Return
to Chapter 14
15
The
Orchestral Musician
Changing
attitude to the status of musicians.
In the early 20th century
two strands of employment start to emerge.
Playing in an orchestra – satisfaction
and frustration – how different sections
of the orchestra are affected. Ever
higher standards of technique.
In
1900 the majority of professional musicians
were working in theatres, restaurants
or for dancing. It was only with the
formation of the BBC Symphony Orchestra
in 1930 and then in 1946 with the re-opening
of the Royal Opera House that Britain
had its first full-time symphony orchestra
and opera house. Until then very few
musicians earned their living wholly
as ‘orchestral musicians’.
The
problems Sir Henry Wood was still experiencing
in 1904 were caused to a considerable
extent by the fact that nearly all of
the musicians in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra
were playing in the many London theatres,
where they could put in deputies. It
was largely from this considerable number
of musicians that the Royal Philharmonic
Society recruited the musicians for
its orchestra (not to be confused with
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra that
Sir Thomas created in 1946). The musicians
in the orchestra Sir Henry put together
for the first series of Proms in 1895
which became the Queen’s Hall Orchestra,
were mainly theatre musicians who expected
to treat their relationship with that
orchestra as they did their theatre
contracts.
At the
beginning of the 20th century
two strands of musical employment begin
to emerge. Until then there had just
been music. The same composer might
well write sacred music, ‘art-music’
and ‘popular music’. Art-music more
precisely describes what is now always
referred to as classical, or sometimes
as serious music. Neither of these terms
is really accurate: art-music does not
have to be Classical (as distinct from
Romantic or Contemporary) nor does it
need to be ‘serious’
From
about 1910, when a new style of dance
music started to be favoured by dancers,
a new and different style of playing
was also required and by around 1920,
when a large number of what came to
be called dance bands had been formed,
those who played that music began to
be referred to as ‘dance’ musicians
(and, by some of the older musicians
like my father, as ‘Jazzers). In the
latter half of the 1950s these musicians
were increasingly replaced by the arrival
of the pop and rock groups. For the
past 80 years, with only a very few
exceptions, musicians who have provided
music for dancing have not played in
orchestras. However, for those orchestral
musicians who have been employed in
providing ‘backing’ for the myriad forms
of contemporary popular music on recordings
and TV, it has usually been extremely
rewarding financially. On TV the producers
of programmes featuring a pop singer
or group have increasingly favoured
young and attractive women musicians
when a small string section is on view.
Increasingly,
since about 1955, when ‘popular music’
in its very many forms replaced jazz
orientated dance music as the music
enjoyed by the majority of young people,
jazz has become more and more respectable
until, since the 1990s, it has been
regularly played on BBC Radio 3 alongside
symphonic music, while pop music has
its own channel, 1. Students at the
music colleges and conservatoires in
Britain and the USA can take Jazz as
their main study and many of the leading
jazz musicians are now extremely musically
educated. The extent to which attitudes
to popular culture have changed since
the 1960s can be gauged by the fact
that at that time, when a number of
distinguished jazz musicians and I met
representatives of the BBC on behalf
of the musicians broadcasting jazz and
improvised music, jazz was still classed
as ‘entertainment’ and not ‘music’.
In contrast
to a good many other countries where
permanent symphony orchestras had already
been established during the 19th
century, it was not until well into
the 20th that one was created
in Britain. A musician’s casual and
insecure way of life and income continued
to make this seem an unsuitable career
for the children of most middle-class
families. Perhaps, if they had a very
great talent as a pianist or violinist
and a solo career was possible, or they
wished to become music teachers, it
might be considered. Most fathers would
definitely not have thought that an
orchestral musician would make a suitable
husband for one of their daughters.
One of my colleagues told me, many years
after the event, that even in 1947 when
he went to ask his prospective father-in-law
for his daughter’s hand in marriage
this gentleman, who I believe was a
bank manager, said, ‘My daughter tells
me you are a musician. Where do you
play?’ ‘I am the principal trumpet in
the Royal Opera House Orchestra’, my
friend replied. ‘What do you do during
the day-time?’ he was then asked. The
prospective father-in-law clearly did
not think of music as a full-time occupation
and thought that symphony concerts and
performances of opera arrived from out
of thin air without any preparation.
Another colleague, a distinguished principal
wind player in the RPO in 1955, formerly
a principal in the BBC Symphony Orchestra
since the 1930s, told me that even while
he was in the BBC Orchestra if he was
asked what his occupation was he would
claim to be ‘in insurance’, rather than
admit that he played in an orchestra.
With
the formation in 1930 of the BBC Symphony
and the creation in 1932 of the London
Philharmonic Orchestra by Sir Thomas
Beecham, a number of musicians could
then really be said to be orchestral
musicians, in that they earned the whole
or the bulk of their income from playing
in an orchestra. They no longer needed
to play in theatres, restaurants, or
do summer seasons playing on municipal
bandstands. In addition to the BBC Symphony
Orchestra, during the 1930s the BBC
created several other orchestras: the
BBC Northern (now BBC Philharmonic),
the BBC Scottish and Welsh Orchestras
and the BBC Theatre Orchestra (now the
BBC Concert Orchestra). The increased
demand for art-music from 1940, led
by 1946 to the formation of two more
orchestras in London, the Philharmonia
and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
and together with the members of the
London Symphony Orchestra and London
Philharmonic Orchestra being fully engaged.
It was not only in London that there
were many more orchestral musicians.
Bournemouth, Birmingham, Liverpool,
Manchester and Glasgow all by then had
full time orchestras, each employing
at least 70 musicians. There were also
full-time orchestras at the Royal Opera
House and Sadler’s Wells, later to become
the English National Opera, as well
as a far greater amount of employment
for freelance orchestral musicians in
recording, broadcasting, playing for
films and in the smaller part-time orchestras
that had been formed in London and around
the country.
Attitudes
had also changed. A number of musicians
of my generation, coming into the profession
around the end of the war in 1945, had
been to Public Schools (for my American
readers that means Private Schools).
Previously very few of those who had
been to a public school or university
had entered the profession as orchestral
musicians. Musicians in the major orchestras
in London, by working very hard, could
earn enough to satisfy the most hard-hearted
of prospective fathers-in-law, though
those in the Regional orchestras were
still comparatively poorly paid. To
say that you were in one of these orchestras
or even a member of the London Philharmonic
or the Philharmonia
meant nothing to the general public
in Britain. I was struck when I went
with the Philharmonia to Vienna in the
1960s how, when I was on a tram and
other passengers saw the name Philharmonia
on my
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instrument
case, they looked at me with interest.
In shop windows photographs of the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra and their conductors
were used to advertise various goods.
It seemed that in Vienna musicians were
regarded with as much respect as footballers
were in Britain.
Playing
in an Orchestra
Symphony
and opera orchestras, the true home
of the orchestral musician, are highly
complex hierarchical organisations,
and to a greater or lesser extent this
is true in all orchestras, large or
small.
In 1900,
musicians, like nearly everyone else,
‘knew their place’, accepted their position
in society, and though they might be
ambitious to better themselves the idea
that every one was equal had not yet
generally taken root. Accepting being
told what to do and doing it without
questioning was for most employees still
the order of the day. Rules were obeyed,
children did not ‘answer back’, those
in authority were called Sir.
In an
orchestra authority stems, as elsewhere,
from the management, but is wielded
by the conductor, who through the power
invested in him by the management had
the ability to hire and fire musicians.
There is no doubt that in the past some
conductors did behave like tyrants,
as the bandmaster of an army band might.
Although they could not send a player
to the guardroom or consign him to barracks,
they could terrorise and humiliate him,
make his life a misery, destroy his
ability to play and, ultimately, sack
him, with or without good reason. Happily
this state of affairs is no longer tolerated
but, as I wrote in a previous chapter,
many musicians still feel oppressed
by conductors, especially when it is
one for whom they have little or no
respect.
Remnants
of the old style of tyranny were still
in evidence when I joined the profession
in 1942. Individual members of the string
sections, usually someone towards the
back of the section, would be singled
out to play a particularly difficult
passage on their own, in front of the
whole orchestra. Though an adequate
member of the section, he would be unused
to playing alone like a soloist and
now, extremely nervous, he makes a poor
showing and is humiliated in front of
his colleagues. After WW2 changes in
society and the education system greatly
changed attitudes toward authority and
this form of oppression is now extremely
rare. But a conductor can still pursue
and distress a player by constant criticism
until he is no longer able to play adequately.
It is now unlikely that individual members
of a string section will be affected
by a conductor in this way, though I
have seen a whole violin section brought
to the point of desperation at being
unable to satisfy a conductor’s unreasonable
demands. The best conductors have no
need to behave like this, because they
are able to indicate what they want
by their gestures and are experienced
enough to know what an individual player
or section is capable of. It is members
of the woodwind, brass and percussion
sections who are obviously the most
vulnerable to criticism when they have
solo or exposed music to play.
Every
member of an orchestra, whether the
leader (or concertmaster in the USA),
principal horn, or the violinist at
the back of the second violin section
has to give up some of her or his individuality,
but some have to do so much more than
others. String players have to give
up most: they are always playing the
same notes as a number of other players.
From time to time I believe every one
of them will experience a real feeling
of frustration. Nearly all of them at
some time will have had dreams of becoming
a soloist or of playing in a string
quartet, or at least in a chamber orchestra.
As a
clarinettist I never had to experience
the frustration of playing the same
notes as a number of other players while
playing in an orchestra, but I think
I can understand how they must feel.
Gilbert Vinter, a bassoonist (I remember
that when I was a child he came to our
house to rehearse a Mozart trio for
two clarinets and bassoon with Pauline
Juler and my father), and later a successful
composer and conductor, persuaded the
BBC to form a very large wind band for
a series of broadcasts. It was a quite
a remarkable band in that it was made
up of many of the woodwind and brass
players from all the orchestras in London
– the symphony and opera orchestras,
the BBC orchestras, plus the best free
lance players.
There
were about 14 or 16 clarinets (in a
wind band the clarinet take on a similar
role to the violins in an orchestra).
At one time or another I played in every
position in the clarinet section in
that band, from principal (leader) to
the player on the last stand. Even though
the standard of all the players was
so good, having to play the same notes
as a lot of other people was a new experience
for me. Everyone else seemed to be playing
all the notes in the difficult passages
except me and however loudly I played
I could not really hear myself. I would
not want that experience every day all
through my life. The violin is a softer
sounding and more subtle instrument
than the clarinet, but even so I think
I would find it difficult to bear.
Players,
other than some of the string principals
who are seated very near the conductor
start with a major disadvantage: the
majority of conductors never seem able
to hear or understand whatever is said
to them. Conversation with the conductor
from one’s seat in the orchestra always
seems to be what an exasperated colleague
called ‘one-way traffic’. Conductors
expect everyone, however far away from
them, to hear and understand what they
say, quite often fairly quietly and
with a foreign accent, though the players
on the back desks of the strings and
the percussion, and even the woodwind
and brass in a large orchestra, can
be a considerable distance from them.
When a member of the orchestra asks
a question many conductors either don’t
hear them or understand what is being
asked. I learned that to get their attention
it was necessary to wait until there
was absolute silence, speak very loudly
(with some it helped to stand up) and
very clearly. It takes a fair amount
of self-confidence, some might say ‘hard-neck’,
to do that.
The
phrase ‘hard-boiled musicians’, so beloved
by critics, could not be further from
the truth. Musicians, like all performers,
however distinguished or famous, are
extremely sensitive and aware of their
own weaknesses and shortcomings as artists.
Their confidence can be easily shaken.
Actors, dancers and musicians have to
take a great deal of criticism from
directors and conductors as well as
the self-criticism they constantly have
to apply if they are to be any good.
Quite a number of those going to music
college, when faced with the demands
of their teachers, who will often be
a soloist or a professional orchestral
player, and especially when they start
doing a few orchestral engagements,
find that they are temperamentally unsuited
to the harsh reality of professional
life. They give up and go into teaching
or some other less demanding occupation.
It not
easy, when one is trying one’s utmost
to respond to the demands being made
on one, to be told one is too loud or
too soft, too sharp or too flat, too
early or too late, not making enough
crescendo or too much, too much attack
or not enough – the list is endless.
All these comments come most often from
the least able conductors, those who
cannot achieve what they want by their
gestures. Something that, after working
with so many conductors, I still cannot
explain is why it is that even good
intonation is achieved by the very finest
conductors without any obvious action
or comment on their part. Perhaps the
sense of security they engender by the
certainty of rhythm, tempo and the balance
they achieve just makes it easier to
hear and play more accurately.
Attitudes
within the orchestra itself have also
changed a great deal over the last 30
or 40 years. Older players used to take
a very decided ‘who do you think you
are, young man’ attitude to young players.
Joseph Casteldini, a fine bassoon player,
told me how when he was a young man
he went to deputise at a show at one
of the West End theatres. He found that
he was sitting next to the famous clarinettist
Charles Draper, then quite elderly and
at the end of his career. At the interval,
intending to be friendly, Joe said ‘Can
I get you a cup of tea, Charlie? Draper
responded with some asperity, ‘Mr Draper’,
and did not speak to him again. I found
when I joined the LPO in 1943 as a very
callow youth that a few of the older
players behaved in this way to me. When
I complained to my colleague, the bass-clarinettist
Richard Temple-Savage, by then one of
the middle-aged members of the orchestra,
he recounted his own experience when
he had joined the orchestra in 1934.
He said that for the first six months
he was in the orchestra Reginald Kell,
the then principal clarinet, did not
speak to him at all. Nowadays, if an
older player were to say ‘I’ve had 40
years experience’, as I remember being
told a number of times when I was young
and had only been in the profession
for a couple of years, a young player
would think (and might even say) ‘isn’t
it time you made way for someone younger?’
As well
as accepting the authority of the conductor,
members of all the string sections also
have to accept decisions made by the
principal of their own section often
directed by the leader. Many conductors
will leave decisions about bowing to
the Leader who will usually consult
with the principals of the other sections.
Decisions about bowing, which part of
the bow, whether a passage should start
with an up-bow or a down-bow, whether
a series of detached notes should be
played ‘on the string’ or ‘off’ and
many other sophisticated questions have
to be decided. There can be very decided
opinions on these questions and doing
something one way or another can make
some passages much more difficult for
some players. The leader may be a very
fine player but have idiosyncratic ideas
regarding bowing. Paul Beard, a very
fine violinist and a fine leader highly
respected by conductors (he was also
Beecham’s leader of the LPO for a time),
upset some of his section when he was
leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra
because of his unusual views on bowing.
It seems he was unwilling to listen
to the complaints of a number of members
of the first violin section, causing
a degree of discontent. In contrast,
when David McCallum was Leader of the
RPO, not all the violinists in his section
were of the highest calibre, but because
of his easy authority and understanding
of each player’s capacity he got the
very best out of them and created a
first-class section.
In the
same way that musicians will accept
a conductor’s wishes, even when their
own feelings about the music differ
from his, especially if there is finally
a rewarding performance, so the members
of every section, strings, woodwind,
brass and percussion must at times accept
the decisions of their principal. When
appointing players, regard to their
temperament and ability to co-operate
in the position to which they are to
be appointed is extremely important.
Two players, perhaps equally good oboists,
may have very different personalities.
One might make an excellent principal
oboe but be quite unsuited to being
a second oboe, being unable to subordinate
his own style and musical feelings sufficiently.
The other player, equally good, might
find the responsibility of being principal
and ‘in the firing line’ all the time
too demanding. He might be more suited
to the less demanding principal position
as the cor anglais player. In that position
he will have important solos to play
but they occur much less frequently.
Or he or she might be ideal as a second
oboist, delighting in supporting their
principal when there are duets or unison
passages, adapting to and matching his
principal’s style and tone. The worst
situation is when a second player believes
he should be occupying the position
of his principal, or if a string player
feels dissatisfied, believing he should
be sitting further forward in the section,
perhaps right at the front. A player
like that can be extremely harmful to
the whole section.
Even
the relationship between principals
can sometimes be difficult. As Chairman
of the Philharmonia I sometimes had
to deal with this problem Perhaps the
principal double bass and principal
cello may have very different ideas
as to how some passages the cellos and
basses have to play together in octaves
should be bowed. After a time, the relationship
between the two of them gradually becomes
strained and the whole of each section
get involved. Or, perhaps the trumpets
feel that the trombones always interpret
the dynamic marking, whether piano or
forte, too loudly, forcing them to play
louder than they want to. Sometimes
a very good woodwind or brass player
can irritate some of his colleagues,
who admire him, but find he is inclined
to be rather over assertive, perhaps
because he has a strong soloistic temperament.
In solo passages his playing is very
personal and exciting and at times an
inspiration to others in the orchestra,
but whenever others have to play in
unison with him or when he doesn’t have
the most important part in ensemble
passages he always seems to dominate.
The test for a really fine orchestral
woodwind and brass player is whether
he or she has the ability to switch
from being a soloist one moment to a
chamber music player the next, and then
a moment or two later, when there is
a melodic line in their part that they
would like to play out, play as quietly
as possible so that more important parts
can be heard.
When
I meet ex-colleagues of my own generation
or older who in their day were considered
very good players, there is general
agreement that we would be lucky to
get into the profession now with the
skills we had when we started many years
ago. Improved teaching methods and the
many improvements that have been made
in the manufacture of woodwind and brass
instruments in the last 30 years or
so have been important elements in making
technical virtuosity relatively commonplace.
But most important has been the example
set by the extraordinary level of technical
performance young aspiring musicians
have come to accept as normal. The recordings
made over many years, using the techniques
I described earlier and that includes
piecing together a number of ‘takes’
to create a performance without any
blemish, have been an inspiration and
the spur to achieve a similar or even
a better performance.
Each
year, starting in 1979, the National
Centre for Orchestral Studies (NCOS)
formed a symphony orchestra following
the audition of students who had been
at music college or university and now
wished to become orchestral musicians.
As the Director I sat in on the auditions
for every instrument and was impressed
by the generally high standard of technical
skill. The oboe auditions are a good
example. Before attending the audition
every applicant was required to prepare
a number of extracts from the orchestral
repertoire that we had selected for
their instrument. One of the extracts
the oboists were sent was from the Overture
to La scala di seta (The Silken
Ladder) by Rossini. This overture
contains a famous solo for the oboe
that in my experience even the best
players considered difficult. I remember
that Terence MacDonagh, Leon Goossens
and Evelyn Rothwell, three of the most
outstanding players of their generation,
would do some extra practice if they
knew it was going to be on the programme.
I had heard it imperfectly played by
lesser players on a number of occasions.
At the auditions for the NCOS from 1979
until 1989 I must have listened to about
300 young oboists. Though the technical
performance of this difficult passage
was generally very good only a handful
played it with any real musical understanding.
Not
surprisingly, the number of players
able to respond to and interpret the
content of the music and express it
in their playing had not increased at
the same time as their instrumental
dexterity. In fact, musicians of my
generation and those even older feel
that a considerable number of concert
performances have for some time lacked
the expressive qualities we had heard
in the past from the best principal
players when they had solo and ensemble
passages. In the last chapter I have
written: When I was first involved
in playing for recording, from 1944,
we tried to recreate in the studio as
nearly as possible what took place at
a concert performance. As record
sales increased it was not long before
the concert performance began to try
to recreate what could be heard on recordings
Inevitably, listening to playbacks,
editing short sections, when the primary
concern of record producers had become
whether the balance, tuning, ensemble
or any other technical element was as
near perfect as possible, resulted in
performers becoming increasingly concerned
about these aspects of their performance
as well. Musicians brought up on a diet
of recordings have naturally been as
influenced by the interpretative elements
they have heard as the technical.
Now
that there are so many accomplished
players there are a very large number
of applicants whenever auditions are
held for one of the orchestras. It is
likely that 40 or more players will
apply if the position of second clarinet
in one of the BBC Orchestras becomes
available. There may be two or three
who the orchestra think might be suitable.
As a rule each of them will then be
given a trial period in the orchestra.
As well as being a good player there
are other qualities that are extremely
important. How will they fit into the
section musically and personally? How
will they respond to conductors, and
they to him? As well as being a good
player, getting on well with colleagues
and satisfying conductors, how consistent
a player will they prove to be? Sadly,
if there is only one job, two very good
players are going to be disappointed
It is
generally known that symphony orchestras
everywhere have for some time been experiencing
increasing financial problems and that
the amount of employment for musicians
has reduced, especially the number of
recording sessions that the major orchestras
in Britain had come to rely on to a
considerable extent. Yet the number
of young musicians seeking entry to
the specialist music schools and the
music colleges has not decreased. A
good many of them will be hoping for
a solo or chamber music career and though
there are now many more opportunities
for a local career in those fields,
the majority of students leaving the
music colleges wishing to follow a career
as a performer will find they will be
playing in an orchestra of some kind.
The popularity of musicals, many of
which have very long runs in London,
a few for as long as 20 years, now provide
employment for quite a few musicians.
A few may be fortunate enough to obtain
a position in one of the symphony orchestras.
Many more will free-lance, a field of
employment now sadly much reduced, and
make up their income by teaching. It
is vitally important that anyone contemplating
a career as a professional musician
should remember that many of those setting
out with this intention are disappointed
with the type of employment they find
they are obliged to undertake for a
good deal of their lives. This is true
for all performers, actors, dancers,
singers and musicians. There are just
too few opportunities available for
all those who wish to spend their lives
doing what they enjoy most.
When
talking to other orchestral musicians,
including some who also had solo and
chamber music careers and were fortunate
enough, as I was, to have experienced
the enormous satisfaction of taking
part in a wonderful performance in a
very good orchestra conducted by a great
conductor, they have all agreed that
notwithstanding the fact that one has
to give up one’s freedom of expression
and accept the discipline of being part
of a large ensemble, nothing surpasses
the satisfaction of taking part in a
performance of this kind. It is an extraordinary
paradox.
Over
and above everything else the fact that
as an orchestral musician one spends
one’s whole working life in the company
of men of genius one is very rarely,
indeed ever, going to meet in person.
One is constantly refreshed and enriched
by the thoughts, feelings and imagination
of the great composers of the past and
present as expressed in their music.
Because over the years one takes part
in a good many different interpretations
of the compositions of Mozart, Beethoven,
Berlioz, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler,
Debussy, Stravinsky, Britten, Shostakovich
and other composers, one is privileged
to gain an understanding and insight
that is extremely rewarding.
For
me there was another continuing pleasure,
that of working with outstanding solo
artists. Whether the orchestra is good
or not so good, or the conductor is
great, good or just so-so, to accompany
a great artist is always a delight.
I was fortunate to take part in performances
of a great deal of the piano, violin
and cello repertoire with many of them.
As well as that pleasure there was always
the enjoyment of working with colleagues
whose playing delighted and sometimes
inspired. This element of the life of
an orchestral musician deserves a chapter
of its own.
Chapter
16
