If like me, you spend a large number of days sleeping in a strange bed, that is to say, hotel beds, then you’ll be familiar with the sensation of waking up in the middle of the night and not knowing where you are. Last night in Luxembourg, seven of us were in a separate hotel from the rest of the band. It was across the road, but enough to confuse me. If I wake up in the middle of the night, it takes me ages to figure out where I am, a bit like falling asleep in a Bruckner symphony, but shorter. In a semi comatose state, I wander from my bed and am presented with multiple door options.
1. The door to the toilet
2. The door to the separate bathroom
3. The door to the small kitchen area/wardrobe (sliding door)
4. The door to the corridor
Which one is the bathroom?
I can immediately discount the kitchen/wardrobe door as it is a sliding door and even my bleary eyes can make this out. The rest? Well they all look identical. Now you already see my problem, choose the wrong door and I could be in the bath instead of the loo. Choose the other wrong option and I could find myself in the corridor with no key or clothing. In the days of smartphone cameras, a picture could be on social media before you can say iCloud security settings. I shudder at the possibilities. Fortunately I choose wisely on this occasion and slip back into bed to dream of home.
If you ask any touring musician about their theories on which bus to get on, they will be there for some time. Opinions differ on the options. In my previous life in the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, there were two buses on regular duty throughout the south west. One was called “the smokers” and the other “pond life”. Smoking had long since ceased on the bus, but the name stuck and implied that it was some kind of party machine – which it wasn’t. The other coach (“pond life” being a derogatory term for the rest of the non party-loving members) was supposedly quiet and studious-which it wasn’t. Nowadays, with a trip to the airport, the first of the three buses to leave is full to bursting with players anxious to enjoy the shortest queuing experience possible. With a long trip to Wiesbaden after last night’s excellent concert, the three buses enabled almost everyone to have a double seat to themselves, and so if you had watched this morning, you could see players getting on a bus, deciding it had enough of its quota on it, and then getting on a slightly less full bus. Incredibly, like some kind of natural phenomenon, the members of the LSO were equally spaced out across all three buses. Touring is like an anthropologist’s petri dish, with extra culture.
Luxembourg Philharmonie
The choices presented by any given piece of music are endless. I remember as a kid buying a recording of Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony. It was a cheap cassette, the cheapest I could find, and was conducted by someone I’d never heard of before or since and an unnamed studio orchestra. I found it thrilling, but my dad asked me why I hadn’t got a better recording. I remember replying that it was still the same piece of music and standing my ground. Dots is dots right? I had my stroppy teenage attitude quietened when I was presented with the legendary recording of the same piece conducted by André Previn. It was difficult to comprehend that the same notes on the page could produce such different results. That recording, which I still have, was the start of a long affair with the orchestra I now play in.
When we came to the start of this period of work, I was unfamiliar with the Mendelssohn ‘Reformation’ Symphony and so, as we do these days, listened to it on YouTube. I followed the flute part and acquainted myself with how it went. It doesn’t sound anything like that version now that John Eliot Gardiner’s got his hands on it! Same dots though. Funnily enough, I found myself having breakfast this morning with Commander Kathryn McDowell and we spoke about the performance from last night. The word she used for the opening of the last movement (See the last blog) was, ‘extraordinary’. She said that she’s never heard the wind section sound like that before, it was such a different timbre and she was very much aware of the words of the chorale, almost as if she could hear them being sung. This was heartening to know because, that’s exactly what we were trying to do. I half expect the audience to join in especially as John Eliot has requested even more fervour from us this evening – if somebody in the audience has a Damascene moment, I wouldn’t be surprised.
There are plenty of options in the Scherzo from Midsummer Night’s Dream (certainly in the breathing) for me. Towards the end of the piece, there is an enormously long phrase which must be played. There are tricks to miss out a note here and there to snatch a quick breath, but these are unsatisfactory in my humble opinion. If Mr Mendelssohn put a dot on the page, then you should probably play it. There’s only one way, and that is to take in as much air as possible and control the way you let it out. It’s called breath control. After the first performance, John Eliot spoke to me immediately I came offstage.
“Bravo Gareth! I don’t know how you do that, I mean, I can’t hear the breaths!”
“Good.” I replied.
“But, seriously, where do you breathe?”
“Er…at the beginning.”
The one thing you don’t want to happen is for it to slow down for obvious reasons. For some reason, this piece in anyone’s hands does tend to slow. Roman, our leader, pointed out that we had slowed down and pretty soon everyone was piling in with their opinions. John Eliot halted proceedings.
“Gareth? What tempo would you like the ending to go?”
It felt like everyone turned to look in my direction. I gulped.
“Er…the same tempo as at the beginning?”
In any case, the reason I awoke in the night and was confused as to where I was, was due to a dog barking, in fact several dogs. When I finally made it downstairs to make my bus choice, there were about 50 people in matching t-shirts with matching dogs. They were there for a dog agility competition apparently. Who said nothing happens in Luxembourg?! However, I immediately regretted not avoiding the water on the floor in the lift. I was recounting this tale to Sue ‘The Shark’ Mallet and John Eliot before the rehearsal in Wiesbaden.
“Well, at least you’ve got a day off on tour tomorrow.” said Sue.
“Oh, what are you doing?”
“Well, John Eliot, it’s not really a day off, I mean we are on a bus all morning travelling to Essen. We don’t get there until after lunch!”
“You should come with me on the river!”
“On the river?”
“Yes, Isabella and I are going up the river on an old steamer! You should come with us.”
I looked at Sue, who was wondering how I was going to deal with this kind offer.
“Thanks John Eliot, but I’m afraid as a member of the orchestra, that option isn’t really open to me.”
I pointed at Sue over my shoulder.
“I have to travel with this old steamer instead.”
I considered my options and left.
