The Master class with Jorma Panula in Ruse, Bulgaria is now entering its second week. I have enjoyed the first week enormously, the freedom to discuss problems and technique with ones colleagues and peers doesn’t come around frequently for conductors, we are solitary beasts.
I have taken the podium three times, each has been different in its way and it is the opportunity to discuss the sessions with Panula and the other participants of the master class that makes this experience unique. All the conductors are very sympathetic, there is no bitchiness or jealousy and comments are freely exchanged and discussed. Whilst there are no cliques we do mix and discuss matters mostly with the colleagues who are sharing the same hotel. The group I am staying with are very open, honest and helpful. It has been enlightening discussing my sessions with them and I try to contribute something meaningful to theirs.
My first session was on the 4th movement of Mahler’s epic 3rd Symphony. The piece lasts about 90 minutes, the first movement taking over 30. The 4th movement is very slow and features a low female vocal solo. It is not that difficult to play once all the parties know what they are doing, but can be frustrating whilst everyone is learning. Before I went on the orchestra were getting a little restless and the chat level was rising. When I got to the podium my first priority was firmly but politely to put a stop to this. Those reading this who know my rehearsal technique will know that I like to be in control, and that when I need to establish this I do it with my voice. It’s loud! The orchestra were soon persuaded to pay a bit more attention and we got some useful work done. I was not particularly happy with my conducting, but I established a good relationship with the singer by giving her time to be expressive when she needed it (in my experience this is the quickest way to a singer’s heart).
After my 15 minutes were up I left the podium reasonably satisfied but annoyed that I had made a number of small but basic mistakes with my beat. The singer seemed happy but disappointed that we couldn’t finish the movement, Maestro Panula made a few comments but seemed satisfied. I had got my first appearance over and done with, and several of my colleagues congratulated me.
My second appearance on the podium was to do the 5th movement, this also features the alto singer but Mahler adds female and children’s choruses to the mix. Several of the conductors wanted to have a go at this movement but no-one wanted to go first and this slot refused to fill. I work with choruses all the time, I have four children and I used to teach. I felt that I could also use my (now infamous) voice to get them going. Up I stepped.
The choruses were in the hall with the orchestra for the first time so I knew that they would need some encouragement. This was given in the form of firm direction and careful rehearsal, once again I used my voice at full power and the results were obtained. The kids, who of course were shy and unsure opened their mouths after a while and the “Bims” and “Bams” started to ring through the hall. At the end of my time one of the organisers of the course came straight up to me, shook my hand and congratulated me on a good job. “That’s the way to do it”. Some of the other conductors were not so sure, and worried that I had frightened the children. They didn’t sound frightened, but I was concerned about this. I had made a small joke at one point, and I could immediately tell that about two of the children spoke good English as they laughed before the translation had filtered through. I saw one of these young ladies passing so I gently enquired about whether I had been a bit OTT for them, “No, not at all, you did very well!”. But nevertheless I took notice that some of the adults thought I was a bit too aggressive with the youngsters.
I was discussing this session with one of my colleagues, and was deciding what to do in my next. There were still problems with wind intonation in the first movement so I was wondering whether to spend some time sorting this out. My colleague suggested that I had already proven I could rehearse and sort out problems; it was time for me to do some music. This was a very kind and helpful suggestion and I was very grateful for it. My favourite movement in Mahler three is the 6th, the Adagio. I decided to take this on.
I had already heard several people rehearse this and I felt that something was still missing. Mahler is not played frequently in Bulgaria and we could all tell that the orchestra did not know the piece at all. The 6th movement, which is passionate and very beautiful had not yet reached the state where it really had begun to live, so I would try to see if I could get it going.
What I had noticed in particular is that no other conductor had tried to get any sort of rubato in this movement. Rubato is when a phrase is stretched or compressed in time to make it more expressive, singers use it a great deal and one of the challenges of opera is to get the orchestra to follow a singer’s rubato, Mahler was a great opera conductor and Richard Strauss commented on his rubato so I felt justified in taking this approach to his orchestral music. I set myself the task of putting as much rubato into the movement as I could. Even if it didn’t work musically it would be fun to try to get the orchestra to follow my beat as I pulled and pushed the music around.
I expected to have to stop in the rehearsal and correct things, and I did not want to get to the end as I wanted to save the brass player’s lips. The end of the movement is a series of D major chords played fortissimo. I started the movement and immediately started doing some outrageous rubati, the orchestra cottoned on fairly quickly and within a few minutes they had learnt to expect me to pull every phrase around. I kept going and before I knew it the end of the movement was approaching, it arrived and the brass seemed willing to play so I got to the end and we played the thundering D major chords and timpani blows with great style.
The orchestral gave me a brief round of applause at the end and I descended the podium quite satisfied. I was immediately congratulated by another member of the organising team and one or two of my colleagues. I said “I got through it in 20 minutes, it must have been really fast!” One of my colleagues replied “Sometimes you must let go of the written notes and let the emotion take over” and another said “No, not fast, moving.” I was quite pleased at these remarks and was feeling quite content and a bit pleased with myself.
I was just about to re-enter the hall to listen to the next rehearsal when I realised that I was feeling a quite odd, I left the hall and was walking to the foyer when I became quite overcome and didn’t know what to do with myself. I found a quiet corner, sat down for 20 minutes and gathered myself together. I do respond emotionally to music, I have been very moved in the past by performances I have conducted of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, but I have never been taken so completely by surprise before. I had no idea that I had become so emotional.
I tried to think back to the rehearsal and realised that for large sections of my rehearsal I had no recollection of the music, however much I tried I could not remember how it had gone! Later that day I had a video session with Panula, I expected to find much of what I had done to be over the top, and this was indeed the case. I commented at one point “There is so much rubato it sounds like opera” and Panula said at another “Not bad for film music”. But at another he said “This is love”, found the comment at the front of the score pointing out that Mahler had said of this movement “What love tells me”. While I’m sure Panula thought that much of what I had done was unnecessary he seemed pleased with other bits and pleased with my orchestral control.
The following day I asked to see the video of this session in full, and watched it with great interest. The passages of which I had no recollection sounded OK, and the video prompted memories of several gestures and technical details, but even now I cannot properly recall much of what happened. I must have been completely “in the moment” a phrase which I have previously dismissed as meaningless.
I must like this music more that I thought.
Friday, 11 September 2009
Friday, 4 September 2009
A Turkey Sandwich
I develop habits quickly. I’ve been in this hotel for only a few days and already I have a daily routine. My alarm goes off at 7, I shower and have breakfast with my conductor colleagues and chat until it is time to set off for the morning’s rehearsal. After that I come back to the hotel, have a nap, think about my blog, call home and study scores (mostly I nap).
For the evening rehearsal I make sure I have my cool new shades for the walk to the hall, I buy an ice cream to give me a bit of energy (I don’t have lunch) and I am all set up for an evening’s music making.
After the rehearsal those of who are socially minded go for a meal together in the restaurant adjoining the concert hall. This is run by a charming and animated Bulgarian who is able to speak every European language there is, he claims to have run a 5 star restaurant in either Sofia or Berlin (I can’t remember which) and I can well believe the claim as the food is excellent.
Last night a group of us accumulated on our usual table and were enjoying a meal. The restaurant has no menu in English so we are dependent upon the charming and very pretty waitresses or the proprietor himself to tell us what he has. I have had an excellent pork cutlet and the fish on offer looked good too. I asked what fish they served and as it was beyond the very pretty waitress’s English to explain, the proprietor was called over and we had a lengthy discussion about the fish he had available. “River Fish or Sea Fish” was the starting point, and pretty much the ending point as well as he only knew the Bulgarian names from thereon. I had selected Sea Fish, he gave me a name that I couldn’t equate to anything but I was happy as I knew it would be good.
An American amongst us had ordered a Turkey sandwich, which I thought was a bit unadventurous given the standard of the food, but he was away from home and may have been homesick. The Americans pretty much invented the Turkey Sandwich. They didn’t invent the Sandwich, we did, though they would like to take the credit and would if we did not constantly remind them that they did not. But, you could say that a Turkey Sandwich is as American as Apple Pie, but I prefer not to as I’m sure the English were eating Apple Pie long before the Pilgrims set sail.
After a while my fish arrived, brought by the proprietor himself, “This is Salmon, I hope that is alright”. I love salmon, and this was rolled, stuffed and in a white sauce, it looked delicious and tasted better. It wasn’t quite what I expected, as I’m pretty sure that the Bulgarian for Salmon is pretty close to Salmon, and sometimes the unexpected has a habit of jumping up and biting you, but I was content with my fish.
I had long finished my Salmon when the American’s food arrived, but he looked a trifle disappointed when a plate of red meat in a purple sauce was put in front of him. “This is not what I ordered, I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” said the American. This seemed to be stating the obvious rather, we all agreed that this was not a Turkey Sandwich, however delicious it looked. The very pretty waitress had gone, so while a few of us made animated efforts to call her back the rest of us discussed what the delicious bowl of meat might be. “It looks like Roast Beef to me” said the American, “It might be duck” I ventured, a Korean suggested something else and the conversation continued like this for a moment or two until the proprietor arrived.
“This isn’t what I ordered, I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” repeated the American, “Yes, this Turkey Sandwich”, said the proprietor omitting the verb in the sentence, but we all forgave him. He pointed to the bowl of delicious red meat “This Turkey” and pointing to a bowl of bread the waitress has also brought, but which had escaped our notice in all the excitement, “This Sandwich. Turkey Sandwich”.
Now I love a joke, but I fell of my chair at this! I roared. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen in a restaurant, and I have seen a few. The expression on the American’s face did not betray any sign that he was amused by the proprietor’s speech. Rather the reverse in fact. I wouldn’t exactly describe his expression as disappointed either, disbelieving maybe, pained perhaps. At this point a number of words were exchanged between the American and the proprietor which although perfectly civil did not have quite the same friendly tone as 10 minutes earlier. I had to restrain my continuing guffaws in order to save everyone’s embarrassment, even my own. The American insisted that this was not a Turkey Sandwich, nor even Turkey, and the proprietor insisted that this was exactly what it was. “Turkey is white, white meat” said the American said pointing to himself, rather inappropriately I thought, “this is red, it’s not even well done”. The proprietor seized on this moment of American weakness and said “I put under grill, then if you no like, all fine, I bring something else”. The American reluctantly agreed to this and the delicious looking meat and the bowl of bread were taken away. Despite the humour we all felt obliged to sympathize with our colleague, whatever we might think of Americans and the eating habits that they have inflicted on the world, we would have to agreed that the Turkey Sandwich was pretty innocuous and that what he had been given was definitely not one.
A few minutes later a dish was put in front of the American, on it were the bread rolls cut in half, and on top of each one was a slice of the delicious looking red meat, slightly better done before and showing signs that the purple sauce had gone under the grill too and therefore was now slightly dried out. “I’m sorry, this is still not a Turkey Sandwich” said the Yank, “You try, if you no like I bring something else” insisted the proprietor. There was nothing for it, the American was going to have to try this stuff. He took half a slice of the red meat and rather gingerly eat it. “You no like?”, “It’s not Turkey” he said, that was enough and the proprietor seized the plate and bore it away, a plate of grilled vegetables was ordered and when they arrived the American eat them with great gusto.
My curiosity had been raised by this, as well as my funny-bone tickled. I really wanted to know what the delicious looking red meat was, and I was curious about the sauce too. So when we went to the restaurant the next day, I asked the waitress if she remember the dish of delicious looking red meat brought to the American as a Turkey Sandwich “You want Turkey Sandwich?” she said. No, I wanted the dish of delicious looking red meat covered in Purple Sauce which you thought was a Turkey Sandwich. She looked puzzled, I shrugged. “OK, please may I have a Turkey Sandwich”.
After a few moments, a plate of Bread Rolls cut in half with some delicious looking red meat appeared in front of me. It wasn’t what I had ordered, I felt like saying “This is not what I ordered” in my most impeccable English accent, “I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” but decided against it.
It was duck, and very delicious!
For the evening rehearsal I make sure I have my cool new shades for the walk to the hall, I buy an ice cream to give me a bit of energy (I don’t have lunch) and I am all set up for an evening’s music making.
After the rehearsal those of who are socially minded go for a meal together in the restaurant adjoining the concert hall. This is run by a charming and animated Bulgarian who is able to speak every European language there is, he claims to have run a 5 star restaurant in either Sofia or Berlin (I can’t remember which) and I can well believe the claim as the food is excellent.
Last night a group of us accumulated on our usual table and were enjoying a meal. The restaurant has no menu in English so we are dependent upon the charming and very pretty waitresses or the proprietor himself to tell us what he has. I have had an excellent pork cutlet and the fish on offer looked good too. I asked what fish they served and as it was beyond the very pretty waitress’s English to explain, the proprietor was called over and we had a lengthy discussion about the fish he had available. “River Fish or Sea Fish” was the starting point, and pretty much the ending point as well as he only knew the Bulgarian names from thereon. I had selected Sea Fish, he gave me a name that I couldn’t equate to anything but I was happy as I knew it would be good.
An American amongst us had ordered a Turkey sandwich, which I thought was a bit unadventurous given the standard of the food, but he was away from home and may have been homesick. The Americans pretty much invented the Turkey Sandwich. They didn’t invent the Sandwich, we did, though they would like to take the credit and would if we did not constantly remind them that they did not. But, you could say that a Turkey Sandwich is as American as Apple Pie, but I prefer not to as I’m sure the English were eating Apple Pie long before the Pilgrims set sail.
After a while my fish arrived, brought by the proprietor himself, “This is Salmon, I hope that is alright”. I love salmon, and this was rolled, stuffed and in a white sauce, it looked delicious and tasted better. It wasn’t quite what I expected, as I’m pretty sure that the Bulgarian for Salmon is pretty close to Salmon, and sometimes the unexpected has a habit of jumping up and biting you, but I was content with my fish.
I had long finished my Salmon when the American’s food arrived, but he looked a trifle disappointed when a plate of red meat in a purple sauce was put in front of him. “This is not what I ordered, I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” said the American. This seemed to be stating the obvious rather, we all agreed that this was not a Turkey Sandwich, however delicious it looked. The very pretty waitress had gone, so while a few of us made animated efforts to call her back the rest of us discussed what the delicious bowl of meat might be. “It looks like Roast Beef to me” said the American, “It might be duck” I ventured, a Korean suggested something else and the conversation continued like this for a moment or two until the proprietor arrived.
“This isn’t what I ordered, I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” repeated the American, “Yes, this Turkey Sandwich”, said the proprietor omitting the verb in the sentence, but we all forgave him. He pointed to the bowl of delicious red meat “This Turkey” and pointing to a bowl of bread the waitress has also brought, but which had escaped our notice in all the excitement, “This Sandwich. Turkey Sandwich”.
Now I love a joke, but I fell of my chair at this! I roared. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen in a restaurant, and I have seen a few. The expression on the American’s face did not betray any sign that he was amused by the proprietor’s speech. Rather the reverse in fact. I wouldn’t exactly describe his expression as disappointed either, disbelieving maybe, pained perhaps. At this point a number of words were exchanged between the American and the proprietor which although perfectly civil did not have quite the same friendly tone as 10 minutes earlier. I had to restrain my continuing guffaws in order to save everyone’s embarrassment, even my own. The American insisted that this was not a Turkey Sandwich, nor even Turkey, and the proprietor insisted that this was exactly what it was. “Turkey is white, white meat” said the American said pointing to himself, rather inappropriately I thought, “this is red, it’s not even well done”. The proprietor seized on this moment of American weakness and said “I put under grill, then if you no like, all fine, I bring something else”. The American reluctantly agreed to this and the delicious looking meat and the bowl of bread were taken away. Despite the humour we all felt obliged to sympathize with our colleague, whatever we might think of Americans and the eating habits that they have inflicted on the world, we would have to agreed that the Turkey Sandwich was pretty innocuous and that what he had been given was definitely not one.
A few minutes later a dish was put in front of the American, on it were the bread rolls cut in half, and on top of each one was a slice of the delicious looking red meat, slightly better done before and showing signs that the purple sauce had gone under the grill too and therefore was now slightly dried out. “I’m sorry, this is still not a Turkey Sandwich” said the Yank, “You try, if you no like I bring something else” insisted the proprietor. There was nothing for it, the American was going to have to try this stuff. He took half a slice of the red meat and rather gingerly eat it. “You no like?”, “It’s not Turkey” he said, that was enough and the proprietor seized the plate and bore it away, a plate of grilled vegetables was ordered and when they arrived the American eat them with great gusto.
My curiosity had been raised by this, as well as my funny-bone tickled. I really wanted to know what the delicious looking red meat was, and I was curious about the sauce too. So when we went to the restaurant the next day, I asked the waitress if she remember the dish of delicious looking red meat brought to the American as a Turkey Sandwich “You want Turkey Sandwich?” she said. No, I wanted the dish of delicious looking red meat covered in Purple Sauce which you thought was a Turkey Sandwich. She looked puzzled, I shrugged. “OK, please may I have a Turkey Sandwich”.
After a few moments, a plate of Bread Rolls cut in half with some delicious looking red meat appeared in front of me. It wasn’t what I had ordered, I felt like saying “This is not what I ordered” in my most impeccable English accent, “I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” but decided against it.
It was duck, and very delicious!
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
The gods, wormholes and shorts!
I am quite used to it now, whenever I travel I know that I will forget to pack something vitally important and that it will be an enormous struggle or prohibitively expensive to replace at my destination. I am reminded of the trumpet player who was going on a gig where he knew that he would need every conceivable type of mute, he carefully gathered all his mutes together (they always managed to hide themselves in the most unlikely places) and put them in his gig-bag and toddled off to his concert feeling very pleased with himself. When he arrived he opened his bag to show his mates his magnificent collection of mutes; they were all very impressed, until some wag asked “Where’s the trumpet?”
When I conduct I am completely neurotic about my musical scores, I will check I have them all several times over. My usual habit is to get them all together the night before, knowing I will wake up in a cold sweat, check them again until I am quite sure they are all there. The night before my flight for this trip I woke to remember two scores that I needed that were not packed, and my bag was already bursting at the seams. They came as hand luggage. Now I’m here I do think that I have all my scores, though I am pretty sure that my Mahler 3 is the wrong version.
So - the first day in a strange city, with a language I can’t read nor understand, is always spent looking for things that I forgot to bring, or as I prefer to put it, that my wife forgot to pack. It is very hot in Bulgaria, I knew I would need shorts, and I don’t have any. I have three million shirts, but no shorts. This was going to be very annoying, but my bag was damn close to the 20 kilo limit for the aeroplane so I decided to manage without; I would go for a wander around the town of Ruse, or Rousse, or Pyce in Cyrillic.
My walk was without particular purpose, but I took off in the general direction of the Concert Hall, which I had been told was at the end of a certain street. I found the street and wandered to the end, there indeed was an impressive if slightly run-down building that could well be a concert hall. Culture was very important to Eastern European countries during the Soviet era, since then it would appear that little money has been spent on keeping the buildings up to date. I was surprised to find most of the shops open on a Sunday, and it occurred to me that I might be able to buy things that I had forgotten, if only I could remember what. What was it I needed?
Deodorant, of course! How could I forget? When I conduct I sweat a bit (OK, a lot), and deodorant NEVER gets packed. At moments in time such as these, something very curious usually happens, I am sure that I can’t be the only person to have experienced it. All the pharmacies, or any shop that is likely to sell deodorant, collectively jump down a wormhole to another dimension. However hard I look I know that I will never ever find one. This was of course the case, and where-ever I looked there were plenty of restaurants, clothes shops, computer shops and mobile phone shops but not a single pharmacy. They had all escaped to an alternate universe.
The secret is not to panic, and not to worry too much. Show the gods that you don’t really care. After all, if I smell a bit after some energetic conducting, I don’t notice. It’s only everyone else. The thing to do is to find another shop and buy something in it, the shops that you really need then re-appear in great numbers. There were two book shops quite close to each other. I like bookshops! But everything here is in Bulgarian and therefore Cyrillic, no use to me whatsoever. Never mind, on my quest for deodorant I must go in and appear interested.
Inside there were, well, plenty of books. None of them were of any use to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the dictionary section. Then, even better, Longman’s dictionary of contemporary English. This is an interesting book! One of my clients typeset it, and I always enjoy looking on the back of the title page and seeing “Set in Some-Font-That-I-Have-Never-Heard-Of by Letterpart”. It gives me a nice feeling of satisfaction that I contributed in some small way to the production of this book. I then flicked through the pages at random and found a definition of “Chip and Pin”, wonderful.
Then, a brainwave! Bookshops sell maps, I could genuinely buy a map of the town, this was something that I really needed! Off to see the (very pretty) girl behind the counter, who spoke English, and who quickly found a little map, IN ENGLISH! Brilliant. 1.50 Leva, about 75p. Can’t argue with that. I left the shop feeling very self-satisfied, mission accomplished. Now, what was it I really needed? Err.......
This doesn’t happen very often, but out of the corner of my eye I spotted a Pharmacy! Deodorant! And they sold it, even for men! Roll on versions too! This was going to be a good day.
So, back to the hotel to play with my new toys. The hotel is an old Soviet style building, and was probably top of the range when it was built and still looks quite impressive in places. The rooms have air-conditioning but the communal spaces do not, and the fourth floor corridor on which is my room is located is stifling. Back in my room I remember how hot it was outside, inside it was so cool! Shorts! Dammit. OK, make a list of all the other things I was going to need. Well I would want a bite to eat, but that would not be a problem, the town was heaving with restaurants. I had seen clothes shops, but where? I had my map, with its aid I could retrace my steps and find them again.
So, out into the streets again to find some shorts, I could feel the space-time continuum shifting as all the clothes shops collectively hopped down a convenient wormhole and were replaced by an excessively large amount of pharmacies. There would be no point in going in them, I already knew that they would have a much larger choice of deodorants at half the price I had paid. Never mind, don’t let it get you down. Find the clothes shops.
Hmm - lots of mobile phone shops, computer shops and restaurants. No clothes shops, None.
I was just about to give up when I spotted the street where they all were, this was unusual, but there was no doubt about it, clothes shops. And, they had shorts. Being 6’ 2” does have some advantages, my children’s friends are all scared of me, this is a surprising plus, all I have to do is growl slightly and they all run away. But Bulgarians do not appear to be a large people, besides - I am very overweight. I did find a pair of shorts that normally I would not be seen dead in, they had gimp-like zips over all the pockets and would have made a twenty five year old look silly. Fortunately they were far too small so I wasn’t able to buy them. All the other shops were the same. I had forgotten that only young thin people buy clothes, unless of course, the wormhole had taken all the tall fat-person’s clothes. Back to the hotel with a resigned air, don’t let it get you down.
One of the odd things about being away is that your family suddenly want to talk to you. Grown up kids are busy and have jobs, so they never normally have time for a chat, and teenage kids are by the laws of evolution prevented from speaking to parents. This changes somewhat when there is distance involved. The greater the distance the more they want to chat. And the wife – well!
With the age of the computer comes the age of the video call, it all works quite well now, providing you have a good connection and headphones. These latter I had forgotten to pack. I have hi-fi headphones for doing my homework on scores, but not computer headphones with a mike. Well, I had seen lots of phone and computer shops, there was one at the top of the road.
Of course there wasn’t. How could there be, I wanted to buy something from it. They had ALL disappeared to be replaced with restaurants, clothes shops and pharmacies. Don’t give up, keep an air of devil-may-care insouciance. If you don’t care enough you will find one. It worked, a mobile phone shop, with lots and lots of – Bluetooth headsets. Not what I wanted at all. The sales assistant was a boy of about 10, but wonder of wonders and blessing of capitalism, he spoke excellent English. He understood “Headphones for a computer with a microphone and standard 3.5mm jack plugs” perfectly. There were some for about 9 leva, £4.50 or so, excellent. A victory, albeit a small one. So back to the hotel, the 10 year old had carefully put the receipt in the bag and told me “if you have any problem just bring them back”. I had even complemented him on his excellent English. This was a big mistake. HUGE in fact.
Could I get those headphones to work? Of course not. The gods were against me since the moment I pretended I didn’t care. So I gathered together the packaging, the bag and the receipt, none of which I had yet lost. The packaging was even in good condition, it wasn’t the heat sealed type that is impossible to get into and half destroys the contents in the process. This was all TOO good, I was being lined up for some huge humiliation, I could feel it. Let’s try the headphones once again. The headset had a volume control, better try that! Then, of course, they worked perfectly. Can you imagine how I would have felt going back to the shop, in my “I’m a computer expert and these don’t work” mode, to have the ten year old plug them into something, adjust the volume control and say “There you are - Sir” in the most condescending conceivable voice. It was a narrow escape, I was going to have to be careful.
So, some study, some chat with the wife about her computer which she had broken, then supper. No problem here, there had been restaurants all over the town all day. They couldn’t possibly disappear. There was time for a quick nap as well.
When I woke I found my phone and wallet and went off in search of a restaurant. The gods had decided to punish me for finding the volume control by having it rain. Never mind, there were plenty of restaurants nearby. But what if they were all to close early? It was eight o’clock and they couldn’t possibly shut that early, and indeed so it proved. All the restaurants were still there and still open, the only thing wrong was that it was raining.
The first restaurant turned out to be a bar, then the next, then the next... They were all bars, no food anywhere! The rain got harder, I started to panic. Where was I going to eat? My head started to swim, I went in bar after bar, not so much as a sandwich anywhere. I was losing my sense of direction, and I had left the map in the hotel room.
Getting more and more desperate I started wandering in ever increasing circles, sometimes stumbling back into the same bar four or five times looking for a bite to eat.
I lost sense of time and place, Bruckner’s majestic but doom-laden eighth symphony kept ringing round my head. The panic was increasing, I was starving, confused and hopelessly lost in a strange city with a language which I could neither understand nor read. The gods were exacting a terrible revenge, on my first day I had beaten them three times. "You won over the shorts" I
thought.
Once again I felt a slight rumble, the space-time continuum shifted again, something had changed. I walked round the corner to find - a McDonalds. The gods are indeed cruel.
No - no - no, I would not do that, I would rather starve.
My head span, by stomach rumbled, the music changed to the final scene of Gotterdammerung. "OK, I promised not even to look for shorts, and even if I stumble across some I will not buy them, I promise!"
Valhalla crumbled around me, the fires engulfed its remains, the Rhine burst its banks, the Rhinemaidens took my promise and bore it away.
I looked up, shook my head to clear it. I was standing in a puddle and in front of me was a Pizza parlour.
A Pizza parlour. I could cope with that. “A Calzone and some tap water please”. The gods had shown some mercy.
On balance, a fair day.
When I conduct I am completely neurotic about my musical scores, I will check I have them all several times over. My usual habit is to get them all together the night before, knowing I will wake up in a cold sweat, check them again until I am quite sure they are all there. The night before my flight for this trip I woke to remember two scores that I needed that were not packed, and my bag was already bursting at the seams. They came as hand luggage. Now I’m here I do think that I have all my scores, though I am pretty sure that my Mahler 3 is the wrong version.
So - the first day in a strange city, with a language I can’t read nor understand, is always spent looking for things that I forgot to bring, or as I prefer to put it, that my wife forgot to pack. It is very hot in Bulgaria, I knew I would need shorts, and I don’t have any. I have three million shirts, but no shorts. This was going to be very annoying, but my bag was damn close to the 20 kilo limit for the aeroplane so I decided to manage without; I would go for a wander around the town of Ruse, or Rousse, or Pyce in Cyrillic.
My walk was without particular purpose, but I took off in the general direction of the Concert Hall, which I had been told was at the end of a certain street. I found the street and wandered to the end, there indeed was an impressive if slightly run-down building that could well be a concert hall. Culture was very important to Eastern European countries during the Soviet era, since then it would appear that little money has been spent on keeping the buildings up to date. I was surprised to find most of the shops open on a Sunday, and it occurred to me that I might be able to buy things that I had forgotten, if only I could remember what. What was it I needed?
Deodorant, of course! How could I forget? When I conduct I sweat a bit (OK, a lot), and deodorant NEVER gets packed. At moments in time such as these, something very curious usually happens, I am sure that I can’t be the only person to have experienced it. All the pharmacies, or any shop that is likely to sell deodorant, collectively jump down a wormhole to another dimension. However hard I look I know that I will never ever find one. This was of course the case, and where-ever I looked there were plenty of restaurants, clothes shops, computer shops and mobile phone shops but not a single pharmacy. They had all escaped to an alternate universe.
The secret is not to panic, and not to worry too much. Show the gods that you don’t really care. After all, if I smell a bit after some energetic conducting, I don’t notice. It’s only everyone else. The thing to do is to find another shop and buy something in it, the shops that you really need then re-appear in great numbers. There were two book shops quite close to each other. I like bookshops! But everything here is in Bulgarian and therefore Cyrillic, no use to me whatsoever. Never mind, on my quest for deodorant I must go in and appear interested.
Inside there were, well, plenty of books. None of them were of any use to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the dictionary section. Then, even better, Longman’s dictionary of contemporary English. This is an interesting book! One of my clients typeset it, and I always enjoy looking on the back of the title page and seeing “Set in Some-Font-That-I-Have-Never-Heard-Of by Letterpart”. It gives me a nice feeling of satisfaction that I contributed in some small way to the production of this book. I then flicked through the pages at random and found a definition of “Chip and Pin”, wonderful.
Then, a brainwave! Bookshops sell maps, I could genuinely buy a map of the town, this was something that I really needed! Off to see the (very pretty) girl behind the counter, who spoke English, and who quickly found a little map, IN ENGLISH! Brilliant. 1.50 Leva, about 75p. Can’t argue with that. I left the shop feeling very self-satisfied, mission accomplished. Now, what was it I really needed? Err.......
This doesn’t happen very often, but out of the corner of my eye I spotted a Pharmacy! Deodorant! And they sold it, even for men! Roll on versions too! This was going to be a good day.
So, back to the hotel to play with my new toys. The hotel is an old Soviet style building, and was probably top of the range when it was built and still looks quite impressive in places. The rooms have air-conditioning but the communal spaces do not, and the fourth floor corridor on which is my room is located is stifling. Back in my room I remember how hot it was outside, inside it was so cool! Shorts! Dammit. OK, make a list of all the other things I was going to need. Well I would want a bite to eat, but that would not be a problem, the town was heaving with restaurants. I had seen clothes shops, but where? I had my map, with its aid I could retrace my steps and find them again.
So, out into the streets again to find some shorts, I could feel the space-time continuum shifting as all the clothes shops collectively hopped down a convenient wormhole and were replaced by an excessively large amount of pharmacies. There would be no point in going in them, I already knew that they would have a much larger choice of deodorants at half the price I had paid. Never mind, don’t let it get you down. Find the clothes shops.
Hmm - lots of mobile phone shops, computer shops and restaurants. No clothes shops, None.
I was just about to give up when I spotted the street where they all were, this was unusual, but there was no doubt about it, clothes shops. And, they had shorts. Being 6’ 2” does have some advantages, my children’s friends are all scared of me, this is a surprising plus, all I have to do is growl slightly and they all run away. But Bulgarians do not appear to be a large people, besides - I am very overweight. I did find a pair of shorts that normally I would not be seen dead in, they had gimp-like zips over all the pockets and would have made a twenty five year old look silly. Fortunately they were far too small so I wasn’t able to buy them. All the other shops were the same. I had forgotten that only young thin people buy clothes, unless of course, the wormhole had taken all the tall fat-person’s clothes. Back to the hotel with a resigned air, don’t let it get you down.
One of the odd things about being away is that your family suddenly want to talk to you. Grown up kids are busy and have jobs, so they never normally have time for a chat, and teenage kids are by the laws of evolution prevented from speaking to parents. This changes somewhat when there is distance involved. The greater the distance the more they want to chat. And the wife – well!
With the age of the computer comes the age of the video call, it all works quite well now, providing you have a good connection and headphones. These latter I had forgotten to pack. I have hi-fi headphones for doing my homework on scores, but not computer headphones with a mike. Well, I had seen lots of phone and computer shops, there was one at the top of the road.
Of course there wasn’t. How could there be, I wanted to buy something from it. They had ALL disappeared to be replaced with restaurants, clothes shops and pharmacies. Don’t give up, keep an air of devil-may-care insouciance. If you don’t care enough you will find one. It worked, a mobile phone shop, with lots and lots of – Bluetooth headsets. Not what I wanted at all. The sales assistant was a boy of about 10, but wonder of wonders and blessing of capitalism, he spoke excellent English. He understood “Headphones for a computer with a microphone and standard 3.5mm jack plugs” perfectly. There were some for about 9 leva, £4.50 or so, excellent. A victory, albeit a small one. So back to the hotel, the 10 year old had carefully put the receipt in the bag and told me “if you have any problem just bring them back”. I had even complemented him on his excellent English. This was a big mistake. HUGE in fact.
Could I get those headphones to work? Of course not. The gods were against me since the moment I pretended I didn’t care. So I gathered together the packaging, the bag and the receipt, none of which I had yet lost. The packaging was even in good condition, it wasn’t the heat sealed type that is impossible to get into and half destroys the contents in the process. This was all TOO good, I was being lined up for some huge humiliation, I could feel it. Let’s try the headphones once again. The headset had a volume control, better try that! Then, of course, they worked perfectly. Can you imagine how I would have felt going back to the shop, in my “I’m a computer expert and these don’t work” mode, to have the ten year old plug them into something, adjust the volume control and say “There you are - Sir” in the most condescending conceivable voice. It was a narrow escape, I was going to have to be careful.
So, some study, some chat with the wife about her computer which she had broken, then supper. No problem here, there had been restaurants all over the town all day. They couldn’t possibly disappear. There was time for a quick nap as well.
When I woke I found my phone and wallet and went off in search of a restaurant. The gods had decided to punish me for finding the volume control by having it rain. Never mind, there were plenty of restaurants nearby. But what if they were all to close early? It was eight o’clock and they couldn’t possibly shut that early, and indeed so it proved. All the restaurants were still there and still open, the only thing wrong was that it was raining.
The first restaurant turned out to be a bar, then the next, then the next... They were all bars, no food anywhere! The rain got harder, I started to panic. Where was I going to eat? My head started to swim, I went in bar after bar, not so much as a sandwich anywhere. I was losing my sense of direction, and I had left the map in the hotel room.
Getting more and more desperate I started wandering in ever increasing circles, sometimes stumbling back into the same bar four or five times looking for a bite to eat.
I lost sense of time and place, Bruckner’s majestic but doom-laden eighth symphony kept ringing round my head. The panic was increasing, I was starving, confused and hopelessly lost in a strange city with a language which I could neither understand nor read. The gods were exacting a terrible revenge, on my first day I had beaten them three times. "You won over the shorts" I
thought.
Once again I felt a slight rumble, the space-time continuum shifted again, something had changed. I walked round the corner to find - a McDonalds. The gods are indeed cruel.
No - no - no, I would not do that, I would rather starve.
My head span, by stomach rumbled, the music changed to the final scene of Gotterdammerung. "OK, I promised not even to look for shorts, and even if I stumble across some I will not buy them, I promise!"
Valhalla crumbled around me, the fires engulfed its remains, the Rhine burst its banks, the Rhinemaidens took my promise and bore it away.
I looked up, shook my head to clear it. I was standing in a puddle and in front of me was a Pizza parlour.
A Pizza parlour. I could cope with that. “A Calzone and some tap water please”. The gods had shown some mercy.
On balance, a fair day.
Sunday, 30 August 2009
To Bulgaria, again!
After a more or less sleepless night the alarm went off at 3:30am and the wife and I set off for Gatwick just gone 4. No mad taxi-drivers skipping roundabouts with cement mixers this time, just me at the wheel of the Prius pootling along gently to the North Terminal. Difficult-Jet must have known that I had paid for Speedy Check in and Boarding as the queues for standard check in were a mere fraction of what they were in June. Even so, I don’t regret paying the extra for a moment, check in taking 5 minutes or so and leaving plenty of time for the cavity checks from Security and a latte and Apricot Danish from a restaurant.
The flight was on time and uneventful, I was met at Sofia by one of the same organizers who ran the competition in Bourgas and greeted as a long lost friend, a bit later by a couple more people in the same fashion. The Bulgarians are very friendly albeit that a degree of curiosity about their country helps to grease the conversation. After a quick coffee and half an hour animatedly discussing how to load the car with €20k of recording kit we set off for the local restaurant for lunch. This not being an establishment in the touristy part of Sofia (which certainly has some fine buildings that I would like to look at more closely) the menu was all in the Cyrillic alphabet and therefore completely unintelligible. I was asked if I liked salad, garlic bread and chicken, I reluctantly admitted a partiality to all these so lunch was ordered. When it arrived I was shocked and stunned to find that I was the only one eating! The others were just having coffee! I overcame my embarrassment and enjoyed my lunch (no surprise there then).
On to the airport to pickup an Argentinian conductor who was arriving on Al Italia from Rome. He expressed no surprise and little frustration that the airline had lost his bag. He entertained us with stories of how the Italian cabin crew behaved on the flight (very badly) and though of Italian descent himself, how amusing he found the stereotypical Italian behaviour. The four of us, two Bulgarians, the Argentinian and myself had a wide ranging discussion in the four hour car journey to Ruse. We covered recent Bulgarian history, how people in general are nostalgic for the Communist era and disillusioned with democracy, the Falklands (sorry Malvinas!) war, and the origin of the English word posh. The Argentinian and I also had some interesting technical discussions on conducting, he is here for Mahler 2 which he has memorized, a substantial achievement! I was pleased to find that he admires Sibelius 7 as a feat of composition as much as I do. He has recently got married, and following the master-class will be going on his honeymoon. He has married a soprano and enjoyed my favourite soprano joke although I did have to explain it. How many sopranos does it take to screw in a light bulb - only one, but there will be twenty others demanding to know why they were not asked. I assure you that if you deal with singers of classical music this is hysterical.
Eventually on to Ruse and the hotel, which is fine. I had the usual battles trying to attach to the hotel Wi-Fi, it worked eventually but I have no idea what I did to finally persuade it to attach. Patience is often the key virtue with computers. I then spent some time watching the DVD of my conducting in Burgas, more on that subject later.
The flight was on time and uneventful, I was met at Sofia by one of the same organizers who ran the competition in Bourgas and greeted as a long lost friend, a bit later by a couple more people in the same fashion. The Bulgarians are very friendly albeit that a degree of curiosity about their country helps to grease the conversation. After a quick coffee and half an hour animatedly discussing how to load the car with €20k of recording kit we set off for the local restaurant for lunch. This not being an establishment in the touristy part of Sofia (which certainly has some fine buildings that I would like to look at more closely) the menu was all in the Cyrillic alphabet and therefore completely unintelligible. I was asked if I liked salad, garlic bread and chicken, I reluctantly admitted a partiality to all these so lunch was ordered. When it arrived I was shocked and stunned to find that I was the only one eating! The others were just having coffee! I overcame my embarrassment and enjoyed my lunch (no surprise there then).
On to the airport to pickup an Argentinian conductor who was arriving on Al Italia from Rome. He expressed no surprise and little frustration that the airline had lost his bag. He entertained us with stories of how the Italian cabin crew behaved on the flight (very badly) and though of Italian descent himself, how amusing he found the stereotypical Italian behaviour. The four of us, two Bulgarians, the Argentinian and myself had a wide ranging discussion in the four hour car journey to Ruse. We covered recent Bulgarian history, how people in general are nostalgic for the Communist era and disillusioned with democracy, the Falklands (sorry Malvinas!) war, and the origin of the English word posh. The Argentinian and I also had some interesting technical discussions on conducting, he is here for Mahler 2 which he has memorized, a substantial achievement! I was pleased to find that he admires Sibelius 7 as a feat of composition as much as I do. He has recently got married, and following the master-class will be going on his honeymoon. He has married a soprano and enjoyed my favourite soprano joke although I did have to explain it. How many sopranos does it take to screw in a light bulb - only one, but there will be twenty others demanding to know why they were not asked. I assure you that if you deal with singers of classical music this is hysterical.
Eventually on to Ruse and the hotel, which is fine. I had the usual battles trying to attach to the hotel Wi-Fi, it worked eventually but I have no idea what I did to finally persuade it to attach. Patience is often the key virtue with computers. I then spent some time watching the DVD of my conducting in Burgas, more on that subject later.
Monday, 27 July 2009
Master Class
With the competition in Bulgaria now fading into long-term memory I am looking forward to my next project which is once again in Bulgaria. I am attending a master-class with the famous conducting guru Jorma Panula, there is a Wikipedia article about him here
Details of the course are here, scroll down a bit once the page has loaded.
The master-class takes place in Ruse, which I am told has a good orchestra. We are covering two Mahler Symphonies, 2 & 3, his Ruckert Lieder and Kindertotenlieder, with Sibelius Symphonies 2 & 7. Of these works the only ones that I have not conducted before are Mahler 3 and the Ruckert Lieder, the former is a massive piece, 90 minutes long! The Ruckert Lieder are delightful miniatures, only one having heavy brass.
I have to admit that Mahler’s Symphonies don’t feel as natural to me as they once did, and I am struggling to get back into these works and to learn them. I have done Kindertotenlieder many times over recent years, in different formats and venues but always with the wonderful Nina Alupii-Morton as soloist. Nina has such a wonderful voice, and such a feeling for a line that she has been a great joy to work with on these songs. It will be a wrench to do them with someone else, though it will be fascinating too.
These days it is the Sibelius Symphonies that command my attention. Over recent months I have been studying them and different recordings of them in some detail. Of all of them the one I feel closest to is No. 4, the darkest and most bleak. I find it very passionate and emotional, the finale’s catastrophic collapse one of the most powerful statements in music. Unfortunately I have never conducted it; one day, when I am ready, I would love to. The Sibelius Symphony I most admire technically is No. 7 which I have conducted before. As a work of composition it embodies everything that Sibelius does, particularly the way themes, motifs and tempi emerge and merge with and from one another. I am looking forward to working on it with Panula, and to hearing what he has to say about it.
Perhaps this course will re-engage me with the Mahler Symphonies, they are certainly great masterpieces, but currently they do not touch me in the say way as Sibelius does. There is plenty to be learnt about conducting from them, I am looking forward to working with Panula!
Saturday, 13 June 2009
More final words on the Competition
I promise this will be my last post on the subject! The two conductors that I particularly admired in the competition, and who both got through to the second round, did not win prizes. One got through to the final and the other did not.
What does this mean? Well, the jury were looking for things in Opera conducting that I was not, and I am looking for things that they were not. I have no complaints about this, there are plenty of different styles and techniques around. I'm always open to suggestion and we should all always strive to learn and improve.
Lulu at Covent Garden tonight, I have never seen it before and don't know it well. Something else new to learn!
What does this mean? Well, the jury were looking for things in Opera conducting that I was not, and I am looking for things that they were not. I have no complaints about this, there are plenty of different styles and techniques around. I'm always open to suggestion and we should all always strive to learn and improve.
Lulu at Covent Garden tonight, I have never seen it before and don't know it well. Something else new to learn!
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Final Words on the Competition
I'm back in the UK, and have been for a couple of days. Before I travelled to Bulgaria I was telling the wife, family and friends that I was not expecting to progress to the second round of the competition, and this turned out to be the case.
Am I disappointed? Well, in fact I am. Some entrants to the competition were standing in front of an opera orchestra and singers for the first time, others were very experienced. I watched almost everyone conduct and I thought that I had a reasonable chance of getting through.
Some of the conductors were excellent, and I felt should progress to the final. I have noted their names but I don't think it would be sensible to publish them here. Two I admired very much, they had clear technique, cued the singers, led and responded well.
I will be interested to see the results, if the conductors I admired didn't get through it would suggest that the panel have different ideas on how to conduct opera from mine. I shall then have something interesting to think about!
Am I disappointed? Well, in fact I am. Some entrants to the competition were standing in front of an opera orchestra and singers for the first time, others were very experienced. I watched almost everyone conduct and I thought that I had a reasonable chance of getting through.
Some of the conductors were excellent, and I felt should progress to the final. I have noted their names but I don't think it would be sensible to publish them here. Two I admired very much, they had clear technique, cued the singers, led and responded well.
I will be interested to see the results, if the conductors I admired didn't get through it would suggest that the panel have different ideas on how to conduct opera from mine. I shall then have something interesting to think about!
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