The orchestra I seem to have fallen in with played a concert this afternoon in Tarzana. It was really hot. And silly me bought a car without air conditioning. Wow. HOT.
The horn section was really good today. Helen was there, of course. Alvin, too. And a student from Long Beach who is damn strong. Definitely in playing shape, and practicing hard. Helen was perfect, as always, making sure to pick up when I'm totally lost somehow, and when I'm just resting. It's an interesting mix, with Alvin and I strongly representing the rabid amateurs, and Helen and Adrian showing clearly the benefits of regular practice.
Let me ramble a bit about Dvorak. As a friend, also a musician, and one I've recorded for, said afterwards, it's like listening to calculus. And as a performer too familiar with Dvorak, it's also like performing calculus. I feel particularly qualified to make that assertion, having studied both Dvorak and calculus extensively. Dvorak is one of the staunch post-classicists. He followed Beethoven, Schubert, and was contemporary with Brahms. He composed music with form being one of the important foundations. Except he also wanted to explore chromaticism and romanticism. So his works are long. And very structured. And very long.
And he never quite figured out that the horn, while amazingly beautiful, is tiring. And dangerous. So, as our principal trumpet said, his works end up being horn solos with orchestra. Need a sweeping line to underscore the Celli? Add the horn. Need something with power to darken the brass choir? More horn. And since the principal horn is, well, principal, throw it all onto his/her part and let the other three rest.
I digress. And actually, I love playing Dvorak. Hopefully I'll be playing another of his works this summer. And, this last concert we'll be playing again on June 1, but here on the west side, safely distant from the hellish furnace that is The Valley.
2 comments:
Could be worse! Could be Tchaikovsky. I actually don't know how any horn player has made it through any of his larger works without assistant. It's one thing to be thrown in melodically with the other instruments, such as how Dvorak [ab]uses horn. If Tchaik was a composer today, I'd assume he just plugged all voices into a synth without any consideration for what the various instruments strengths and weaknesses... Endurance can easily be overlooked by even the best, but maybe I'm just a wimp!
Man, yeah, I played 4th on Tchaikovsky 4 once, and it took 8 horns to slog through. And we were all beat afterwards.
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