![]() Why? I think it stems from the organic nature of the period instruments, which allows the audience to hear more vivid detail. ACO gets more standing ovations than other orchestras. ![]() As a person who attends a lot of concerts involving both colleagues and touring ensembles, I can honestly say that there is something extra special about an ACO performance. Musicians will sometimes say, “That was a great rehearsal,” but later comment, “In the performance, something happened, and it was nothing like what we rehearsed”-which they mean as a compliment. The energy at live performances can be different, especially for me. But I work backwards from that goal in order to “naturally” get there. In most cases, I know exactly what I want as the end product. The result? A casual and relaxed atmosphere, which works well most of the time-at least when working with top players-because it allows the music to flow in whatever direction seems to come naturally to us. I try to come to rehearsal open to whatever might happen organically rather than present my list of priorities in advance. The conductor known as Tom Crawford is not known for his disciplined rehearsals. Then I proceed to any trouble spots, one by one. Standard procedure at an ACO first rehearsal is to read through an entire piece at tempo, never stopping, even if it nearly crashes. But every score has passages that are problematic. Professionals, by contrast, come to rehearsal with the music already “in their fingers,” ready to consider more advanced issues of interpretation from the conductor right out of the gate. School orchestras tend to have technical troubles, so rehearsing a difficult passage by dissecting it and slowly guiding it toward success is the right method. Working with amateur ensembles requires different skills than conducting professionals. For example, if it becomes clear to me that the ensemble will never be able to take a tempo as fast as I had envisioned, then I rehearse different articulations and phrasings so that the best slower tempo can be achieved. During rehearsal, the challenge is to isolate certain problems and know how to fix them. ![]() It all starts with a vision of what the end product should sound like. ![]() Indeed, the ability to mold the musicians’ performance, from the first rehearsal to the finished product, is an awesome responsibility. Conductors, even the great ones, are often measured by their rehearsal techniques. The music, carefully nurtured by the Escher, reels with adolescent hormones at the expense of logic, but it is interesting to hear occasionally.Musicians really appreciate a well-run rehearsal. Keeping this emotion foremost, the Escher captured that sense of a timeless epic quest at ground zero in Russian music.Ī child prodigy who fled Nazi Vienna to join a new colony of emigre composers in Hollywood, Erich Wolfgang Korngold caused a sensation in Europe with his Piano Trio, Op. 1, Shostakovich assigns dissonance the role of tragic ecstasy. The Escher captured it all, including the linear motion interacting with vertical sonority of the first Allegro and the gloss of lyrical nobility the Andante requires. Pianist Jeroen Bal, violinist Sonja van Beek and cellist Johan van Iersel - all under 30 and from the Netherlands - make a stylistically congenial match as cohesive in ensemble as they are in depth of tone.įrom its first measures, Beethoven's overpowering "Archduke" Trio calls for a bewildering fusion of sinew, symphonic perspective and exhilaration edging on violence. The Escher Trio, appearing at the Hirshhorn Museum on Sunday as part of its American tour, took on a program daring in its technical demands and unrelenting in psychological tension. ![]()
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