Will you still need me? Will you still feed me?

I’m feeling very old this weekend. This is due to a number of factors. Firstly, it is my birthday next month and I shall be 38. I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up either, so I’d better get my skates on. The other reason is that this tour schedule is punishing at the moment. Its a funny thing touring as we often have to go away for long periods which is difficult, but the short tours of 2 to 3 days are often just as tiring. For instance, we have just returned from whistle stop trip to Vienna. Well, I say Vienna, we actually played outside in Grafenegg. Well, thats not strictly true either, we were supposed to play outside but it rained, so we played inside, outside of Vienna. Are you with me so far? Fortunately, as well as an outdoor venue they also have a spare concert hall at the back of the garden in case of rain. We ended up doing both the concerts inside this weekend.

Getting there was the tiring thing which made me feel all 37.9 of my years. Firstly, it was the day after the kids went back to school, so chaos was rampant in Chateau Davies and secondly I had to get up at 5.30am to leave. This is of course impossible to do without waking up my kids and guarantees bad temperaments all day long for my wife to deal with. Anyway, I rolled my case down to the station which woke up everyone else’s kids too. I then caught a train and then a bus and then did the check in thing which fortunately is easy for us with Mario and Mark organising.  However even their skills can’t prevent us being delayed by an hour and a half because of a warning light and smell of burning in the plane. To be honest,I was quite happy to wait for them to fix that one!

We eventually arrived late in Vienna and had to get on buses for an hour and a half to the venue. They very kindly had provided us with ham and cheese sandwiches to please carnivores and vegetarians alike, and we then had a few minutes before the rehearsal with Sir Colin. I was knackered already which was made worse by the fact I realised I had become an older member of the band who could tell long rambling stories about long dead conductors and composers to the young generation and watch them glaze over and pretend to go to sleep.

I sat next to Phil Cobb on the bus, who I pleased to say didn’t fall asleep and he is still speaking to me, so maybe I wasn’t too dull. In case you missed it, Phil is our new Principal Trumpet player who has taken over from the legendary Maurice Murphy. A very big seat to fill. When we appointed him, he was 21 years old. Apparently he is now 22 but this really doesn’t make me feel better. At his tender years (I’m old enough to use this cliché now) he already has a fabulous sound and despite the age gap with, well, everybody, he is already fitting in well. The concert on Saturday was his first as a member and he informs me that he was in the first half and had to play d and a. This is not a euphemism or secret code for musicians, it is simply that he had two notes in the whole concert. I didn’t ask what length they were, it seemed rude. As we were talking I did some maths in my head and realised that he is only 9 years older than my eldest son. I have been in the LSO for 10 years. You can see why I am starting to feel old.

To make matters worse, any day now we will have another Principal Flute player to join our ranks which is great news for me. After 5 years of doing just about everything, I can share the workload.
He is 21 as well and doesn’t turn 22 until Christmas. Oh dear.

Anyway, we came to the concert last night where we were playing the amazing Nielsen 5 and I couldn’t help notice that Phil was looking a little green around the gills. To be honest the first concert you do with the LSO is terrifying and I have seen plenty of interesting shades of players before concerts-many of them in the mirror. We all know what it is like, however on this occasion he was being violently sick and had to go to hospital. Sadly he couldn’t play yesterday and had to go back to the hotel (he’s fine now by the way!). It was one of those moments where I’m glad I’m in this band as we not only have the brave new world of Mr Cobb, but due to his condition Rod Franks simply moved up and played the piece in the concert on no rehearsal. There aren’t many people who can do this with the incredible ease with which Rod does. Many people didn’t even notice. We are indeed very fortunate indeed to have Phil and Rod playing for us. I spoke to him afterwards and commented on his nerve. “Well you’ve just got to do it haven’t you?” he said in his typically understated way.

Well, yes Rod, but you do it so well! I asked him if he’d played the Nielsen before.

“Oh yes, of course. The last time I played it was in 1979.”

That’ll be about 8 years before Phil was born then.

I take my hat off once again to my colleagues and look forward to hearing them both over the coming years.

Incidentally, there were many theories as to why Phil was ill. Some said it was appendicitis as he is so young, some said food poisoning as he is new to international jet set travelling.

After realising he was born in a year I quite clearly remember, I have a feeling he is still having a few flu like symptoms from his MMR.

I shan’t be mentioning his age from now on, its been good for a blog, but now its down to serious work. As somebody once said, if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.

Higher! Faster! Lauda!

I may have imagined it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I slept in my own bed yesterday, or was it the day before? After the Prom where socks were blown off and Christine Pendrill astonished us all with her fabulous cor anglais playing, we all had a short time to turn around. I got back home at midnight, packed my bag again and then slept briefly before getting up at 5.30 to go back to a weirdly empty Terminal 2 at Heathrow. I know at some point I was in the mountains in Gstaad, but this week has been so ferocious in its intensity that I’m really not sure when. Yesterday we were in Milan. No wait, that’s where we landed, we went to Stresa and played a show in a small hall in which we only just managed to fit on the stage. I think that most of the audience are still attached to their seats such was the volume in the compact space. We came out in the the late evening to torrential rain and a river running down the hill to the lake. This meant a quick dash back to the hotel and then a bowl of Pasta and some wine before bed.

I have to tell you at this point in the blog that I will be revealing two amazing secrets about Valery and his philosophy on conducting and also his super human time travel. Brace yourselves.

If I had a penny for every person who asked me how we follow the maestro I would have heavy pockets. The questions normally involve key phrases like fluttering hands or sweeping gestures or toothpick. There is a very simple answer. I think in one of my more prosaic moments, I described the look in his eyes or something like that,which still stands. However, I am normally asked by people who aren’t professional musicians how we follow him. Put it this way, I’ve never had a string player from one of the other London orchestras asking me how we follow the conductor, he already knows the answer. Its our job. I’m sure nobody asks Lewis Hamilton how he drives so fast without crashing, or the Queen how she manages to look so royal. No the truth is, its his job to conduct and our job to follow-simple as that. I had this theory (which you can imagine took me years to come up with) confirmed by Valery in the rehearsal for the concert. During the Shostakovitch, one of the trumpets asked him if he was going to give 2 or 4 beats in to the last movement or if he was just going to start. Valery smiled and paused for a moment.

“Well” he said thoughtfully, “ Basically it works like this. I move, you play”

He did. We did. Sorry its not a more mystical explanation.

I had a chat to a very nice lady from the choir at the proms (Hi Amanda) who said how much she liked reading about our exploits on the road. She seemed to enjoy the glamour. Now, to be honest, although my room at the hotel was lovely, the water in the basin was brown, although some people didn’t even have water so I guess I was lucky really. Of course, just when I’m thinking that we could do with some glamour, you get a day like today. The journey from Stresa to Salzburg is quite tricky involving going to Munich for some reason. Anyway, we were very lucky to have our own charter which had been provided by our great friend and supporter Yoko. It means an easy check in, sit where you like and there is no need to worry about annoying civilians! It also means a short bus ride and a direct flight, saving us hours of travel time.

Of course, as Kathryn pointed out, Yoko never does things by halves and this was no exception. This is where it starts to sound like I’m making it up-but truly, I’m not.

You know how Valery is always seemingly in about 3 places at once and he jets around the world twice as much as other conductors? Well, today we discovered his secret of time travel.

The cockpit door opened as he walked onto the plane and a familiar looking figure came out to greet him. It took me a while to realise who it was because he was such a huge figure in my childhood. It turns out that Valery’s pilot is none other than ex Formula 1 champ Niki Lauda. Move aside Stig, get out of the galaxy Han Solo, you’ve got no chance with this team at the front.

I took a picture of them together just in case you don’t believe me but stopped myself buying the Niki Lauda frisbee in his on board shop.

So now you know the secret of conducting and how Valery gets around the globe so fast. But don’t tell anyone I told you.

You might be interested to know that we arrived in Salzburg 30 minutes early.

Valery Gergiev ladies and gentlemen.

Higher. Faster. Lauda.

Here we go again

Two weeks into my holiday, I decided that I could no longer ignore the pile of paperwork and accounts on my desk. It is difficult to relax with a bulging in tray sneering at you, so I woke up one morning and decided to tackle the mountain. It was of course the hottest day of the year, so most of my receipts were damp by the end of the day. However, after the recent political expenses scandal, I payed particular attention to my train fares and taxi receipts. I finished by the afternoon, and as fortune was smiling on me and the sun was still high in the sky, I decided to clean my own moat instead of paying someone else this year.

After sorting out my affairs, relaxing and spending some much needed time with my family it was time to get the tube out of the box and get back to work.

Ouch.

You know how athletes spend time easing gently back into training after a break? Wimps the lot of them. We came back to a Valery rehearsal-full throttle. 6 hours of Schnittke, Shostakovitch 8 and 11 and La Mer which we pretty much repeated the next day. My back contorted into its normal crooked positions and the old tensions surfaced within hours. Trouble is, thats what works and sounds good, so there you are.

Anyway, yesterday we got up at an hour my body hadn’t seen for 3 weeks and travelled to Ljublijana. I’m glad to say that we arrived in time to have lunch in what is a very beautiful city. I ended up in a place which claimed to be the oldest restaurant in town-having said that, I’m sure I’ve been to another one that claimed the same thing, but that may have been in Swindon, I forget. Anyway, it was full of traditional fayre the like of which we don’t get in London. I decided to have the local venison which was lovely and preferable to the “Foal with Salty Cheese Pie”!

Can’t stand salty cheese pies.

After a meal like that, I could feel my body attempting to hibernate, however, we had a rehearsal of Shostakovitch 8 and La Mer, or as Kieron calls it, The Mother. The hall in Ljublijana is tall but not very deep and has one of those shells around the back of the stage to reflect the sound back into the hall. It is very effective and was a pleasant surprise.

I’ve written before about Valery’s way with French music and today was no exception. His interpretation of La Mer is of a murky threatening sea, constantly moving forward and has a huge amount of power. Shostakovitch 8 was the second half and found me down the line playing piccolo. I love playing this part for three reasons.

1. It has solo playing around the orchestra which I get to listen to as I don’t have much to do. It takes my breath away what my colleagues can do.

2. I get to be a thorn between Sharon and Siobhan

3. I play mainly in unison with Sharon, very high and loudly and she does all the high quiet stuff and fast tricky bits while I sit back and relax.

It would take me ages to list all the fabulous contributions, so if you want to hear it, we’ll be at the Proms on Monday or you can listen online, radio 3, iplayer etc etc etc next week.

Of course, as I write the blog, I shall pick out my section as being particularly fabulous because I can. As Principal flute, I play almost all of the time, however sitting next to the picc, I was aware of how long you have to sit there not playing and then come in on some horrifically high quiet bit, like in the 4^th movt. funnily enough Norman Lebrecht mentioned this in a blog he wrote after our Mahler 9 prom. He pointed out that Sharon sits for very long periods not doing anything and then suddenly has to leap into action for a short time. Its a bit like a goalkeeper in a 0-0 cup final draw after extra time being confronted with a penalty shoot out. They haven’t done much for 2 hours, but they don’t half earn their money in a short space of time and often save the day. That was my analogy by the way, not Norman’s.

Anyway, the point is that in Mahler 9, Sharon sat there for ages not doing anything whilst Siobhan and I sweated away and then she suddenly floats in at the end of the movement like some kind of celestial presence. Mr Lebrecht noticed that instead of sitting there looking bored she was actively involved with the performance of those around her. Now I know thats its in her best interests to at least look as if she’s enjoying my playing, but she really does follow whats going on around her which is why she sounds so fabulous when she does finally make an entrance. That was his point and I agree with him.

I can tell you that in Shostakovitch 8, she most certainly does not sit there unemployed but plays her socks off whilst I sit there looking like I’m enjoying it.

Its not difficult. Unlike the piccolo part.

So if Norman Lebrecht is at the Prom on Monday night-if he was impressed by Sharon doing nothing-then I hope he has his socks firmly in place as she may very well knock them off.