Here goes nothing….
Monday December 03 2007
The countdown is on. 16 hours and counting until my Concerto Preliminary. Strauss Concerto (memorized).
It rained all day today, swelling up my reeds to enormous purportions. Tonight, I chopped them up to encourage the openings to close down. Now, the worst thing that could happen would be to have a sunny day with no humidity, thus shrinking my reeds back down and giving me reeds that would have no dynamic contrasts.
Gulp.
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Chamber Music plans
Saturday December 01 2007
I finished my quintet performance yesterday, where we played the Ligeti Six Bagatelles. Tough piece to put together, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to play it and throw myself into it. I’ve never played a piece with such difficult subdivisions at such quick tempi. Next quarter Helena and I are going to work on the Telemann Tafelmusic quartet in d minor, Lalliet Terzetto, Poulenc Trio, and something else. I and the hornist from my quintet are also going to tackle the Reinecke Trio.
Oboe tone discussion
Saturday December 01 2007
There’s a good oboe tone discussion going on at the oboe bboard that I’ve been following. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. We’ve had some good conversations on there about tone, one specifically under “American Style” or something. This one has some good points.
I spoke with Dr. Vacchi, the bassoon teacher last week and asked him to bluntly tell me some areas that he hears in my playing that he’d like to see me improve, and he stated that my tone is a bit bright. We discussed tone a bit and he talked about how he is frequently balancing tonal color. He drew a semicircle, and drew a line separating about 45% and drew a sun. “This represents brightness.” On the other side of the semicircle, he drew another line separating 45% and drew a sock. “This represents stuffy-ness.” In the remaining 10%, he filled in, trying to demonstrate to me that that is where he hopes I can find.
I mentioned to him my ideal oboe tone is JdL, and the fact that my tonal concept leans toward the brighter side. “You have to be contemporary though. The hey-day of his time was A LONG… TIME… AGO….”
I’ve thought a lot about this last statement. If JdL or even Tabuteau auditioned for a major orchestra, would they be able to win? Or would their sound just be considered too bright by today’s standards and they be passed on and pushed aside? In a lesser orchestra, their tone probably wouldn’t be such an issue but surely in a big 5 orchestra (NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland) they would automatically be eliminated if their tone was too far removed from the ideal?