I'm back home after a week in Kansas City, cranking out the fifth horn part on Christopher Rouse's percussion concerto, Der Gerettete Alberich. Perhaps it was a bit of karma that brought me to the KCS, considering the Rouse was on a program with Marin Alsop that I missed at NWS in April 2006 because of a trial period in Phoenix.
I'm glad I got a second chance at the piece. It's quite fun from a musical standpoint. As I suppose has to be the case with a percussion concerto, nearly all the melodic material is in the orchestra. It's well structured and was received with great enthusiasm by the audience.
Or perhaps they were just clapping loudly because they were all deaf by the end.
It's always good to see old friends, and considering last week was otherwise open in my schedule, playing was a better use of my time than sitting in Sioux Falls baking cookies and practicing. Some Guitar Hero was played, a lot of great food was consumed, and I had time to watch both a Packers victory and a Cowboys defeat that proved equally delicious. And considering that the five-hour venture on I-29 passes through Sioux City, I had not one but two opportunities to partake of Chick-fil-A. There was also one enjoyable but late, late night with a few friends in the orchestra and our soloist, Colin Currie.
This week, I trade the fifth horn parts back in for the first horn parts, and I am again accompanying a percussionist for money. Just a marimba this time, played by YCA Artist Naoko Takada. Sibelius 5 is on the second half.
There's also an overture on the first half by this guy, which is way, way too difficult for an overture on the first half of a program. It's one of those pieces that makes me rue the creation of music notation software like Sibelius and Finale. Unlike real musicians, MIDI playback can do anything on any instrument, over and over again, without ever getting tired. The result, all too often, is needlessly intricate parts that are non-idiomatic and often just silly. Does the composer really think that I, or any horn player, is going to be excited to pitch a tent above the staff, camp out for 12 minutes, and whack out high C#'s and D's when I still have a concerto and Sibelius 5 afterwards? Nope. Sorry. It's all going down an octave. When you are Mahler or Stravinsky, maybe I will bust my ass that hard. Until then, 8vb is the rule of the day.
I believe Rimsky-Korsakov said it best in his treatise Principles of Orchestration when he wrote that "orchestral writing should be easy to play; a composer's work stands the best chance when the parts are well written." A large part of what made the Rouse an enjoyable experience is that he writes intelligently for orchestra, with a clear knowledge of what is and is not practical - and practical does not necessarily mean easy.
The piece I will be playing this week is neither easy to play nor filled with well written parts. It is resoundingly unpractical. My part is some terrible combination of trumpet-like range and clarinet-like technique. Thankfully, since most of what is written is just color and not melody, it probably will not matter that I and dozens of my colleagues will likely be dropping notes and otherwise rewriting our parts as we go.
I'm glad I got a second chance at the piece. It's quite fun from a musical standpoint. As I suppose has to be the case with a percussion concerto, nearly all the melodic material is in the orchestra. It's well structured and was received with great enthusiasm by the audience.
Or perhaps they were just clapping loudly because they were all deaf by the end.
It's always good to see old friends, and considering last week was otherwise open in my schedule, playing was a better use of my time than sitting in Sioux Falls baking cookies and practicing. Some Guitar Hero was played, a lot of great food was consumed, and I had time to watch both a Packers victory and a Cowboys defeat that proved equally delicious. And considering that the five-hour venture on I-29 passes through Sioux City, I had not one but two opportunities to partake of Chick-fil-A. There was also one enjoyable but late, late night with a few friends in the orchestra and our soloist, Colin Currie.
This week, I trade the fifth horn parts back in for the first horn parts, and I am again accompanying a percussionist for money. Just a marimba this time, played by YCA Artist Naoko Takada. Sibelius 5 is on the second half.
There's also an overture on the first half by this guy, which is way, way too difficult for an overture on the first half of a program. It's one of those pieces that makes me rue the creation of music notation software like Sibelius and Finale. Unlike real musicians, MIDI playback can do anything on any instrument, over and over again, without ever getting tired. The result, all too often, is needlessly intricate parts that are non-idiomatic and often just silly. Does the composer really think that I, or any horn player, is going to be excited to pitch a tent above the staff, camp out for 12 minutes, and whack out high C#'s and D's when I still have a concerto and Sibelius 5 afterwards? Nope. Sorry. It's all going down an octave. When you are Mahler or Stravinsky, maybe I will bust my ass that hard. Until then, 8vb is the rule of the day.
I believe Rimsky-Korsakov said it best in his treatise Principles of Orchestration when he wrote that "orchestral writing should be easy to play; a composer's work stands the best chance when the parts are well written." A large part of what made the Rouse an enjoyable experience is that he writes intelligently for orchestra, with a clear knowledge of what is and is not practical - and practical does not necessarily mean easy.
The piece I will be playing this week is neither easy to play nor filled with well written parts. It is resoundingly unpractical. My part is some terrible combination of trumpet-like range and clarinet-like technique. Thankfully, since most of what is written is just color and not melody, it probably will not matter that I and dozens of my colleagues will likely be dropping notes and otherwise rewriting our parts as we go.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment