Performer as composer?

 “Play what is written on the score!” When musician plays the wrong notes or play something other than the score during the orchestral rehearsal, the conductor will always request the players to follow back the score and don’t compose thing. However, in Baroque period, orchestral players can really add ornaments in the original melody during the performance.

 As “baroque” is a style fulled of expression and freedom, improvising ornaments was a common practice in the Baroque period to show their taste and contribute more decorations to the original plain music. But the question “Who should lead the ornamentation?” came out. Obviously the string section was the dominant at that time as they played the main melody most of the time. Therefore, German composer Johann Adolph Scheibe pointed out that concertmaster should be the representative to lead the other violinists the play ornaments and the rest of the players played the original melody marked on the score. This texture is called heterophony which is traditional texture in Chinese music. Facing different composer work, they also had different ornaments adding to the music.

 Nevertheless, Baroque German flutist Johann Joachim Quantz condemned this idea. For instance, in a ritornello part of a concerto grosso, music should be played without any addition since dissonance without preparation or resolution may result. Especially in a slow piece, the disorder could be listened very obviously.

 To conclude, there are so many says about the performance practice of baroque orchestra and the opinions are very opposite. It’s really lucky that nowadays, orchestral players do not have to decide how to “re-composer” the music.

The importance of a conductor

When I went to an orchestra concert at a young age, I often thought of a question: what is the role of the conductor in an orchestra? I was just watching at the conductor’s back and he was waving his baton. Finally, a weird question came out from my mind: if the conductor has heart attack in the midway of the symphony in the concert, can the instrumentalists finish the pieces?

After searching the YouTube , here comes video which can answer my question!

I can conclude the video into three points.

Firstly, the conductor enables the orchestra to start playing together. If the orchestra is a human being, then the conductor is the heart of the human being. The conductor provides the pulse for the orchestra and all the instrumentalists follow the pulse and play at the same time. Starting the piece is the most difficult part for a conductor.

Secondly, conductor can integrate the orchestra as a single unit. As every instrumentalist has his own style, so they may play different tone colours. Therefore, a conductor can tune the style or tone colour that he wants during the rehearsals as to unify the orchestra.

Thirdly, conductor can be a clue during the performance. Especially for woodwind, brass and percussion players, there may be one-hundred bar rest in some symphonies. They may lose count count easily. So, the conductor can be the leading role of the orchestra to bring them to the right entrances.

Last but not least, if the conductor really has heart attack during the concert, I think the instrumentalists can keep going on, not because the conductor is not important, but because the importance of the conductor does not only manifest during the concert.

A New Principal Horn of Berlin Phil!!!

Big news for horn world! David Cooper,  the principal horn of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2013 won the Berlin Phil principal horn audition in December 2016. He is the first American principal horn player in Berlin Philharmonic. 

In April 2017, David Cooper came to HKAPA for a master class. Besides the teaching, he also shared his happiness and experiences. I remember what he said. When

 he was 16, he heard the Berlin Philharmonic concert led by Claudio Abbado. He thought seeing that concert, it was like time stopped and the orchestra played as one instrument. At that moment, he decided that, 'This is what I want to do with my life – I want to play in the Berlin Philharmonic.' But he knew that it was so difficult for an American to play in Berlin Phil which is having a traditional German horn sound. Although it was a one-in-a-million shot, he tried and succeeded at last. He started to take up the position in September 2017.

David Cooper has brought his powerful and elegant American horn sound to lead Berlin Phil’s horn section. Let’s watch the new released Strauss’s Don Juan video to see the new horn sound in Berlin Philharmonic!!!

 

How to archive as an Orchestral Pianist?

Being a piano player may seem like a very solitary way to go about learning an instrument. As a piano student, you may yearn to make music with others, you may have extended your piano training to accompany some of your friends for concerts or exams, or explored the wide variety of chamber music repertoire available involving the piano. However, had you considered the sheer quantity of orchestral music that requires a piano, aside from the obvious concerto repertoire?

Orchestral Works with Piano

Your piano training to date has no doubt included not just standard scales and finger exercises, but solo piano repertoire as well, from stand-alone pieces to complete sonatas. For more advanced students, your teacher may have introduced transcriptions of famous symphonic works for you to play together as duet material. However, many late romantic and twentieth century orchestral works employ the piano as an intruse to in its own right place.

A famous example is the last movement of Saint-Saenz Symphony No.3 (also known as the “Organ Symphony”), where the piano adds colour to the string statement of the main motif. In the clip below, your can clearly see the positioning of the piano in the orchestra.

It's important to familiarize yourself with other orchestral keyboard instrument, too; Celeste parts are very common, for example. Many Prokofiev symphonies have a prominent piano part, and the increasingly popular symphonies of Bohuslav Martinu all require an orchestral pianist.

In next month, I will discuss more about what to study to become an orchestral pianist, thank you!!

Finally...a Timpani Concerto...with 15 Timpani!!!

"Timpani is the other conductor of the orchestra." The role of timpani part in the orchestra is usually presumed as giving signals or changing the tension of a piece. For example, playing perfect 5ths and rolling important cadences.

It is time for the timpani to be a solo instrument in the orchestra. One of the legendary pieces is "Timpani Concerto No.2" by William Kraft, who is the former principal timpanist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It features fifteen timpani, which are set on two levels, ranging from 14 inches to 32 inches in size. There are only two sets of this cage-like grand timpanium in the world. The piece was premiered by David Herbert, former timpanist of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 2005.

In April 2007, the concerto was performed by my timpani teacher, Mr. James Boznos with the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Since the HK Phil didn't have the set of timpani, Mr. David Herbert agreed to borrow and ship his unique set of timpani to Hong Kong for this performance. The performance is amazing and fascinating to show what the timpani can do, instead of keeping the roll!