The concert started about 15 minutes late in Spoleto, partly because everyone coming to the concert was so relaxed, and why not. Its one of the prettiest towns I’ve seen, lots of nice places to sit outside and eat, tiny cobbled streets, and an evening of beautiful music followed by fireworks to look forward to. Whats the rush?
I should mention by the way, that we were being filmed by Italian broadcasters RAI for a television show of the concert next year, so we were under a little extra pressure. Hot lights, cameras on stage and a swoopy boom camera that flew over our heads were all extra distractions. Its amazing how much noise an audience can make simply by sitting talking and moving around whilst we tune up. Its often not until everyone is totally silent and we are about to begin that you become aware of the ambient noises around you. This didn’t really matter as Daniel strode onto the stage, turned to us and launched in Don Juan, all you could hear was the sound of the LSO reverberating off the ancient stone walls which surrounded us.
Gradually the light levels began to drop, Daniel returned to the stage to conduct the Firebird. Now if you don’t know this piece, the first minutes are incredibly quiet, and outside they are almost inaudible. I have to tell you that the Italian audience were incredibly attentive and quiet in seats which didn’t look the most comfy in the world, they also tipped forward down the hill and I imagine, were still a little damp from the earlier deluge. Now when I used to live just off Guildford High street many years ago, I would often be woken up or indeed have my al fresco (thats Italian) wine drinking shattered by the local youth racing up and down on small scooters or souped up cars making a right racket. The young people of Spoleto were not to be seen anywhere, but the second we started playing, very quietly, about 30 swifts decided to swoop endlessly around the courtyard where we were playing. Their shrieks drowned out most of the first ten minutes of the Firebird, and the bird like figurations from the woodwind in the 2nd part whipped them into a frenzy over my head. I had one hand poised at my umbrella. I have heard that they throw vegetables sometimes in Italy if they don’t like the performance. I couldn’t see the birds carrying any vegetables, but I’m sure they were armed and I only had one set of tails. We scared them off in the infernal dance, but once again in the very quiet horn solo at the end, David was drowned out by the constant shrieking of the birds. Being as famous as he is however, I’m sure its not the first time.
We had an interval of 15 minutes during which time everyone stood up, wandered around and then sat down again as there was nowhere to go. We all looked up at the sky as by now the wind was picking up a bit and it was turning an ominous shade of black. Oh well, the show must go on.
The second half began with a huge gust of wind as we played the opening of Brahms 2. I reached for my pegs and carried on. Its all right when you are a string player, as you have two players to a stand, so at least one of you keeps playing whilst the other puts pegs on everything. I am always left in a bit of a pickle. Take the first page turn of the Brahms. It is pegged to the stand on the left and right hand sides. At the end of the right hand page I have 4 bars to turn, always a bit tricky at this speed, but much worse when you have to undo two pegs. To make matters worse, on the next page is a solo, so I have to decide whether to sacrifice the last few bars of page 1 and peg down page 2 to play the solo; or do I play the last 4 bars of page 1 , turn and leave page 2 unpegged, thereby courting a possible wind induced solo malfunction? I should add that whilst I am making such important split second decisions, there is a camera on a boom swinging over the second violins coming straight at me for my solo. It is at this point that I am sitting on the edge of my chair, my flute on my lap, trying to peg down one side of music with the other peg in my mouth, looking like a right idiot. Should make compelling viewing. I bet you never knew playing the flute could be so stressful.
Sp predictably, music and stands became separated by the wind throughout the first movement. You can always tell when it happens, because all of a sudden the first bassoon, for instance, suddenly stops playing, to be replaced by frantic rustling of papers and usually a fair amount of swearing. We can but hope that there are no subtitles on the TV broadcast. In situations like this, there is very little you can do but laugh, shrug your shoulders and carry on. That is until we reached the second movement.
I was fairly relaxed, I’d kept all my music on the stand, and there were no page turns in this movement so I had 4 pegs on. The wind was whipping across the stage and ominous black clouds were racing across an ever darkening sky. It all started well enough and we reached the half way point when gradually it became evident that it was starting to rain. When this happens in Britain everyone gets their brollies out and we carry on playing under the all weather canopy. There was no canopy and we were getting wet, and the rain was getting harder. Everybody was watching Lennie the chairman to see what we should do, and as quick as a flash, without stopping playing and Daniel continuing to conduct, they had a conversation which went something like this,
“Its raining”
“Yes, I’d noticed”
“Lets get off”
“OK”
It was the quickest negotiation in the turbulent history of the LSO.
The last time I saw the orchestra get off stage that quickly, was when we had the free beer in Cologne a few blogs ago. Of course there was little for us to do but stand under the arch and wait for the rain to pass, which took about 15minutes. We went back on to huge applause, the audience put away their umbrellas and we started the second movement again. I am happy to report that the swifts had gone to bed and the rest of the concert went smoothly. Although the woodwind section nearly all missed the last section of the symphony when the oboe player( who shall remain nameless, but read the last blog if you want to know!) made a basic outdoor concert error. In his relief to get to the last page before more rain, he forgot that he had pegged it down and succeeded in ripping half the page off in a spectacular fashion, he then spent the rest of the piece trying to stop it being blown away. It kind of summed up the day really.
All that followed was a very nice meal and fireworks and a mercifully short night in the worst hotel in the universe before returning back to now sunny London.
By the time you read this, we will all be on a very well deserved holiday and my flute will be in its box until we reconvene for the gargantuan Prokofiev cycle which we will be playing around the world. I hope you have enjoyed our blogs over the last year, let us know what you think. Its been read over 12500 times now and only 50 of you have left comments. Stop being so lazy! Enjoy the summer and see you soon.
All the best
Gareth


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