod, or ‘Right’ or ‘How nice’ while they carried on with their task. Making more chit chat, or perhaps filling out another form with my details, they would then say, ‘And do you work?’ ‘Yes. I’m a violinist.’ ‘What, a professional violinist? It’s your job?’ 'YES. IT’S MY JOB. IT’S MY LIFE. I’M A VIOLINIST. Please fix my wrist, and fix it well.'
Every musician fears injury. Mine, as they go, is a good one to have. Bones mend. Dancers and Doctors and Physiotherapists have told me it will be - eventually - as good as new. A lot of rehabilitation awaits me when I get out of plaster - perhaps 2 or 3 months. I will miss a lot of music in that time. The fact that I will miss recording the Strauss opera ‘Ariadne’ with my colleagues later this month caused a fresh rush of tears when it dawned on me, sitting in casualty. But Hospitals are a good place to remind yourself that things could be a lot worse.
And my hospital experience had it’s musical moments too. After my operation I was lying in bed and a volunteer appeared from the Hospital radio station, to ask me what song I would like to request. Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony was my reply - the last movement. I didn’t insist on this occasion that it was the SCO’s recording. And although the nurses had tried Morphine, Co-Codamol and Tramadol on me, it wasn’t until I heard the Beethoven that the pain really went away.
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