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So what better way to finish off a world tour than two nights in Paris. The embers of the tour began with a train journey from Cologne which was beautiful – well the bits I saw when I wasn’t asleep were anyway. It was very quiet indeed, a measure of just how tired we all are – even Sue didn’t bother us with her clipboard and blackberry thing. Still, we needed our rest as we only had time for a quick lunch before a three hour rehearsal at the Salle Pleyel. A very short hour’s break and we launched into the concert. Once again, despite not being very well, Valery threw himself in to the show and we had to play two encores. The Paris audience were very enthusiastic despite it being quite a challenging programme of No 3, No 4 and the third piano concerto with the wonderful Lang Lang. I listened to his rehearsal as I wasn’t in the piece, and he was so great to listen to and watch. He really responds to the orchestra and has a fantastically delicate touch when needed.
Yesterday was the final day and for the first time in weeks, none of us had to set the alarm clock. I still woke up early and headed out for a wander and a coffee with friends which turned, inevitably, into lunch. All of a sudden it was time to go to work.
I actually felt quite emotional when we got there. I don’t know quite how we have managed it, playing all this Prokofiev, but it shows how great the music and the performances are when I tell you that I haven’t been bored once. We played the fifth symphony for the last time last night and yet again, Valery was picking out different lines that I hadn’t heard before. He had to balance the orchestra differently to our roof raising performance in NYC as the hall in Paris simply can’t take it. But what a performance. We only had the energy to play one encore and then with the cheering still ringing in our ears, we went downstairs to have a beer.
It’s been astonishing, through this world tour, I have now got a new second flute, I have blogged thousands of words and I have broken the sound barrier several times in the Classical symphony – but I’m glad to be on the train home.
We have played 16 pieces, 41 concerts, 120 players, 14 countries.
But only one conductor.
Only 17 hours after arriving home from Tallinn, I am walking out of my front door again, with a fresh set of clothes you’ll be pleased to know, going to Heathrow airport. I think so anyway. As I get in the car I have to make one last check to see that I am going to the right terminal at the right airport. I am. I have the correct passport ( I have two), my flute and my tails-its time to go.
After our tour of Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia and Hungary last week had been so successful, I was hoping that we may have softened the accusations of block voting in the Eurovision song contest. As we were a British orchestra, playing Russian music, conducted by an Ossetian, I felt sure that our enthusiastic reception at the concerts could only help Lord Lloyd Webber and his crusade to bring the crown of pop glory home. Before that however, we had some more work to do.
I have written about Frankfurt before in this blog,(http://lsoontour.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/ich-bin-ein-frankfurter) and I must admit, I really have no idea who reads it-I only get figures not faces-unless you leave a comment of course. If you read it last time, you may remember that I loved the pre concert timing ritual where the backstage staff gave us the 15 minutes till kick off announcement which made reference to the fact that it was now 1945. Well, I think they may have read the blog last time, because at the appropriate time, we all waited in silence as the speaker crackled into life.
“ladies and gentlemen of the London Symphony Orchestra, it is a pleasure to have back, you have 15 minutes before the concert. The time is 7.45”
The room was filled with the collective groans of disappointment.
The hall is huge. Really huge, you can barely see the back. When the last whip crack of Prokofiev 5 was fired off into the hall, you could quite clearly hear it bounce back of the back wall at least a second ofter we played it. Its funny though how differently audiences around the world react to the same pieces. I was interviewed for the TV in Zagreb and the presenter asked what I was expecting from the audience. It’s a difficult question to answer. Well, I suppose clapping would be good, maybe cheering and whistling, a standing ovation is always nice-but to be honest, I never expect anything, but what I get is always different. In Daytona, the audience whooped and shouted at every opportunity, they stood up every night, sometimes when we were only half way through the show. I mean the interval of course, not in the middle of a piece-they may make more noise than other places, but they know when they hear something good. The audiences here in Germany take their music very seriously too, but like to show how serious they are by dressing up smartly and sitting very still and quietly, quite often with a quizzical tilt of the head or a rub of the chin. These are all gestures learnt by politicians and used to great effect when trying to exude gravitas, sympathy or simply writing off the £6000 trouser press on expenses. However, the audience here really does know what it is doing, I must admit to feeling nervous when we play Beethoven over here.
In Cologne, last night, you can see the audience as it is a smaller hall and the lights are kept on throughout the show. We played the Classical symphony (the last one-hurray!), and as I looked out, I could see people sat in hard concentration looking, to be honest, a bit miserable after America. However as we sprinted to the end of the symphony, they erupted in applause and smiles and called Valery back on three times. It just goes to show that you can’t judge by appearances. By the time we had played No. 5, they stood up and we ended up playing two encores and I’m sure if we had had anymore to play they would have gladly stayed for more.
In my elation at having managed to play all of the Classical Symphonies without spreading it all over the ceiling or dropping the music I had completely forgotten about the tradition in Cologne of providing free beer for the orchestra after the concert! I guess they thought we had worked very hard as there was a young lady with a tray of beers standing right next to the door from the stage. I had finished my first one before my flute was cold and in its case. Marvellous.
As you can imagine, I was itching to know if our musical influence in the Baltics had extended to giving the British entry for the Eurovision a lift up the scoreboard. I arrived back at he hotel to find the dregs of the competition being shown on a gigantic television screen. There was no sign of Andrew Lloyd Webber though. I was greeted by Audun, our guest principal bassoon this week who seemed in remarkably high spirits.
I ordered a drink and said, “Did we win then?”
“Yes we did” replied Auden.
I felt a warm glow of patriotic fervour. I’ve watched Wales and England lose so many matches whilst I’ve been away from home which somehow seems to make it worse. So on this occasion, it was nice to have something to celebrate. I turned to Tom at the bar and expressed amazement at winning-he looked at me quizzically
“I don’t think we did mate”
I looked at Audun, “We won”, he said again.
Oh yes, our guest principal bassoon.
He’s Norwegian. It appears I may have overestimated our cultural impact.
The hall in Cologne has a lovely acoustic but also the steepest stairs I think I’ve ever seen. That bit of time at the start of a concert before the oboe sounds the A, you know, the bit where you stare at us waiting to start and we stare back at you. It often reminds me of those ridiculous meetings two boxers have on television before a fight, although I assure you, I’m not trying to psyche you out, I’m just trying to spot my mum. Anyway, as I was playing a few notes, I watched a mature member of the audience climbing up the steps towards her seat. To be honest, these steps look almost vertical from the stage, I half expected her to make base camp at row F until the final ascent during the second half, but I’m happy to say she made it to her seat for the start in good time. I expect that she abseiled back down and was first in the car park queue after the show.
It was the final performance of Bruckner 6 for us this evening. I find this the most difficult of his pieces to play personally. The notes themselves aren’t too hard, but there are so many different rhythms going on at once, that it can be tricky to hold onto the pulse. Fortunately in the crystal clear hall, it was very easy to hear all the details and I think this was one of the best shows, and certainly the last. Sir Colin kept the tempo up in the Schubert as well, just when you think it might get a bit cosy, he drives it forward again. Maybe he went to the chocolate factory as well.
As well as being a beautiful city, with its fantastic cathedral and small cobbled streets, there is one other reason I like going to Cologne. The management of the hall have this wonderful tradition of providing the orchestra with free local beer after the show! I think this is a tradition well worth adopting around the globe. I realise that after we bare our souls for you on stage, this might seem a bit shallow – but I can live with that. Its a hot and sweaty business playing in the orchestra, and with my limited language skills, I can only hint at the overwhelming joy of coming off stage, my flute still hot and vibrating , and having a glass of cold beer placed in my other hand.
I do hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog. I shall try to write to you soon and let you know how we are getting on in Italy with Daniel Harding in a week or so. After that it will be the enormous Prokofiev cycle, and you can be sure I’ll have something to say about that.
Anyway, got to go now, apparently I’m allowed more than one free beer…
Since we last spoke, the LSO has been busy with Gergiev doing Mahler, Strauss and Mozart with Haitink, and Mozart and Brahms with Previn. It has been non stop, with a whistlestop trip to Paris that was so brief, I didn’t have time to tell you about it. We now have 3 weeks left before the end of term with one more trip to Italy later on in June, and then we can all relax for a couple of weeks before the Prokofiev Cycle starts in Edinburgh before we cover most of the globe in the following months.
I am writing this in my hotel room in Cologne as we tie up a few loose ends from the last tour. We are playing Bruckner 6 and Schubert Unfinished with Sir Colin. Last night we were in Dusseldorf in a concert hall which looks like a cross between the London Planetarium and Guildford Borough Council Chambers. I’m sure you can picture it perfectly. We actually got on a bus after the show and came to stay in Cologne. It made for a very long day as we had checked in at 8 am in terminal 5, but it did mean we all had a very welcome lie in today.
Now those of you who follow our travels, will probably be smiling at the thought of the entire LSO losing their luggage in terminal 5, much like when the instruments didn’t arrive in Dijon. I am happy to report that this time, everything went smoothly, although despite my previous experience of Gordon Ramsey in NY, his full English at £16.50 lost out to a coffee and sandwich in a well known chain.
Of course, as I didn’t have to get up this morning, I woke up bright and early and went for a run along the river in the ever increasing temperature. Its amazing how many people from the orchestra you bump into, running on tour. Mainly the thin ones of course, but with so much sitting around on planes, trains and woodwind sections, it certainly does help blow the cobwebs away.
Sadly any good I did was destroyed by a visit to the Chocolate factory here in Cologne, and the shop. There is a long line of machines which do various things to chocolate and finally spit them out into bags which a little old lady ties up and packs away. Rather disappointingly, she was a normal old lady, didn’t sing and there was no river of chocolate.
Sir Colin is on fine form once again and once again he coaxes a sound out of the orchestra which is unique. Someone asked me last week, why different conductors make the orchestra sound so different. The answer is that I really don’t know, and to be honest I don’t want to think about it too much. I’m sure somebody knows why Sir Colin, Haitink, Previn and Gergiev all make us sound different, but don’t tell me, I’m enjoying the magic.
Besides, I’ve already discovered that umpa loompas aren’t real, and the river is made of water. I can’t take anymore revelations today. I’ve got a concert to do.
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