Show our greatest respect to all rehearsal pianist

Apart from solo pianist, rehearsal pianist is playing a more important role in an orchestra since they always need to substitute orchestral instruments in the rehearsal. There are two 

kinds of rehearsal pianists that I want to discuss here.

The first kind of rehearsal pianist is who is employed to help substituting some temporary missing instrument to do the orchestral rehearsal. For example, if a contrabassoon cannot be found, the conductor may request the pianist to use the piano or even an electric piano to temporary play the contrabassoon melody.

The another kind of rehearsal pianist is who is employed to play the reduction score of a whole orchestra in performance rehearsal as the fee of paying a whole orchestra is high. They need to be very sensitive of knowing which lines representing which sections of orchestra. They have to play a wide range of orchestral colors and show different layers. Since they are playing score which is originally written for orchestra instead of a piano score, they need to have bigger gesture to play all the things richer and stronger. For example, in an opera rehearsal, the rehearsal time is very long and a lot of music needs be played so they also need high physical ability.

All the rehearsal pianists contribute many time to rehearsal but they actually cannot share the same joy with other orchestra members because they cannot perform on stage in the show. Although they are paid to help doing the rehearsal, we should also show our respect to their profession and spirit!