Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
In 2014, the Aurora Orchestra performed something that had never been done at the Proms before. We played Mozart’s 40th symphony – what happened, most of the time – but from memory.
It was terrifying. Orchestras usually start taking out their instruments 10 minutes before the show, but the audience started warming up about an hour later – an endless repetition of pieces of music as the players tried out what they thought they would forget. We didn’t know if we would get on stage and get cold or fall. Luckily, we didn’t and the fear turned to joy. Ours bassoonist Amy Harman he described the feeling as “like flying in the sky without a parachute.
Even so, if someone had told me that 12 years later we would be singing from memory Mahler’s First Symphony – a piece almost twice as long as Mozart that uses twice as many musicians – I would have been surprised. And if I had been told that in the first half of the concert we would be performing a new play about Mahler, with a choral performance by two actors and a complex composition (written by me!), I would have laughed. But this week we will do exactly this.
After Mozart, our memory performance became part of the regular Prom. Then, three years ago, we went up a notch when we took Stravinsky’s Spring Festival. Memorizing that very difficult task was difficult, but what scared me the most was that we were giving a concert to one group. The second part will consist of practices; the former informs the public about the work … in a different way. It was my job to figure out what that meant – and it took a long time.
What emerged was the first half of 40 minutes which told the story of how the Rite was written and started to be shown, including the text, musical analysis, orchestral notes, choreography for the whole orchestra and videos, and a preview of the actors Charlotte Ritchie and Karl Queensborough.
It felt like we hit something, so we continued in this direction. At the following year’s Proms, we devoted the first half to the production of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony before working alone; last year, we turned to Fifth Shostakovich.
It is difficult to know what to call these early stages. We used to use the word “show”, but it has become more than that. “Play” or “orchestral theater” sounds close, but all ideas are welcome.
Our choice of repertoire is as simple as what will be interesting to remember and pieces that have an interesting story to explore. The first question is very important, as we ask players to spend hours and hours with this song. Everyone will have their own way of memorizing – some will go for a run with the music on headphones, some will play it over and over again – and some will get out the highlighter notes.
My creativity always starts with reading. I’ll know this song by playing it (I’m a huge Aurora fan), but I’d like to learn more about the composer and history. It’s always the words of songwriters and contemporaries that tell me what to do.
When I researched The Rite of Spring, I was struck by the many congruent voices that screamed to explain how they created the first production. For Beethoven’s ninth, I read the composer’s dialogue books: the writings in which he asked friends to write down what he was saying, as an aid to his severe hearing loss, and he realized that we didn’t need any other words. With Shostakovich’s Fifth, I realized that there are very few words from the composer himself – no matter how much I read, he remained rare.
I work with our conductor, Nicholas Collon, to interpret the score and decide which passages to focus on and how to present the music in a way that reflects the performance of the score. James Bonas leads the way – we often refer to him as our “bad audience member”, as he tells us what’s working, what’s not and what’s too academic or music-jargony. At first I found this part of the job difficult, but I have learned to enjoy it.
I love that every year I am completely immersed in the world of the composer and music. This year it’s all about Mahler. The first time I sang his songs as a proud student, I felt as if I had stepped into a world I did not understand, but which was strangely familiar. I remember sticking to some of the more experienced musicians and their sound and timing. Everything seemed exaggerated. Each song had a lot of emotion, with sounds ranging from a quiet, deep sound to a powerful orchestral sound. Scary stuff when you’re just starting out, and high-adrenaline orchestra players.
Mahler, unlike Shostakovich, left us many words, and reveals the artist always analyzing his thoughts and feelings.
… for as long as I can remember – my need to express myself through music begins where dark thoughts end, at the door that leads to another world – a world where things are no longer separated by time and space… For those who listen carefully, everything about me is expressed in my music.
This is especially the case with his First Symphony, in which he poured out his life experiences: memories of soldiers in the woods of his childhood home, the sound of cuckoos outside his writing room, songs about love problems and children’s songs.
Thus, it is not surprising that when Mahler gave his first Symphony to the world, in Budapest in 1889, he felt like he was revealing his life. But the audience was surprised. The reviewers described the songs as “nonsensical”, “disastrous” and “stupid”. In the months that followed, her friends told her that she seemed sick and that people didn’t understand her. “For goodness sake, where are people going to put their ears and hearts if they can’t understand these songs?” he said.
I began to wonder what Mahler was thinking Sigmund Freud and the great work he was doing at the same time. I was interested to know that the two met: the composer made an appointment to speak with Freud in 1910. The stories of their meeting tell us that they discussed exactly these ideas, why he felt the need to write certain types of music and why he thought that people would not understand him. I began to wonder if this conference could be a way to review symphony music.
And so my writings follow Mahler’s journey, from the creation and production of the music to its prioritization to the widespread confusion and attempt to make it understandable.
The program notes he gave for the second act read as interestingly as a man explaining himself. I like his attempt to explain his third movement, which people had a problem with:
I want you to think about it Hunter Funeral Homea picture from an old children’s fairy tale book: in this picture – forest monsters accompany a dead wooden coffin to the grave, and rabbits carrying a small flag, and a group of Bohemian musicians. in front, with a group accompanied by musical cats, frogs, crows and more…
There are many more. We have a script and we have a brilliant singer (Natalie Lewis) and two amazing actors (Jack Bardoe and Sarah Twomey) who have been rehearsing with me, James and Nicholas for the past week. But the musicians will only have a day and a half to rehearse the first half, in which they need to remember the symphony’s most disturbing forms and the steady movement of the circular movement.
The only way this works is if we have a battle plan that has been created. We call this flat-packing. Players have to trust us – that has taken time, I admit. Every year, I ask myself: maybe this will be the year we push them too far? That thought is definitely on my mind this week.
You may ask: “Why are you bothering yourself?”“ For me, there are two main reasons. First of all, I know I’m lucky enough to have the best seat in the orchestra’s concert halls. The flutes are in the middle of the orchestra and I can hear all the conversations between the instruments and the changing settings around me. What happens in the ears is very clear and deep. I want to find ways to provide an audience with something I care about.
Second, I am one of the very few people who have spent a lot of time studying music: at university, then at a music college, and then for 20 years as a professional musician. However, I still don’t feel like I know much. Every time a director or a friend talks to me about how a score works, or breaks down a scene, or gives a background story, it sharpens my understanding of the music and makes me listen more carefully.
Our performances are about giving the audience a way to feel close to the music. Someone described it to me as “giving away the keys to the kingdom”, which I love. You may listen to the music differently because you know more about the composer, or the culture, or because you have seen the music being made; the players selected for this stage reflect this. We want to introduce everyone to this piece, whether it’s your first orchestral piece or you know and love this piece. Come and see if we have it at the Royal Albert Hall in London this weekend.
