And so Year Ten of the
Kashima Philharmonic Orchestra (motto: "What was our motto again?") comes to a close with yet another iconic performance
(or should I say "apocalyptic"?).
Once again our music director showed his uncanny ability to pick pieces that we probably had no business even trying, and yet as always we somehow made it work.
It all opened with the exciting "Fanfare pour preceder La Peri" by
Paul Dukas, played by our brass section standing in a row at the front of the stage, and it went reasonably well.
After that, the whole orchestra
(sans the flute and trombone sections) came in and hopped back to the Baroque Era with the first movement of
Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks.
(There's no clarinet part in that piece, since the clarinet wasn't yet accepted in Handel's day, but the 2nd clarinetist and I properly assumed our positions anyway and waited. It's actually rather impolite and unprofessional for musicians to go on and off the stage during a program in progress, but people here don't seem to realize that.) Music for the Royal Fireworks can be challenging, especially for the trumpets and horns, but our struggling sections were helped a lot by the addition of a few skilled extras, and it went quite well.
After that came another Baroque tune, this time a movement from
Vivaldi's "Winter" from
The Four Seasons. It's a strings-only piece
(so all the brass players promptly got up and left...while we woodwinds cringed...) featuring a violin solo, played beautifully by our professional concertmistress, and it went very well.
Next, we jumped ahead a bit to the early Classical period and played the second movement from
Haydn's 101st symphony, popularly known as "The Clock".
(Thank Heaven that Haydn, following the example of his young friend Mozart, had by then added clarinets to his orchestra lineup!) As with so much of Haydn's work, it wasn't particularly hard to play, it was a lot of fun, and it went quite well. And then...
"The Clock" was followed, perhaps ironically, by a composition made by perhaps Haydn's most ungrateful student,
Ludwig van Beethoven. Specifically, we played the first movement of his
Sixth Symphony (Pastorale). Beethoven has been a regular fixture of our performances for the past five years or so, which seems odd considering both directors during that period have said rather bluntly that the old Ludwig van is over our collective heads. Beethoven's music, like Haydn's, doesn't usually involve heavy finger work. The first movement of
Pastorale is no exception; while not exactly easy, it doesn't require a fast technique or even much
(if any) practice time to get the rhythms down. However, it does require discipline and
control. It seems like every single note has to be played a certain way, or aficionados get upset. We'd rehearse the same passage over and over again, hitting every single note spot on, and still the conductor would stop and cry, "No, no, NO!!!" Every attack, every note length, every decay, every crescendo and decrescendo, and every trivial form of articulation had to be just right.
(As principal clarinetist, I bore a massive portion of the burden seeing as I had a solo in every other passage.) We spent the lion's share
(if not that of half a zoo) rehearsing the 6th, and I'm very happy to report that it went very well.
Then came the very antithesis of Beethoven: Dukas'
The...Sorcerer's...Apprentice.....
I actually tried my hand at conducting
The Sorcerer's Apprentice when the concert band at
Ye Olde Academy played it in 2000. It was also a piece that I'd always wanted to try. However, when I got my copy of the 1st clarinet part and looked at it, the sound of my jaw hitting the floor could be heard a kilometer away. It had far more black ink in it than should be considered legal. The fact that it starts and stops with slow, easy, expressive clarinet solos was probably Dukas adding insult to injury. Once the piece gets going, it doesn't let up. Either the fingers are flying, the tongue is working double-time, or both. To call it "exhausting" would be like calling a
neutron star "heavy". Some of those extended 16th note runs and grace note rhythms don't seem physically possible for a normal human being to play
(which makes me wonder how I was able to pull most of them off). And the fact that the end of one passage-from-hell only serves to introduce the next one in a never-ending series like successive layers of the abyss means that, when it finally hits that explosive climax, one is left physically and psychologically drained. In other words, it was among the most fun I've ever had. Despite some inevitable gurgles and squeaks all over the orchestra, it also went unexpectedly well.
Mercifully, we took a break. After that, there was an interesting segment in which we played part of the second movement of
Dvořák's "New World Symphony" and invited the audience to play along on recorders. That was fun. Amazingly, a lot of audience members actually brought recorders and participated.
After that was another break followed by the big production number:
Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. Tchaikovsky was certainly a musical genius of high caliber, which unfortunately tends to be synonymous with "chronic sadist". The various pleasant, little tunes he culled from the
Nutcracker Ballet to form the Suite don't sound very difficult. They don't
look difficult, either. However, playing them is another story entirely. Once again, part of the problem is that you can't just play the notes on the page and expect it to sound good; you have to create the right atmosphere, and that takes control, discipline, and the right kind of sense. There is also the fact that, intentionally or not, Tchaikovsky scored the thing so that many if not most of the solos are centered in very inconvenient locations on the instruments.
(It is widely said that Tchaikovsky wrote the Nutcracker unwillingly and was never happy with it. Some reports say he was openly contemptuous of it. That makes me wonder whether he really was taking out his frustrations on the performers!) Naturally, the clarinet has all kinds of solos in the Nutcracker Suite, and all of them are far trickier than they sound. They even make pros nervous. In fact, when the
Kashima Philharmonic first attempted the
Nutcracker back in 2002, I was NEVER able to get either the solo in the first tune ("Miniature Overture") or the duet with the flute in the second ("Marche") under my fingers no matter how much I practiced, so I wound up asking the just-joined Mrs. Ogawa to take over the 1st clarinet part
(which she then held for several years afterward). Now she's no longer in the orchestra, so it was all up to me. However, this time I surprised myself by pulling them off almost like nothing the first time we read them...possibly a fringe benefit of having practiced "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". The director and rehearsal director kept saying, "Don't push the tempo or poor [Moody] will be in it deep," and I kept replying, "
Push the damned tempo! I'm ON it!" And I was.
However, that famous solo in the "Flower Waltz" was another story; it had me deeply worried. Again, it doesn't look or sound difficult, but it's in a really inconvenient place on the horn...especially for someone who has a bit of carpal tunnel syndrome in his left hand. I've performed it a number of times, mostly without incident. But when we played the "Flower Waltz" as an encore two years ago, right after the "1812 Overture", my left hand was so numb and shaky that the solo sounded like an elephant dancing in a swamp. The ham-handed flopping wasn't so obvious in the recording, but it was a personal disaster to me, and I nearly quit there and then. Cut to this year. That solo was NEVER a problem for me in rehearsal...until the dress rehearsal the day before the concert. My left hand froze up solid, and I came to a dead halt in the middle of the opening run. Suddenly everyone forgot that I'd managed it flawlessly till then, and all around me were mutterings of, "Why can't he play that?" The director himself was...well...a bit annoyed. After that, I had all kinds of well-meaning professional extras coming to me with kindly patronizing smiles and saying, "There, there. Don't worry about it. Even pros are scared of that solo." I was furious. Maybe that's why I steeled myself, fought my exhausted left hand into submission, and gunned my way through the f*****g thing during the performance. After it was over I was told I'd never sounded so good. Okay, I guess I won't quit.
But enough about me. I should also mention that our music was accompanied by a performance by a local ballet school. The littlest girls did an adorable dance with the "Chinese Dance". The eldest ones, all teenagers, gave a beautiful and graceful exhibition during the "Flower Waltz". The ones in between came on during the "March". It was a very good idea, since it allowed another bit of local talent to be put on display. It was also appreciated by the audience, who gave us thundering applause.
The encore was Leroy Anderson's "Christmas Festival", a fun medley of Christmas songs
(with an AWFUL LOT of sharps). Unfortunately, we were pretty worn out by then, so there were some spectacular bricks....especially the opening fanfare. It still ended everything on the right note (ha ha). All in all, it was yet another potential disaster that turned into an almost magical success. At any rate, the audience went away pleased, and we felt pretty good about ourselves, too...between sighs of relief.
Until next time!
