Posted by Rick Denney on November 19, 2003 at 14:04:20:
A recent thread talked about how many of us prefer to experience music as a participant rather than as a spectator. One question was asked, how many of us go to our local symphonies even when we aren't playing in them?
I got to thinking about that. I held season tickets my local symphony from 1982 until 1998. Here in Virginia, going to the Symphony would require a 70-minute drive (National Symphony) or a two-hour drive (Baltimore) each way, plus the tickets are East-Coast-Culture expensive. Job conflicts are much worse than they used to be. Plus, my wife's not where I am in terms of musical taste and we both have things we'd rather do together that we enjoy more equally.
But I hate to get in the participant-only rut. We've been playing a series of concerts with some pretty high-end orchestral transcriptions, and it has forced us to think more orchestrally than one expects in a community band. The concert coming up is all Wagner, which is quite a task for any group, and I found myself needing a refresher. So I picked up an anthology recording on Deutsche Grammaphon of Wagner overtures and other works, all from German and Austrian orchestras (Berlin Phil, Berlin Opera, Vienna Phil, Bayreuth Festival Orch, etc.) I figured I'd go to the source.
Many in our group are complaining about the Wagner--it's too heavy, etc. After 150 years, Wagner is still controversial. But I wish I could give them all copies of this CD set. When played with understanding, the music is incredibly powerful. Listening to it in my car on the way to the office yesterday morning distracted me so much that I missed my exit. That was okay, though. The resulting detour gave me ten more minutes to hear the Ride of the Valkyries, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic.
We are accustomed to hearing only our excerpts or just the tuba parts. In that vein, the Vienna performance of the Ride is a little disappointing. The tuba sound just isn't as prominant as most of us would like. Having opened myself up to the context of the music, however, I found that I just didn't care. Vaughan Williams wrote that he could not sleep after the first time he'd heard Wagner (in the late 1890's), and while I slept well I know what he meant. The music was in my head when I went to sleep, and also there when I woke up.
Many years ago, I played the Brahms Second Symphony with an amateur orchestra. I hadn't thought I liked Brahms before that time, but participating in it opened that door for me, and I find it compelling now. Thus, perhaps the participant portion of what we do feeds into the general appreciation of it as a spectator. But the power is in how the sounds go together, not how they sound in parts.
I feel sorry for the people in our group who are just worrying about the heaviness of Wagner and not finding a way to experience the whole context of the music. They are missing a great experience, and an opportunity to grow rather than to complain.
Rick "being reminded that he loves music even without playing it" Denney