I spotted this YouTube clip featuring John Adams talking about the world premiere of his work Slonimsky’s Earbox with the Hallé Orchestra (the Oregon Symphony played the US premiere), and it struck me that said that the hardest part about being a composer was surviving the first rehearsal of one’s work. I was thinking about this as we read through Tomas Svoboda’s new piece Vortex for Orchestra this week. I’ll have to ask him how he felt.
One reply on ““surviving the first rehearsal””
a good friend of mine used to teach with david del tredici @ city college. my pal attended the first rehearsal of one of ddt’s big “alice” pieces and told me that ddt broke down crying uncontrollably about half way through the session. in between sobs, he moaned; “i spent two years of my life for this?”
of course, ddt survived the experience, as did his piece.