This week we’ve been rehearsing with one of our regular guest conductors, the Finn Hannu Lintu. He’s a great guy, with a typical dry Finnish sense of humor, and is a wonderful musician. He’s also quite followable, even though his movements can look a bit indecipherable at times. With each return he gets easier to read.
I’ve been pondering things that happen with the orchestra when guest conductors are at the helm. It depends on who is in town, but mostly often a guest conductor seems to inspire most musicians to become caricatures of themselves. When the music director is in town, people are a bit more circumspect, because he’s the guy with the contractural authority to initiate the termination of employment.
We also seem to let basic musicianship slide a little bit: playing in tune, playing with steady rhythm, blending with our sections, listening to others instead of just ourselves. This mostly happens in rehearsals – things get quite a bit tighter and more professional in concert – but why should it happen at all? The role of an orchestral musician (no matter what their title or instrument) is to play in concert with their colleagues and to uphold the artistic standards of the ensemble regardless of who is on the podium.
We really should play as if Carlos were in town for every series, in theory. In practice, given human nature, it’s not always possible, but we should really should try to do our best. Can you tell that this week has been a bit tough? The fact that we’re coming back from spring break is no doubt contributing to the whole situation.
All that aside, however, the concerts should be of our usual standard, and pianist Horacio Gutiérrez sounds fabulous in the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.
7 replies on “a mild rant”
Looking ahead at the upcoming symphony program, I’m particularly excited about hearing Magnus Lindberg’s “Feria.” He’s one of the best composers out there today – a master orchestrator.
Here follows a Finnish joke that i heard Salonen relate once on a broadcast . . .
A Finnish introvert stares at his shoes when speaking to you.
A Finnish extrovert stares at YOUR shoes when speaking to you.
Run that by this week’s guest conductor.
Interesting. Here in Seattle the orchestra seems to play a lot better for guest conductors (most recently Leonard Slatkin, and over the past few seasons Gunther Herbig has led some of the best SSO concerts I’ve ever witnessed).
@Bob Priest: That same joke is often told about mathematicians! And I concur about Lindberg.
@Bob – Hannu said that it’s indeed very true – and he noted that you can indeed learn a lot about a person by staring at their shoes!
excellent, i love it!
btw, James Brown outlined the keys to success as follows:
1/ a great head of hair,
2/ good teeth,
AND
3/ a fine pair of shoes.
I was fortunate enough to attend the dress rehearsal today. I thought the pieces sounded quite good. The Lindberg piece was very arresting and very well played. I don’t know what happened at previous rehearsals, but things seemed ship shape this morning. I agree that musicians should maintan the same standards regardless of who is conducting. I’ve not noticed any appreciable difference in quality when a guest conductor is in town. In fact, I think the orchestra sometimes gives a more relaxed and spontaneous sounding performance under a guest conductor.
@Curtis – things went smoother today, and when reading my rants, one must always remember that in orchestras, the situation can vary depending upon your position on the stage or just your own particular feelings that day. To say that I was not in a good mood on Thursday would have been charitable! 🙂
The first thing I noticed about Lintu was his hip footwear.