Tom McGee's Blog

BSO has sum­mer read­ing ses­sions through most of June — August, but other than that orches­tra sea­son is done. Here’s a sum­mary of what I played in 2008-09, the good and the bad. In my sit­u­a­tion as a “vol­un­teer,” it’s always a mixed bag. The high­lights are what makes it all worthwhile.

Between The Broad­way Bach Ensem­ble, NYSAE, the Brook­lyn Sym­phony and a few odds and ends I played in a dozen dif­fer­ent pro­grams, a fairly typ­i­cal year I guess. It’s been a lit­tle light on pay­ing gigs since the econ­omy tanked — 2008 on the whole was very good, 2009 so far not so much.

So here’s a brief syn­op­sis of the pieces I played, with whom, and a five-star rat­ing sys­tem. The rat­ing is based on a) the qual­ity of the piece; and b) the qual­ity of the per­for­mance. So a killer per­for­mance of a so-so work can score about the same as a so-so per­for­mance of a masterpiece.

The August Sym­phony Orches­tra, August 17

This was a warm-up to the main sea­son, and I had a lot of prob­lems with the whole expe­ri­ence which I don’t want to go into on a pub­lic web site.

Shostakovich: Bal­let Suite No. 5 for Orches­tra from “The Bolt” — 2 stars. There are van­ish­ingly few undis­cov­ered mas­ter­pieces and this ain’t one of them.
Franck: Sym­phony in D minor. 2.5 stars. I’ve got a par­tic­u­lar grudge against 19^th cen­tury French music. But alas I’ve played this sym­phony more than any other I think. I’m begin­ning to tol­er­ate it. The low point was the con­duc­tor get­ting off, say­ing “oh shit” out loud, and hav­ing to start the orches­tra up again.

NYSAE, Octo­ber 19

I had a lot of con­flicts in the fall, so I didn’t get to do very much with some of my usual hang­outs. This was a nice con­cert, though.

Saint-Saëns: Sym­phony No. 1 — 3.5 stars. Maybe one of the van­ish­ingly few of those undis­cov­ered mas­ter­pieces. At least though it’s a really solid piece, and fun to play for the first time.
Brahms: Aca­d­e­mic Fes­ti­val Over­ture — 4 stars. Only the sec­ond time I’ve got­ten to do this, and it went great.

The Broad­way Bach Ensem­ble, Octo­ber 26

Not a par­tic­u­larly stim­u­lat­ing pro­gram for we denizens of the back row.

Adel­son: Ter­mi­nus — 1 star. A musi­cal exper­i­ment that failed. Oh well, try again. Michael did a really inter­est­ing piece for us last year, that involved most of the orches­tra stand­ing around in var­i­ous places in the hall and up in the bal­conies.
Bar­tok: Piano Con­certo No. 3 — 4 stars. Great soloist, great work.
Mozart: Sym­phony No. 34 — 4 stars. I think this was the first time I ever played a whole piece with­out clam­ming a note. Seri­ously. But it’s not all about me, it was very good all around.

The Broad­way Bach Ensem­ble, Feb­ru­ary 8

Winds, then strings, then the kitchen sink.

Holst: First Suite for Con­cert Band — 4.5 stars. It was immensely sat­is­fy­ing to play this anchor of the band lit­er­a­ture with a bunch of sea­soned orches­tral per­form­ers. For a few min­utes we were the best band in town, and it’s a pretty big town.
Saint-Saëns: Sym­phony No. 3 — 3.5 stars. A great work that’s fun to do, but marred by a lot of ensem­ble prob­lems and a not-loud-enough pipe organ.

NYSAE, Feb­ru­ary 15

A Mendelssohn cel­e­bra­tion, with a cen­ter­piece of a Liszt piano concerto.

Mendelssohn: Sym­phony No. 5 — 3 stars. Not his best (though not bad at all) but not a con­vinc­ing per­for­mance either.
Mendelssohn: Fingal’s Cave Over­ture — 3.5 stars. This piece is always chal­leng­ing in its sub­tleties, but like most things by this com­poser very sat­is­fy­ing.
Liszt: Piano Con­certo No. 1 — 3.5 stars. Great work by the soloist. And so that’s where Mahler got that motif!
Mendelssohn: Capric­cio Bril­lant for Piano and Orches­tra — 2.5 stars. Played well, but pure fluff.

Brook­lyn Sym­phony, Feb­ru­ary 22 & March 8

We did two per­for­mances of most of this program.

Noco­lai: Over­ture to “The Merry Wives of Wind­sor” — 3.5 stars. Really nice per­for­mance. This piece is under­rated.
Beethoven: Sym­phony No. 6 — 4.5 stars. Not my favorite Beethoven, but who cares what I think? A peren­nial audi­ence pleaser and we nailed it.

NYSAE, March 29

A very, very clas­si­cally ori­ented pro­gram. Not much for us trum­pets to do, so we just came to the dress rehearsal and the performance.

Beethoven: Cori­olan Over­ture — 3.5 stars. Solid, depend­able.
Haydn: Sym­phony No. 100 (“Mil­i­tary”) — 3.5 stars. I had a second-trumpet solo that was rem­i­nis­cent of the begin­ning of Mahler’s 5^th, which was fun.

Brook­lyn Sym­phony, April 19

A strong and inter­est­ing pro­gram, one of the best of the year.

Earnest: South­ern Expo­sure — 3 stars. Not a killer work, but well-crafted and well-played.
Aru­tiun­ian: Trum­pet Con­certo — 3 stars. Nice work by the soloist.
Shostakovich: Sym­phony No. 9 — 4 stars. Not the tight­est per­for­mance in the world, but it’s sel­dom done (there’s only one copy of the parts in all of New York City) and well worth it.

Cor­ner­stone Chorale, April 26

The best con­cert of the year. A fine pick-up orches­tra and a first-rate cho­rus teamed up with great soloists.

Haydn: Nel­son Mass — 5 stars. Dead solid per­fect. Great piece, great (really great) hall, great performance.

Ridge­wood Sym­phony, May 1

Dropped into the deep end, sink­ing like a stone.

Mahler: Sym­phony No. 1 — 1.5 stars. Way over their heads, and — I’m being snide but real­is­tic here — played too much like a “band” piece rather than an orches­tra piece. Ordi­nar­ily I’d have been in heaven per­form­ing two Mahler works in one month (and being able to sit in on first trum­pet in both of them!) but this was just not working.

Broad­way Bach Ensem­ble, May 3

The sea­son finale, with a bass soloist. Inter­est­ing mix of music.

Gian­nini: Psalm 130 for Bass and Orches­tra — 3.5 stars. Cool mod­ern work for this seldom-featured solo instru­ment. Dark and seri­ous, played pretty well.
Schu­mann: Sym­phony No. 1 — 3.5 stars. A really good piece played depend­ably by BBE. Marred by a hor­ri­ble slow move­ment. Schu­mann doesn’t get pro­grammed enough by orches­tras at my level because of the issues the strings have to face. They han­dled it well.

Brook­lyn Sym­phony, May 31

The second-best con­cert of the year, though the best work.

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde — 4.5 stars. A riv­et­ing and haunt­ing work, and the orches­tra gelled nicely at the end.

So there it is. Sorry if I offend, but that’s how I see it.