I’m starting to get that burned-out feeling that seems to creep in sometime in early February and extends itself in to early to mid-March. I’m also getting that tickle in the throat that means some sort of cold or flu-like illness is about to descend upon me. Great.
Today was one of those incredibly frustrating rehearsals. We have only two for the upcoming Inside the Score, which this time around concerns the “Classical Symphony”. In this case Haydn’s Symphony No. 97 and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 “Classical”. The Haydn was a pain because we’ve (a) not done it in a long, long time (not since before I joined the orchestra, as far as I know) and (b) because the parts are brand new.
Why are new parts a not-so-good thing? Having new parts means that there is no basis for getting bowings worked out by looking at what was done before, and so there are a lot of bowing changes made during the rehearsal, which means a lot of time talking instead of playing.
Also, there are many details such as dynamics and articulations which everyone has a different idea about, and addressing them all takes a lot of time. Having some of these things marked into a master score and then given to the library to have put in the parts would have saved a good 30 minutes of our rehearsal time today – at least.
Plus the fatigue factor seems to be setting in, at least in some of the string sections. Depending upon rotations between the violin sections, you can often end up with one section being a lot stronger than the other – and this is the case this week. I won’t say any more than that. But it’s true. Honest.
Oh, well – at least the music’s good and Gregory Vajda has a sense of humor about the whole thing!