Russian music on a snowy night

A little belated report on the Shostakovich 4 concert.

The weather was not good.  Snow came down late Friday afternoon leading to the usual chaos (snow?  in Winter?  Who would have thought it!).  So it was a reduced orchestra that met that evening at the Town Hall.  We had a good rehearsal though, worked through some of the tricky bits and it was great to hear the added harp, percussion and celeste.

On Saturday afternoon there was a better turn out and we had pretty much everybody there for a full run through of the piece.  It felt more secure than the previous Sunday and it was great having all the parts present. 

The concert itself was on Saturday evening. Sadly due to the weather the audience was much smaller than was expected but we still had about 150 people there so not too disastrous.  I sat with Oboe 4 in the balcony for the first half and watched the UK premier of a Russian piece.  It had some interesting percussion sounds and included whistling by the strings, key slaps from woodwind and blowing through the instrument (without sounding a note) by the brass.  Not really sure it is something that I would choose to listen to but it was very evocative and atmospheric. The first half also included  Britten's Sea Interludes which were much more my cup of tea and absolutely wonderful. 

The Shostakovich was in the second half.  I slightly messed up one of my more exposed entries which was very frustrating, but I also managed to get one of them absolutely spot on - which I'd never managed in rehearsal.  Overall I think it was the best that I'd played my part and the most confident I'd been in counting the bars I wasn't playing and knowing exactly where to come in.  The run through in the afternoon had definitely helped.   It is quite a mammoth piece and there was some stunning playing from the orchestra as a whole - especially the principal wind players who had some fiendish solos.  The percussion really lifted the whole piece and there were sections which were really quite sublime and spell binding.  I loved the percussive, almost jazzy, end to movement 2.  The brass chords with timps at the climax of movement 3 were also quite spine tingly! 


I think this was the most challenging orchestral piece I've ever had to play, but I enjoy challenges and I feel privelegd to have the opportunity to tackle this one.