Bowing and Breathing

Last week I was fortunate enough to be in San Francisco when the SFSO was playing Mahler's Ninth Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas.  Over the last decade the SFSO has very much made a name for themselves with their release of all of the Mahler symphonies with Tilson Thomas conducting.  I've been a fan of those recordings for some time now thanks to the fact that not only are their performances superb but I feel his Mahler interpretation is impeccable.  I was particularly excited to hear the ninth symphony live since it spans the whole gamut of dramatic emotions (anger, excitement, joy, peace, etc).  That kind of work is best experienced in the live setting where the visible energy and intensity of the musicians can greatly influence your perception of the piece.

My seat was in the terrace, right behind the orchestra, less than 10 feet behind the bells of the horns.  As far as I was concerned, there was no better seat in the house.  It was as close as I could get to sitting with the horn section without actually being on stage.  Within the first bar of the 2nd Horn solo at the beginning of the first movement it was painfully obvious to me that it had been several years now since the last time I was able to hear an orchestra of this caliber in person.  It made me long for the time that I lived in Cincinnati a few years ago, when we would go down to Symphony Hall on a weekly basis to hear the CSO for the affordable cost of a student ticket.

Throughout the concert, there were two things that were particularly enrapturing from a visual standpoint:  the bowing of the strings and the breathing of the brass.  Playing as an ensemble is a skill that is often overlooked in our musical training.  So much of our time in school is spent learning how to be a soloist.  Yes, we learn excerpts, and yes, we spend time playing in ensembles, but how much of that time is completely devoted to learning to perform as a cohesive unit?  I feel like the woodwinds and brass have a slight advantage over the rest of the orchestra simply because of the increased emphasis on involvement in multiple ensembles in universities.  Many of your wind instrumentalists are members of both the bands/wind ensembles and orchestras at the same time in addition to any chamber music opportunities.  We also have the tendency to spend drastically more time on excerpts as a required part of our lesson repertoire.  It was an incredible experience to have my breath taken away by the purely visual aspect of watching the strings perform.   Each of the individual string sections were moving in complete synchronization.  Every performer used the bow to its fullest extent.  Down bows.  Up bows.  Every movement happened in exact unison.  All of the string players were playing their individual parts at the top of their individual abilities, and then threw all sense of individual identity out of the proverbial window.  It didn't matter that they were a group of individuals from all different backgrounds and schools of music.  The only thing that was important was to think, move, and perform as a single unit.  It was so enchanting to watch that you could have completely muted every sound coming from the stage and the performance would have been just as enthralling to observe.

The breathing of the brass section was just as mesmerizing, but more from an aural standpoint than visual.  Every attack was precisely together using the same style and articulation.  As impressive as that was, I was moved even more by the precision of their releases.  Every performer played the end of every statement and phrase the exact same way as the rest of their compatriots.  There was not a single release where someone would breathe out of sync with the rest of the section.  Every phrase was seemingly approached with the idea that the end is always the goal and is therefore the most important part.  The releases became the most awe inspiring aspect of the entire concert.  Individual identities were gone and nothing was more important than sharing and utilizing a single musical mind.  The communication that can occur silently in the span of a single breath was mind boggling to observe.  It was as if I had been specially invited to observe a sacred ritual.  This kind of performance cannot be captured in a "canned" recording.  The amount of editing that occurs on modern albums completely eliminates these magical moments that can only be observed and felt during a live performance.

My re-inspiration.  That's what I'm calling this concert.  This performance gave me back some of the spark that had been missing from my own playing for quite a while now.  I had forgotten what it really felt like to be a part of a larger whole, the bigger picture, or whatever you want to call it.  We get stuck in our practice rooms playing the same music the same ways over and over again and it is too easy to lose sight of the amazing things that can be accomplished when we belong to an ensemble.  I am not trying to belittle soloist or solo work at all.  There is simply a level of enlightenment that can be attained when you give up your individual musical self in order to achieve the musical and mental harmony that can only be found when truly playing as an ensemble.