Skip to main content

Can't Finish with the Unfinished

Photo courtesy: Unsplash.com

After much consideration, and conversations with people interested in helping me present the best concert possible, I have come to the conclusion I can't finish my concert with the Unfinished Symphony. The concern? If we play it beautifully, the soft ending relaxes people too much for them to get excited about the wonderful concert. We don’t want to hear the last chord float through the hall and the listeners all sigh contentedly. We want them to scream with excitement.
          The concert is labeled," Classic with a Twist." Perhaps the twist is we play the symphony in the first half, and the Handel Water Music as the closer. Lots of brass in the Hornpipe that finishes the Hamilton Hardy arrangement of the Water Music, and that should help pull people up out of their seats and get them cheering at the end.
          Beautiful endings CAN pull people out of their seats cheering, but too often the opposite happens. I've seen this, and you probably have too, in professional orchestra concerts as well. If the Houston Symphony can't follow a quiet ending with noisy applause, how can I expect to do so in a VCO (Volunteer Community Orchestra)?
          So the Handel Water Music Suite moves from first to last. We close with a Baroque composer, and to balance things out, we open with one as well: Corelli.
          Our VCO has never had a string person lead the group, and has avoided all-string music like politicians avoid lie detectors. Time to change that. At least the music part – I'll leave the political angle to others.
          The new plan is to start with the Corelli Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 8. Usually known as the Christmas Concerto, we just added another twist – Christmas music in September. If we don't label the piece "Christmas" I don't think anyone will really know – not like we're playing Jingle Bells.
          Open Baroque, close Baroque, but a modern arrangement of Baroque Handel that should make the audiences ears ring with the last trumpet notes. Cheers follow (we hope). More details about the pieces between the two next time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Picking My Program – The Big Piece

For the final audition in our selection process, each of the three conductors gets to rehearse and perform one concert. Each finalist chooses his (no hers involved, unfortunately) own program, based on a theme. Mine is “Classical with a Twist.” Not sure what that means.           The interim conductor, who unfortunately has the inside track on the final job here as in all other interim situations, will do the Christmas concert. This is another big advantage for the candidate let’s call T. We do two performances of the Christmas concert to accommodate all the attendees, since our hall is rather small. Good, but small. The other finalist, let’s call him M, will do the November concert.           I get the September concert, the first of the year. Good in that I can make the first impression and set the bar for the others, and bad in that ramping up is a slow process that makes for some sparse rehearsals. Many players don’t play in other groups, so they will be out of practice and sh
Post a Comment
Read more

Welcome to The Unstuffy Symphony

OK, here's the deal: I want to make my volunteer community orchestra as “unstuffy” as possible. Technically, the orchestra is not mine, at least not yet. I am one of three finalists to become conductor of a community orchestra in a suburb of one of the three major cities in Texas. But those details are for later.    I can tell you the truth because I'm hiding behind a layer of anonymity. After the audition process, if I get the honor of being appointed the new conductor, I will put my name on this and continue. If not, I may scuttle it but will more likely keep it anonymous as I try to make changes after somehow getting on the Board of Directors and start pushing for change from the inside.     What do I mean by an "unstuffy" symphony orchestra? Classical music of all kinds gets accused of being stuffy, pretentious, and elitist. Often those criticisms are warranted, at least about practitioners if not the music itself. At the community level, the 1,400 to 1,700 l
Post a Comment
Read more