today's gratitude

...is for an evening orchestra rehearsal at the end of two snow days, and for practicing music even when there is no apparent reason to, except love.

Permit me to explain.

Two weeks ago, our orchestra read through the Vivaldi second flute concerto, with our wonderful soloist, Suzanne Bona. The concertmaster was away, performing with another ensemble, so I sat in his seat and had a grand time (see earlier post, from January). I absolutely adore Vivaldi; it's in my blood. The A minor violin concerto was my first ever, when I was 8, and I am pretty sure I could still play the first movement from memory, right now, if you asked me to. As a teenager, when a group of us performed the Four Seasons as a memorial for a young friend who had died of brain cancer, I got to be the soloist for Summer, under the baton of my dearly departed Todd Mucaro, and I swear I was in heaven right there next to my late friend during the performance.

So, there's a passage on the bottom half of the last page of the flute concerto, where the music indicates a semi-humongous series of classic Vivaldi cascades, or broken chords, modulating every two beats. I was the only one who played it, and I was under the impression that this was because it was too intimidating for the rest of the section to sightread such a virtuosic passage. I am oddly fearless, and I will sightread anything you give me, forte, if that is how it's marked, in front of just about anyone. If I make mistakes, which of course I know I will, I keep going, knowing that is to be expected and I'll work on fixing them later, at home.

When we reached the bottom of the page, my stand partner for the night, the lovely Laura, expressed admiration for my having survived the chords passage and I modestly accepted her praise, knowing that my success was partially attributable to adrenalin, and the awareness that if I had stopped playing, there would be a whole lot of nothing going on. I was eager to take the music with me to practice it, so that the next time I would do at least as well, without the benefit of a momentary hormonal surge. So I was disappointed when the conductor collected the parts to add bowings to them. We would have to wait to take them home.

The following week, we did not work on the Vivaldi, having new and more challenging music to learn. At the end of the rehearsal, I approached the conductor and asked, "would it be possible to take home a Vivaldi part, please? I would really like to practice it." He smiled indulgently and told me that if I followed him outside to his car, he had the music there and would let me take my part. I did, and while I was at it, requested and obtained a part for my carpool buddy, a very busy violist, so that she wouldn't be jealous. This is how I think, right or wrong. I have no idea if she wanted the Vivaldi, but because I did, it seemed like natually everyone else would, too.

The next day, I sat down to work, beginning with the first page. The notes were really not challenging until the flying chords on the last page. When I finally began to play them, more slowly than in rehearsal, I noticed a notation in Italian above the first measure. Solo viol. With a stab of mortification, suddenly I realized why nobody else had played this passage, and also why it was really unnecessary for me to have the part to practice. This was not something I would be playing again; it was the concertmaster's solo. I decided not to be embarrassed by my mistake, since it was (until now) an entirely private one, yet I could not contain my disappointment. My favorite passage in the piece, and I would have to sit back and listen to someone else play it - NO FAIR! (In case you did not already know, I'm very in touch with my inner five year old.)

I sighed and returned to work on the Elgar variations, mastery of which continues to elude me in many of its runs, but I did so with a heavy heart. I did not look at the Vivaldi again for days, and was deflated enough that I practiced less during the week than I had since joining the orchestra.

Last night, we were scheduled to work on the Vivaldi a second time. I was catching up with my second desk stand partner, Kim, when the conductor came over and asked me to sit in the concertmaster's chair again, for the night, since it was not likely Will would come through the snow to join us. We had gotten five inches of snow over the last two days, but nothing had fallen for hours and by now the roads were quite clear. But what happens in Cincinnati, which is nestled just on the northern side of the Mason Dixon Line, if you don't know, is this: people are endlessly surprised and panicked by snow, and pretty much everything that can shuts down as soon as it begins sticking to the ground, sometimes sooner.

Well, I was thrilled, of course, although suddenly I wished I had practiced a bit more. But I was very glad that I had ended my kids' second snow day by regaling them and their friends with the last page of the Vivaldi while they enjoyed an afternoon snack at the kitchen table. It wasn't much work, but it was better than nothing.

I thought the rehearsal was productive; the conductor worked hard to help us sound like we were playing early 18th century music instead of a just a repetitive series of notes and phrases, and we responded fairly well to his instruction. He told us he'll be sitting and playing harpsichord when we perform, rather than standing on the podium, so that in authentic baroque style, we will not have a conductor per se. He will lead us from the keyboard by nodding to us now and then, but we will really need to listen to each other to stay together. I found myself happily looking forward to the experience of playing the piece as a period chamber ensemble would, and even wishing that we could perform it standing up, as they did in Vivaldi's day, and as the conductor says he did at conservatory.

Near the end of the piece, I played the solo again, missed one bar in the middle, kept going, and otherwise did okay. When I came up for air, Laura was smiling at me and Suzanne paid me a compliment, presumably surprised that I had survived it a second time, and even improved a bit.

I was pretty pleased with the evening, except that it went too quickly and I felt a bit sad for a moment when rehearsal ended, suddenly realizing we had not rehearsed the Nimrod variation in the Elgar. Just before I went to stand up, the conductor appeared at my side and said, "I need you to be concertmaster for the Vivaldi, when we perform it, OK?" Taken aback, I deflected the compliment by blurting "because I'm here?" and he replied "well, we've just done too much work on it at this point." I gave my assent, trying not to look too gleeful, but I'm not sure why.

Because I really am quite thoroughly gleeful. Will is still the concertmaster, of course, but I get to sit in my favoite chair for the piece I would have chosen to, if given the choice. Which is a pretty wonderful turn of events for me. So, now I have some work to do, to make sure it is also wonderful for the rest of the orchestra, for Suzanne, oh, and for the audience, too.

If the Maestro is reading this, thank you for your confidence in me and for giving me this opportunity.

If you are not the Maestro, and you are thinking that you might like to attend the concert, it will be given on Sunday afternoon, March 7, at B'nai Tedek on Kugler Mill Road in Kenwood.

And now, I'm off to an audition, of a non-musical variety! Have a great day, folks.