Rehearsalmania

So, a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how much I missed the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra. I still do. A lot. But things have improved in as much as I am not completely numbed by it anymore. I am enjoying playing, and I am not contemplating putting the viola into a corner anymore.

I did end up joining that second group that had contacted me, and it was a good thing I did, even though this means I am seriously swamped with rehearsals now. One reason: Their upcoming concert is in this hall:

Looks familiar? No? Well, if it doesn’t, that may be because usually when people see it, it’s on TV, stuffed with people in fancy outfits, decorated with flowers, it’s January 1, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra are playing the Radetzkymarsch. I wasn’t aware amateur orchestras even got to play in Musikverein until a few months ago. So, needless to say, playing my first concert in Vienna in Grosser Musikvereinssaal is pretty glorious and I am very much looking forward to it.

But I am pretty happy about playing with this new group for other reasons, too. They are in good shape. (They wouldn’t be playing in a sold-out Musikvereinssaal otherwise.) They are mixed in terms of age and background (the orchestra I joined a few weeks ago is mostly students) and they have only around 15 rehearsals per concert. Three months ago, 15 rehearsals would have sounded pretty close to unacceptable to me, but I have to adapt my expectations to the local custom (25+ rehersals per concert seems to happen, too).

Part of the local custom is to spend all this rehearsal time meticulously polishing every detail. As a violist, this inevitably entails spending significant amounts of time listening to violins rehearsing. But don't get me wrong, I am really enjoying the progress: sound, phrasing, rhythmical accuracy, fine-tuning chords… I have not yet seen much time wasted (which is something that can happen with too many rehearsals). I am re-learning the balance of following the principal while standing on my own stable feet and I am enjoying the feeling of blending into a section in terms of sound quality, dynamics, and intonation. I am also enjoying the fact that nothing gets glossed over: if it’s out of tune, I will get tuned. If it’s early or late, we will do it again until it’s on time. If it rushes, we are told off. If it doesn’t sound like it should, it will get fixed. There is very little “getting away with things”.

I remember this meticulous detail work from my student days in Vienna, but haven’t experienced it all that much in the last few years. I was leading a section in an orchestra in which the philosophy was more along the lines of: “Here’s this awesome, incredibly challenging program, this is the compressed rehearsal schedule, now let’s make a mad dash for it”. With around 6 rehearsals per concert, you spend much rehearsal time in “survival mode”. You know that you have this and perhaps 5 more chances to figure your entrances out, and nobody will go over it slowly 10 times until it works. Perhaps it is the reason my fellow American amateur musicians strike me as confident, terrific sight-readers, bold to the point of recklessness, and (sometimes a little too) carefree. In contrast, rehearsing things over and over will deliver a more polished, higher quality product, teach people about good playing and being sensitive to musical subtleties – but perhaps it also makes people a little more insecure and overly cautious? I will have to re-visit this idea in a few months, or perhaps, years...  

Anyway, even with good work being done, the many rehearsals sweating over every detail feel a little much for me right now. (Along with everything feeling sharp - I spent the last 5 years tuning to A440 and everybody here is doing at least 443.) But yesterday, I had this conversation with one of the musicians here, which, I think, neatly hits the nail on the head why they do it this way. I told him that in SASO we did Shostakovich 5 in 6 rehearsals, and even as I said it, I realized how utterly “devil-may-care” it sounded to him. “The Vienna Symphonic Orchestra may be able to do that”, he commented, laughing and shaking his head. My answer was equally fast: “In Tucson, there is no Vienna Symphonic Orchestra.”