Abu Bratsche

My favorite run-out

… is a concert we do toward the end of every season in a town called Fond du Lac (which, in these here parts, is pronounced “Fawn Doo Lack”). It’s an outdoor event in a lovely little bandshell at the bottom of a small hill in a grassy park. And they always serve brats and hot dogs for $2, and pie (rhubarb is my favorite) with ice cream for $1.50. And it’s only about an hour drive from my house.

iViolist

I was interviewed for a recent MSO podcast, for anyone interested in what violists think of viola jokes, the meaning of life, and sailing.

I played two Mahler 8s

or maybe one "Symphony of Two Thousand"...and I didn't even get this lousy T-shirt. But it was a nice event nonetheless; many standing ovations for our departing Music Director in particular. And it seemed like today, in particular, was a good performance. Of course, not being a fan of the piece, it's a little hard for me to judge. But the orchestra played well, the singers sounded great (hundreds of them), and Andreas got a nice flow going.

It was nice to see people outside the hall before the concert with signs asking for tickets.

Symphony of a Thousand

A thousand overly-optimistic dynamic markings, anyway. It's truly remarkable how often in the Mahler 8th I have to play inaudibly, even when the dynamic is mf or greater. I find myself having to remember to play forte in the rare passages where there are no singers. Just how many thousands of children did he have in his childrens chorus, I wonder? It takes a lot of kids to out-shout 12 horns, or however many there are back there (as a violist, my numbering system is "1,2,3,...many.")

It’s not a piece I know, and I haven’t heard the whole thing yet, beginning to end. So far the description that best matches what I now feel about the piece comes from Alex Ross in the current New Yorker: he describes “certain grandly bustling passages that can sound like official memos from the Gesamtkunstwerk Corporation.”

I wish I had written that.

The third rail of orchestral politics

... is individually-negotiated overscale.

Tribute to a departing boss

This weekend are the last subscription concerts we'll do under our current Music Director, Andreas Delfs (at least in his capacity as music director). We are doing Mahler 8 next weekend with Andreas, but as a special event. So this was the weekend in which gifts were presented and presentations were made. I was asked to make the presentation last night and this afternoon. This is what I said:

Good evening. My name is Robert Levine, and I’m a member of the MSO viola section.

We were sitting on stage one Tuesday morning about 15 years ago when a young German guest conductor arrived, said “good morning,” and began rehearsing the Schumann “Rhenish” symphony with tremendous authority. I vividly remember thinking to myself “definitely music director material.” I was so intrigued that I followed Frank Almond and him to Eagan’s and invited myself to lunch. I took away from that lunch four impressions: that he was really smart, that his English was better than mine, that he was remarkably poised and at-ease for someone so young, and that he was a rather cool customer. So at least I got three out of four right.

End of G.P.

It's been pointed out to me that I haven’t written anything for this blog in almost a month. It’s true – but it’s been a busy month. My orchestra had negotiations for a new CBA that concluded successfully with a ratification vote on April 28 (I sat in as Local 8 presiden)t. It’s not what anyone would consider a great contract, but it was a reasonable solution to the problems at hand. I’ll write about it at length, but our local dead-trees publication wrote about it here.

Behave

My old friend Patty Mitchell, the most prolific orchestra musician blogger I know, responded to a post of mine on the subject of young conductors as follows:

...I suspect some conductors might want to respond to Robert’s note. Not that Robert would do anything like the things that I find irksome, but I’ve grown quite weary of orchestra members who try to teach conductors lessons. I hate it when musicians stop listening. It can be really clear when an orchestra has pretty much dismissed a conductor. I hate the snide remarks some orchestra members make, and I’m especially upset when a musician deliberately plays crassly just because he or she feels the need to express some anger, or teach a conductor a lesson..

We musicians can be a tough crowd. I’ve seen it far too often. It gets very tiring.

When bad auditions happen to good candidates

My BBB Charles Noble wrote a short post pointing to a longer one by National Symphony bassist Jeffrey Weisner on the problem of orchestras holding national auditions but not hiring anyone from those auditions. It’s worth reading in full, but I’ll excerpt his main conclusions:

...the reality is that in most cases almost everyone on a committee wants to hire one of the finalists in every audition. The failure to hire someone is not a failing of the players in most cases - it is a failure of the audition committee and the modern audition system to properly function and do its job. Here is the real message you should take away from a "no-hire" audition:

"The committee and music director were too divided by artistic opinion, personality conflict, or lack of mature decision-making to select one person from among the candidates. Because of the requirements of the modern audition system, our only solution is to start again"...

Does this mean that it is always wrong when a committee doesn't hire anyone? Not at all. Orchestra jobs usually have lifetime tenure - this means that people on a committee may have to live with someone's musical personality for 30 or 40 years. By ensuring that the person chosen is acceptable to at least half of a committee, the audition system makes it more likely that there will be a harmonious functioning of the orchestra as we work on playing well and making music together. But there are definitely many times when the no-hire situation is a default solution for a divided committee and not the best choice available.

These are good points, and I’ve seen these dynamics play out many times. But, as a member of many audition committees for my orchestra (and having served on many in previous jobs), I’m not sure I agree that’s what usually happens in a no-hire audition.

We’ve had several in Milwaukee. For principal positions, they’re not even exceptional. Since I came here 21 years ago, we’ve hired sixteen musicians for principal positions. And we’ve had seven auditions for permanent principal positions that resulted in no one being hired. (My hiring 22 years ago was a second audition for the position after an earlier no-hire). So close to 1/3 of auditions for principal positions here do not end with someone being hired.

Having watched, or participated in, most of these, I can say that many (not all) of the no-hires did have the dynamics that Jeff Weisner described. But in most of those cases, there was not a great deal of enthusiasm for hiring anyone. And some auditions ended with a clear consensus that none of the candidates were good enough.

I can only remember one or two auditions where the committee, or even a majority of the committee, really wanted to hire one person and the Music Director didn’t, or vice versa. When the Music Director strongly believed in one candidate, that candidate got hired. When most of the committee strongly believed in one candidate, that candidate often got hired. Punting and not hiring anyone was generally the result only when neither the Music Director nor the committee were enthusiastic about anyone.

So why are committees and Music Directors so cautious? I think it’s because no one wants to make a mistake that’s hard to rectify. Even though new hires generally don’t have tenure protections and look very like “at-will” employees, they quickly become part of the orchestra’s community. Firing them is hard on everyone, protections or no. So probationary musicians usually get tenure.

That’s not a bad system. But it does place a premium on getting the initial hiring decision right. So committees and Music Directors are unwilling to take any more chances than are necessary.

That’s hard on those auditioning for jobs, I know. But, at best, only one person gets hired from an audition for an open position. Isn't it in that person’s best interests that they not be fired in two years? And all the people that weren’t hired because the committee and Music Director were cautious can always audition next time.

Instead of trying to fix this problem, how about talking about using the wonderful technology we didn’t have when we designed the current system 40 years ago to make this process better for everyone – those hiring and those wanting to be hired both?

Notes to young conductors

Us old farts sitting in front of you really do want you to succeed. And our definitions of success are not so different from yours. The major difference is that, while we want the orchestra to sound good every bit as you want it to, we also value efficiency (which is not quite the same as saying we'd like to the get the hell out of here as soon as possible, although that's generally true as well). And, of course, we also have our ideas about how the music should go, and can't help getting annoyed when a conductor has different ones and insists on them – especially one who really hasn't earned his/her maestro/a stripes yet.

So remember that, while authority is granted, respect is earned, and pay attention to your elders, even if they're sitting in front of you, bound by the terms of the labor agreement to do what you tell them to.

Conductors should be seen and not heard

Conducting is physical, not verbal. The perfect conductor would say nothing between “Good morning” and “see you tomorrow.” Every word you say is essentially an admission of failure, generally yours.

OK, so no conductor is perfect. But, if you have to talk, don’t use 500 words when five will do. Tell me what the problem is as concisely as possibly and let me fix it. I don’t need to know why it’s a problem (I can guess that) or that it’s wonderful except for the problem, or multiple rephrasings of the nature of the problem so as not to hurt my feelings. I need to know what the problem is and whether it’s fixed.

And please don’t enlighten us with your insights into the music, or your characterizations of the composer’s intentions, or anything else unless you’re really, really good. And, because you’re a young conductor, you’re not that good. You're standing up there to conduct, not to lecture.

Don’t let us guess what instrument you play

If you’re a pianist, please don’t spend any time telling the poor pianist how to play the piano. If you’re a wind player, keep your insights about breathing to yourself. If you were as good as the people in front of you, you’d probably have an orchestra job. And it’s boring as hell to sit in a sectional for another section. All you're going to do is to is convince us  that you don’t know anything about our instruments. We probably suspected that – but why spend time confirming it?

Keep your interpretive insights to yourself

As a young conductor, 9 out of the 10 really good ideas you have regarding phrasing and pacing will be stinkers. Even worse, you won’t know which of them might be the one good one in the pack.

So concentrate on getting what the composer wrote out of the orchestra. Not only is that plenty hard on its own, but until you’ve grown up and are able to recognize when you have a good idea, that’ll produce better results. And when you have grown up, you’ll find that you like the composer’s ideas better than yours anyway.

Don’t tell us we’re wonderful

We know when we play well. We assume that young conductors don’t know anything, so we’re not going to believe you anyway. Orchestra musicians like to be treated with respect, but obsequiousness is not respect. It’s manipulation, and orchestra musicians get enough of that already. It also looks like you’re trying to be liked; a surefire way not to be.

Update: by an odd coincidence, I bought a book this morning (for $1) at my library's coffeeshop/library deaquisition outlet called On and Off the Record, a collection of writings by and about the great British record producer Walter Legge. In is there is a chapter about Herbert von Karajan, whose career was intertwined with Legge's to a remarkable degree. He quotes von Karajan as saying about rehearsing:

If I don't raise my voice, they'll listen to what I say, and the less I speak, the more important each word is.

So follow his advice, even if you don't want to follow mine, and you too might leave an estate estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.