accomplishedThere are a few notes under the cut.
The orchestra I belong to has about 10-12 of us who meet very week, and then on the actual performance those numbers build to 46 - 50. I play 1st clarinet - and enjoy the challenge. This time has been extra stressful as a lot of my f-list know as I had a chest infection at Easter that damaged my lungs - so until a month ago I hadn't actually agreed to play this concert. But I am glad I did.
The first piece was Beethoven's Egmont Overture.
I do love Beethoven's music - I suppose his was the first symphony that we played that I liked. His music is loud - but tuneful. Anyway - the piece went well, and I actually played all my solo links note perfect - I had usually not managed that in rehearal!
Then it was Schumann's Piano Concerto.
This was where we had the problems - we had rehearsed it for a couple of hours in the afternoon with very poor results. But in the performance we just had problems with the last movement. The first violins actually got slightly lost - mind you, it was a very hard section to play - as it had very few notes in - and what it had were on odd timings. Still our soloist just kept going -and a couple of bars later our leader picked her up and the next bar the rest joined in ... so by the time the orchestra in full was due to re-join, all was OK. My solo bits mostly went OK - one section ... well, lets put it this way, I won't mention it, if you don't!
We then played a modern suite of music ... Arrgh!! And worse still as the composer was listening to us - so he would have known how many wrong notes there were!
We finished with Mozart's Linz Symphony. Although I do love his clarinet concerto, I am not a fan of his. he only wrote, latterly for the clarinet - so I suppose the stuff we play is a bit jumbled in these arrangements. Mozart I always find too "sweet" ... which is silly, as most people like the thought of peaceful classical music! Oh well - it went OK - although I actually didn't play for one of the movements as I was beginning to ache.
Still, everyone seemed to appreciate the concert - and hopefully had a good evening out.
The first piece was Beethoven's Egmont Overture.
I do love Beethoven's music - I suppose his was the first symphony that we played that I liked. His music is loud - but tuneful. Anyway - the piece went well, and I actually played all my solo links note perfect - I had usually not managed that in rehearal!
Then it was Schumann's Piano Concerto.
This was where we had the problems - we had rehearsed it for a couple of hours in the afternoon with very poor results. But in the performance we just had problems with the last movement. The first violins actually got slightly lost - mind you, it was a very hard section to play - as it had very few notes in - and what it had were on odd timings. Still our soloist just kept going -and a couple of bars later our leader picked her up and the next bar the rest joined in ... so by the time the orchestra in full was due to re-join, all was OK. My solo bits mostly went OK - one section ... well, lets put it this way, I won't mention it, if you don't!
We then played a modern suite of music ... Arrgh!! And worse still as the composer was listening to us - so he would have known how many wrong notes there were!
We finished with Mozart's Linz Symphony. Although I do love his clarinet concerto, I am not a fan of his. he only wrote, latterly for the clarinet - so I suppose the stuff we play is a bit jumbled in these arrangements. Mozart I always find too "sweet" ... which is silly, as most people like the thought of peaceful classical music! Oh well - it went OK - although I actually didn't play for one of the movements as I was beginning to ache.
Still, everyone seemed to appreciate the concert - and hopefully had a good evening out.
I survived with very sore lungs - and ache today - but I am so thankful that I was well enough to play - after all Easter was a long time ago! Still the specialist did warn me that it would be October, at the earliest before the damage would be repaired - October 1st tomorrow ... Hooray!