Mahler 9 at NEC, 2008, Rehearsal 4

4/8/2008 1:53 PM

The best students in a conservatory like NEC have enormous pressures and sometimes do not make the time to work on their orchestral parts until the last minute. Also, they might skip a rehearsal if they feel a bit under the weather or over-stressed, thinking, "oh well, I am a second violin, it won't make any difference." Well, it does make a difference and especially in a piece of such monumental complexity as Mahler 9th, it makes ALL the difference.

In the note Doug Perry, the violist from the Toronto Symphony, wrote me, he made a very telling point:

"It is my contention that the right to self determination and self empowerment is crucial in our political development. And how voices are kept silent is often hidden from our view and understanding. Your work this week it seems was to bring every musician to their own personal point of feeling how the music 'goes.' To be transported in some way to another time, another world, another sensibility."

Doug is pointing to the essential passivity and disempowered position of the typical orchestral player. He or she is not noticed, acknowledged, or fully engaged. Only a very tiny portion of the orchestral player's intelligence, sensibility and passion is brought to bear when they play in orchestra. The conductor determines everything: tempo, character, balance, dynamics, ensemble and shape, are all determined from the podium.

Even if a musician has developed an awareness of the inner workings of a piece and an insight into some aspect of the performance, there is no invitation to share it. The hierarchical structure, with the conductor on the podium and "foot soldiers" in the pit, as it were, precludes any meaningful exchange of ideas.

This is the source of the cynicism, exhaustion and defiance of so many professional orchestral players - especially string players. What I am committed to doing is to call on the passion, individuality, leadership and ideas of every single player in the orchestra. And that is what Mahler wants of us, too.

One of the principal wind players in Toronto told me that what was a revelation for him and for several of his colleagues in the preparation of Mahler 5th was my insistence that they each bring out their individual characters in the playing, rather than homogenizing everything into a generalized soup.

That is why I put out the white sheets on everyone's stand. The idea is that each player is so immersed in the music and so committed to its full realization, that, if at any moment their own participation and passionate engagement is thwarted, they have a clear and immediate means to break through.

Let's say on the simplest level, there is insufficient light, so that their part is not clearly visible, will they be able to play their best? Of course not. What happens if they are sitting for two hundred bars and then have to enter with a high and exposed note? Will they appreciate a look of encouragement from the conductor? Of course. What happens if the conductor, in his desire to express the arching line of the phrase, or an impassioned rubato, allows his beat to become vague? Will the players who are responsible for the rhythm get confused or irritable? Yes. And what happens if the tempo is a little too slow for the full excitement of the music to be realized, or a little too fast for the full expression of each contour of a phrase to be expressed? Or if a wind player cannot play a phrase in one breath, as the composer indicates? Would a comment from the player to the conductor be welcome? Of course it would.

This does not mean that the conductor is bound by a request from a player. Joe Camper told me that at the end of the first movement, I will have to make a choice between my tempo and his life. This sets up a fascinating dialectic. Joe is a fine oboe player, of absolutely professional level. Mahler makes a demand at the end of the first movement which is excruciatingly difficult to realize - an F#/E that has to be held for 5-1/2 bars at a very slow tempo - oboists live in dread of this moment.

I have performed Mahler 9th several times with orchestras of different levels, from my own Youth Philharmonic at New England Conservatory, to a live recording with The Philharmonia (London), which was nominated for a Grammy. I have a very clear idea of the sense of infinite suspension that I want to have created at the end of the first movement. Do I know exactly how slow I can conduct those final bars without running the risk that my first oboe will pass out (or worse!)? No of course not, but now I am in relationship with Joe. He knows that I want him to work on his endurance over the coming days and pace himself for a very long note indeed, whereas I am keenly sensitive to his lung capacity, while having my full attention on the magical unresolved end of the movement - the partial, tentative resolution of the F# E, "Ewig" motive, which was born at the end of Das Lied von der Erde and appears, so yearningly, in the second violins at the opening of the movement.

Suddenly all hierarchy has evaporated and we are partners serving a higher goal. There is no "leader," no dominator, only two passionate musicians engaged in realizing a masterpiece.

Now, obviously, if a player is not present at a rehearsal, there is no way for him or her to be engaged in this exploration! If a player is struggling to play the notes and sort out the rhythms there is no possible way he or she can focus on anything else. It is too late, three days before a concert, for them to suddenly look up and wonder what is going on around the orchestra. It must be part of the process from the beginning.

That is why it is so crucial in a great music school for the orchestra program to be central to the training of the musicians. And students must be constantly reminded by their teachers (not by the frustrated and irate conductors) that diligent, thorough preparation of the orchestral parts is as essential a part of their development and training, as their scales and arpeggios and Paganini Caprices.

In my dream, every player in an orchestra which is preparing a piece like Mahler 9th would immerse themselves in that work for the three weeks of preparation. They would practice their parts diligently and constantly; they would listen to several recordings (check out Tony Duggan Mahler Symphonies, A Synoptic Survey for a list of and commentary on all of the best recordings - there are several copies of my own recording in the library on reserve, which includes, on the accompanying discussion disc, a detailed explanation of how to conduct the first two pages of score, which are included). They would read voraciously about Mahler and his time and at the very least familiarize themselves with some of the best writing about the particular symphony.

Then, in the rehearsals, each member of the orchestra could participate fully in the building of the performance, through their playing, their listening, their physical leadership and by writing on the white sheets - not just matters concerning their own parts, but the whole thing! Then we would start to have the kind of excitement, engagement and passion you find in a great chamber music group or in an orchestra like A Far Cry, where every member takes joyous responsibility for every aspect of the performance.

Obviously, with an orchestra of 100 people you have to have a conductor, whereas with a chamber orchestra you can manage perfectly well without. But this shouldn't mean that the posture of the players needs to be passive or disengaged.

When an orchestra goes on tour, this kind of music making becomes more feasible. Indeed, it is one of the reasons we go on tour. But are we too busy, too distracted, too passive here at home, to try to create that kind of engagement with Mahler 9th - one of the pinnacle works of Western Art?

I invited them all to give over their lives to it for one more week. We are all busy, perhaps exhausted at the end of a long year, but when we assemble on the Jordan Hall stage next Wednesday, with, hopefully, a full house, will we have the familiarity with and mastery of every passage in Mahler's 9th so that we ourselves and our listeners will never forget it as long as they live?

Here is what a young NEC grad violinist from France wrote after the last performance of Mahler 9th we did in Jordan Hall:

"You took me through a journey that I had not expected was possible. I went tonight through life and death, love and fear, passion, torment, despair and renunciation...my life has changed forever." Stephanie Moraly

And here is what a dear friend of mine, a non-musician, wrote in a letter in anticipation of the last performance she would hear of Mahler's Ninth before she succumbed to cancer:

"the fade-out in the last movement of the Ninth is the ultimate in coming to terms with our mortality, an acceptance of the inevitable, a blessing for all that has been, and a quiet sadness for what will not be."

Elizabeth Hawes died three days before the performance.

I am happy to report that my "speech" had the immediate effect of a vast improvement in the listening and playing of the wind and string players. The first and last movement began to really come together. I cannot wait for tomorrow's rehearsal when the whole orchestra will tackle movements one and three. Friday we will do two and four.

On Monday we will do our first run through the whole symphony and Wednesday is the Dress Rehearsal.

Wednesday night April 16th at 8 p.m. Jordan Hall a performance of the Mahler 9th symphony by the NEC Philharmonia at 8 p.m.

BZ