Saturday was our orchestra concert, our programme was:
Borodin - Steppes of Central Asia
Borodin - Petite Suite
Glinka - Ruslan and Ludmilla
~ interval ~
Mussorgsky - Gopak
Mussorgsky - Night on Bare Mountain
Tchaikovsy - excerpts from Sleeping Beauty
It generally went a lot better than I expected it to. The afternoon rehearsal was really rather ropey in parts and I was a bit worried that it would all fall to pieces a bit. I should have known that my fear was unfounded. There were some challenging moments on the night, a few entries in the Glinka were not quite where they should be, we were not quite together for parts of Bare Mountain. But, overall, I think it was the best we had ever played the programme as a whole and, from my perspective at least, there were a few spine tingling moments that made me (once again) proud to be part of this orchestra. The shimmering violins in the Steppes of Central Asia sounded just magical, our 80+ year old Cor player who has been struggling with the solo part really pulled it out of the bag on the night and really did herself, and us, proud. The sound of the full orchestra really going for it at the beginning of the Glinka made my heart sing. In Bare mountain we all nailed the sudden stop before it begins winding up with the bassoon chromatic scale....you could have heard a pin drop. The solos at the end of the piece with flute and clarinet were just beautifully played. I really enjoyed my duet with the flute in the Sleeping Beauty waltz and I managed to get the scale right in the middle of it.
I hope that the audience enjoyed it as much as we did. We had a modest but respectable number of people there. I do wonder sometimes if amateur orchestras at our level are actually more fun to be in than to listen to - certainly our audience could have heard better performances elsewhere. But I think an amateur concert is about more than just playing music.
I loved this article about amateur orchestras - which can be summed up by the following quote:
“A typical effort will be littered with a continuum of faults. The problem is that audiences, weaned on the synthetic perfection of commercial recordings, tend to be unthinkingly intolerant of faults in even live professional performances, let alone amateur ones. I argue (long and hard) that audiences must tailor their expectations, just as do those who tolerate the sound of ancient recordings, to 'listen through' the surface imperfections to the music that lies beneath. The tolerant are richly rewarded. Enthusiastic amateurs, perpetually striving against their limitations, restore to Music what is lost to the prosaic professional: the elements of risk and danger; the familiar becomes new, challenging, exciting!”
On Saturday we certainly stepped out of our comfort zone, it was risky for us but exhilerating to feel like we succeeded in pulling it off. Now on to the next one, continuing to strive against our limitiations...
Showing posts with label Borodin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borodin. Show all posts
Monday, 19 March 2012
Friday, 24 February 2012
"Non-lesson" practice piling up!
I've suddenly realised that I have an awful lot of orchestral pieces to practice - in addition to normal lesson work and that maybe I need to be a bit more organised about it. So I spent last night doing a review to see where I am up to with everything and which pieces need some personal practice, in the hope that it will then seem more manageable. This is what I came up with:
Regular Orchestra (concert 17th March, 4 orchestral rehearsals to go)
Borodin- Steppes of Central Asia - no issues
Tchaikowsky - Sleeping Beauty - think I've sorted the scalic runs now so should be fine.
Glinka - Russlan and Ludmilla - again, although fast, the notes are fairly straightforward.
Borodin - Petit Suite - small sections in the final movement that I need to look at - I need to process all the double sharps!
Mussorgsky - Night on Bare Mountain - most of this is OK but I think I need to go through a couple of times on my own to tidy up bits.
Overall pretty good shape with a little bit of tidying up to do.
Teacher's orchestra (concert 21 April, 7 orchestral rehearsals to go)
Stravinsky - Rite of Spring - lots of issues!
Actually part 1 is in pretty good shape. I need to keep working on part 2, mainly slow work with metronome to try and get the rhythm right and then keep speeding up. Quite a long way to go on this with a good number of rehearsals so hopefully it will come together.
Regular Orchestra (concert 19 May)
We will start work on this after the March concert - have no idea what the programme will be yet!
Playday "Superorchestra" - (concert 16 June, rehearsals on the day only!)
Gershwin - American in Paris
Stravinsky - Firebird (extract)
Walton - Crown Imperial
I need to keep plugging away at these, a little every day. I will get some recordings of them to help, in the absence of rehearsals. The Walton seems reasonably straight forward apart from the speed! So I am just clicking up the metronome bit by bit.
Firebird is more straight fowrard than Rite of Spring and we are only doing an extract. I've worked through about a quarter of it so far.
Gershwin I've not really look yet, it looks rhythmically complicated and it is quite long so I need to get stuck into this.
I'd liked to have at least played my way through all of these by the end of March so then it will just be a case of getting the speed up and working on the trickiest bits.
Conclusion
It's kind of in hand - I need a bit of a push this week for March concert and can then focus on Rite of Spring while still doing 5 minutes a day on the stuff for June. And yes it does feel more manageable now.
Regular Orchestra (concert 17th March, 4 orchestral rehearsals to go)
Borodin- Steppes of Central Asia - no issues
Tchaikowsky - Sleeping Beauty - think I've sorted the scalic runs now so should be fine.
Glinka - Russlan and Ludmilla - again, although fast, the notes are fairly straightforward.
Borodin - Petit Suite - small sections in the final movement that I need to look at - I need to process all the double sharps!
Mussorgsky - Night on Bare Mountain - most of this is OK but I think I need to go through a couple of times on my own to tidy up bits.
Overall pretty good shape with a little bit of tidying up to do.
Teacher's orchestra (concert 21 April, 7 orchestral rehearsals to go)
Stravinsky - Rite of Spring - lots of issues!
Actually part 1 is in pretty good shape. I need to keep working on part 2, mainly slow work with metronome to try and get the rhythm right and then keep speeding up. Quite a long way to go on this with a good number of rehearsals so hopefully it will come together.
Regular Orchestra (concert 19 May)
We will start work on this after the March concert - have no idea what the programme will be yet!
Playday "Superorchestra" - (concert 16 June, rehearsals on the day only!)
Gershwin - American in Paris
Stravinsky - Firebird (extract)
Walton - Crown Imperial
I need to keep plugging away at these, a little every day. I will get some recordings of them to help, in the absence of rehearsals. The Walton seems reasonably straight forward apart from the speed! So I am just clicking up the metronome bit by bit.
Firebird is more straight fowrard than Rite of Spring and we are only doing an extract. I've worked through about a quarter of it so far.
Gershwin I've not really look yet, it looks rhythmically complicated and it is quite long so I need to get stuck into this.
I'd liked to have at least played my way through all of these by the end of March so then it will just be a case of getting the speed up and working on the trickiest bits.
Conclusion
It's kind of in hand - I need a bit of a push this week for March concert and can then focus on Rite of Spring while still doing 5 minutes a day on the stuff for June. And yes it does feel more manageable now.
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Glinka and Borodin
It seems to have been a very busy week, and although I have found time to practice, I haven't found time to write about practicing. It has been ticking along in the background though.
I really enjoyed orchestra practice last night. I usually enjoy it but it did feel like a particularly good rehearsal to me, mainly becuase my reed was working particularly well which always makes everything a little better. We also worked on some really nice pieces of music:
Glinka - Ruslan and Ludmilla. This is quite a fun piece to play, we certainly don't play it at the speed that a professional orchestra would it does roll along quite nicely. It also has a very recognisable tune that sticks in your head for days afterwards. There are som very woodwind sections with parts interlinking - but overall it isn't really too complicated.
Borodin - Petit Suite. we've been working on bits of this over the last few weeks but this was the first time we had a full play through all of the movements that we will be doing. There are 7 movements but we will only be doing 5 in the concert. This was originally written as piano duet but was later orchestrated by someone else. The piano origins show themselves most in the Mazurka, I think, which isn't terribly interesting as an orchestral piece. The rest of movements are rather nice though. There are some tricky corners in this that I need to look at in my practice. The scherzo at the end has some rather fiendish chromatic sections with sharps and double sharps all over the place. I probably mentioned them last time. I still need to practice them.
Next week Night on Bare mountain.
I really enjoyed orchestra practice last night. I usually enjoy it but it did feel like a particularly good rehearsal to me, mainly becuase my reed was working particularly well which always makes everything a little better. We also worked on some really nice pieces of music:
Glinka - Ruslan and Ludmilla. This is quite a fun piece to play, we certainly don't play it at the speed that a professional orchestra would it does roll along quite nicely. It also has a very recognisable tune that sticks in your head for days afterwards. There are som very woodwind sections with parts interlinking - but overall it isn't really too complicated.
Borodin - Petit Suite. we've been working on bits of this over the last few weeks but this was the first time we had a full play through all of the movements that we will be doing. There are 7 movements but we will only be doing 5 in the concert. This was originally written as piano duet but was later orchestrated by someone else. The piano origins show themselves most in the Mazurka, I think, which isn't terribly interesting as an orchestral piece. The rest of movements are rather nice though. There are some tricky corners in this that I need to look at in my practice. The scherzo at the end has some rather fiendish chromatic sections with sharps and double sharps all over the place. I probably mentioned them last time. I still need to practice them.
Next week Night on Bare mountain.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
why knowing your scales is a good thing
Regular orchestra practice again last night, our conductor is back from holiday too. We are doing a selection of Russian music for our next concert. It has had a mixed reception, some players really don't like it all, some are finding it a bit too difficult - personally I am one of the many who really love it. I should probably admit that I am actually quite ignorant about classical music. I didn't do music GCSE or Alevel and I don't really listen to a lot of classical being more of an "Indie Chick." Generally I know a few standard things and I'm trying to educate myself on oboe repertoire but as far as orchestral music goes - I know the stuff that I've played. So I've found it quite educational having a program of all Russian music to help give me a feel for the shared characteristics.
Last night we were initially focussing on Borodin's Petite Suite. We played one of the Mazurka's (3rd movement) which is fairly straight forward and had our first attempt at the Scherzo of the final movement. This wasn't quite so straightfoward initially, I am not very good at sightreading large numbers of accidentals - especially when they include double sharps - but it came together in the end once we realised that they were all simple chromantics. It was a good example of why knowing your scales is very useful.
After the break we looked at parts of Tchaikowsky's Sleeping Beauty Suite. It gave me some good articulation practice having to do repeated semi quavers for bars in 6/8. There is a nice oboe solo bit in the last movement and it is good fun to play. Though I am finding it very difficult not to sing along to the main theme with the words from the Disney version. So maybe it isn't just stuff I've played that I know - also pieces used in adverts and Disney films.
Lesson tonight.
Last night we were initially focussing on Borodin's Petite Suite. We played one of the Mazurka's (3rd movement) which is fairly straight forward and had our first attempt at the Scherzo of the final movement. This wasn't quite so straightfoward initially, I am not very good at sightreading large numbers of accidentals - especially when they include double sharps - but it came together in the end once we realised that they were all simple chromantics. It was a good example of why knowing your scales is very useful.
After the break we looked at parts of Tchaikowsky's Sleeping Beauty Suite. It gave me some good articulation practice having to do repeated semi quavers for bars in 6/8. There is a nice oboe solo bit in the last movement and it is good fun to play. Though I am finding it very difficult not to sing along to the main theme with the words from the Disney version. So maybe it isn't just stuff I've played that I know - also pieces used in adverts and Disney films.
Lesson tonight.
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