I’ve been thinking a lot about the artistic progression of my orchestra over the last couple weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 You can point all you want to how the orchestra sounds under its music director, but to me the real test of the artistic growth of an orchestra is how they sound under a guest conductor.<\/p>\n
I’ve noticed that, as an orchestra, we’ve become used to having things told to us: what sort of sound to produce, how to tune wind chords, how to listen across the orchestra, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 And those are good things to be told – that’s largely what the process of orchestra-building involves: the hammering home of basic concepts that had fallen by the wayside in years past, effectively teaching the orchestra new habits.<\/p>\n
But when we’re faced with a conductor who leaves a lot of decisions up to us (for better or worse), we have often times been at a loss as an ensemble.\u00c2\u00a0 But over these past two weeks especially, there has been a level of cohesion and group-think that has taken me somewhat by surprise.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like the musicians had a meeting and decided to get better.\u00c2\u00a0 It just sort of happened.<\/p>\n
The most striking change that’s started to take place is that the wind section just sounds spectacular.\u00c2\u00a0 The opening of the slow movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto was played like the wind choir (with lead voice oboe) piece that it is, with stellar contributions from all members of our wind section, lovely phrasing, good balance, and very pure intonation.\u00c2\u00a0 Five years ago, this would have been nearly impossible to achieve.<\/p>\n
The brass continue to sound wonderful, and have been adding a new level of refinement and a burnished tone to already abundant power levels.<\/p>\n
There’s still work to be done in the strings, where there has been some turnover in personnel (especially in the cello section), but even with that caveat, the level of playing is simply unrecognizable compared to the string section that I joined in 1995.\u00c2\u00a0 There have always been some very good, even great string players in the orchestra, but a critical mass has been reached, and the sound and flexibility that we’re able to achieve is improving with each season that passes.<\/p>\n
Hopefully in a few years we’ll be able to get our string complements back up to pre-austerity levels – an orchestra shouldn’t play Zarathustra with six cellos, ever! [o.k. – it was actually 8 cellos, as I was reminded tonight before our concert, but there is twelve part divisi in Zarathustra, and a normal complement is usually 10 in a section, and the big major orchestras use 12 violas and 12 cellos<\/em>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been thinking a lot about the artistic progression of my orchestra over the last couple weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 You can point all you want to how the orchestra sounds under its music director, but to me the real test of the artistic growth of an orchestra is how they sound under a guest conductor. I’ve noticed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[148,115,2],"tags":[3668],"class_list":["post-1467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-oregon-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-nF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":220,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/02\/23\/long-term-conductor-search-in-philly\/","url_meta":{"origin":1467,"position":0},"title":"yawns in Philly?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From today's Philadelphia Inquirer: In a surprise move made without the knowledge or approval of its full musician membership, the Philadelphia Orchestra has appointed Charles Dutoit chief conductor and artistic adviser. Dutoit, 70, a longtime and frequent guest conductor here who oversees the orchestra's summer series in Saratoga, N.Y., will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"dutoit.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/dutoit.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":279,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/16\/adam-flatt-to-newport-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":1467,"position":1},"title":"adam flatt to newport symphony","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Click for photo: Adam Flatt It's always gratifying to hear of a great musician and person who manages to succeed in this tough business. I just learned that my old buddy Adam Flatt (who was a conducting apprentice here in Portland just after I arrived) has been appointed as the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":593,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/15\/damning-article-on-seattle-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":1467,"position":2},"title":"damning article on seattle symphony","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times today published an article of not insignificant length dedicated to the Seattle Symphony and its intense level of discord between its musicians and its music director and conductor Gerard Schwarz. Music In Seattle, a Fugue for Orchestra and Rancor By DANIEL J. WAKIN and JAMES R.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"conductor Gerard Schwarz","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/16waki190.1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":200,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/02\/09\/how-to-be-a-conductor\/","url_meta":{"origin":1467,"position":3},"title":"how to be a conductor","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From the lovely, funny and talented Jen Drake of Darkwood Consort fame, enjoy! I must also say that these instructions (and very astute observations they are) can apply to conductors which are faced by orchestras of every level (both budget and artistic). Hey kids, who wants to be a conductor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.idahoviolasociety.org\/sitebuilder\/images\/img1-116x79.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":188,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/02\/02\/dallas-symphony-names-music-director\/","url_meta":{"origin":1467,"position":4},"title":"new appointments","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Dallas Symphony Appoints Zweden Jaap van Zweden, a 46 year old Dutch conductor (who was the youngest concertmaster in the history of the famed Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam) has been named as the next music director for the Dallas Symphony. Read the details here. It was widely rumored that OSO\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13315,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/29\/the-john-williams-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":1467,"position":5},"title":"the john williams experience","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow. Last night (Monday) was quite a night for the Oregon Symphony and the 2600+ lucky audience members on hand for John Williams' first appearance with the Oregon Symphony in its 118 year history. I cannot remember, other than the OSO's Carnegie Hall debut in 2011, a concert which so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static2.hypable.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/john-williams-book-thief.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static2.hypable.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/john-williams-book-thief.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static2.hypable.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/john-williams-book-thief.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}