Several CSO musicians explain musical challenges and their solutions
Several Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians share stories about how they turn the risks of performing into the rewards of expressing great musical energy to the audience. They reveal a few places in the orchestra’s repertoire that can be troublesome, and how they approach these risky moments to perform at their best!
Episode #3: Risks and Rewards
Patsy Dash: We’ve done it before; it can be done.
James Smelser: This takes you away from how you feel, to what you're doing and what you need to do.
John Hagstrom: Welcome to Intermission at the CSO, taking you behind the scenes at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
I'm John Hagstrom. I play in the trumpet section of the CSO, and in this episode, we’ll be speaking with several CSO musicians about the work they do that turns the risks of performing into the rewards of sharing great musical energy with our audiences. And they'll be revealing a few places in the orchestra's repertoire that can be troublesome and how they approach these risky moments to play their best — alone and together.
These were fascinating interviews for me to do; I learned a lot, and I promise you will be fascinated, too.
But first, it's important to talk about the fact that this is a subject that is almost never discussed openly by musicians, and there are some good reasons for that. Maybe the biggest reason is that it's our job as performers to give listeners the feeling that everything's going to be OK. When you buy a ticket to a CSO concert, you shouldn't have to worry or wonder if someone won't be able to play their part. And CSO musicians take great pride in giving that confidence to our listeners; that's our job, and we love doing it. That means you're in good hands when you invest a few hours listening to a CSO concert, and that's not going to change.
But every musician you see on stage is a human, just like everyone else. As much as we try to be consistently excellent, there's always a risk of making mistakes and that actually adds to part of the excitement of attending a CSO concert, and everybody knows that anything can happen. So when it goes well, in many ways, it's also a celebration of the hard work and commitment of the players’ preparation and poise to deliver something great, regardless of any obstacle, and we don't ever want to change that.
And that leads us back to why we don't really say much about making mistakes or how we manage to avoid them. When you're so focused on creating quality, you often don't even want to mention the possibility of making any noticeable error to one another. And what that means is what you are about to hear are thoughts and revelations that CSO musicians who have worked with each other for decades may never have talked about with one another, and so let's get started.
Jennifer Gunn: This orchestra is extraordinarily polished, but every night people are taking a little bit more risk. And for me, that pushing of the limits, that devoting all your energy to being on for that performance, is for me very inspiring and contagious.
John Hagstrom: Jennifer Gunn has played flute and piccolo with the CSO since 2005. John [Bruce] Yeh has been a clarinetist in the CSO since 1977.
John Bruce Yeh: When we perform, we have to in certain ways challenge ourselves constantly to be able to take risks, because taking the risks often produces a result that will touch somebody even deeper—than if you didn't take a risk.
John Hagstrom: Maybe the biggest mistake a musician can make is to play a wrong note or to miss a note in a way that will be noticeably distracting. And since one of the most noticeable instruments in the orchestra is the trumpet, I asked the CSO’s new principal trumpet, Esteban Batallán, about how he feels about making those kinds of mistakes and if he has any advice on this topic.
Here’s part of our conversation. How do you deal with, when you ever make a mistake, because for trumpet, everybody knows if you miss a big note. It's pretty easy to tell that something was missed, and you’ve made some mistakes in your life, probably three or four ...
Esteban Batallán: Or even more (laughs).
John Hagstrom: But when that happens to you, what — not only what do you do, what advice would you give to other trumpet players or other musicians, who, they’re nervous because they don't want to make a mistake, and how do you do that?
Esteban Batallán: Well, there is a way to make a mistake. If you make a mistake because you are not prepared enough, it's one thing, but if you make a mistake because you are nervous or maybe you had a bad day or something, everybody's human, so everybody can make a mistake at a certain point. Even doctors, and they save lives. We save lives but in another way. When I make a mistake, I get very upset with that mistake, and maybe the whole concert, I'm thinking of that mistake, because it's not normal that happens. But when it happens, I just realize that OK, I cannot recover that note again and play it again, so just go ahead and continue and don't make for yourself that that note is going to make you feel horrible the rest of your concert or you are going to be upset with that note. Because then if you think that way, maybe you will have more mistakes but just because you are thinking that.
Jennifer Gunn: I’ve had friends in the audience, and they’re saying, “Oh, that was just an amazing concert, that was so wonderful.” And there I am, grumble, grumble, grumble, unhappy about something I did, because I felt like what might be quite insignificant errors to me are just giant lemons that I’ve just ruined everything.
John Hagstrom: I know just how that feels, even when we know that we didn't really do that much harm. It feels a lot bigger because we intend for concerts to be more than just a series of correct notes. We want them to be meaningful, too, and that means we have to take risks that push our limits. And the first risk we ever take as musicians is to perform for others. For most of us, that happened when we were young students, and little by little, we build on our successes to be more confident in the future, but real confidence can't come without real discipline and fundamental strength.
Patsy Dash has been a CSO percussionist since 1986, and she speaks about how our early success is built; and how she builds her confidence to be ready for the performing challenges she faces in the CSO.
Patsy Dash: Everybody, even if you're in fourth grade or fifth grade, everybody's had a successful concert, and we build on that, I think. And we know that we've done it before; it can be done and that it will be done. And everyone has their own way of making sure that we do our best. For me, it's a warm-up routine I do, a thing called stick control on the practice pad. It uses what we call rudiments, which are a little bit like scales are to any pitched instrument. The drum actually has its own type of scales that again we call them rudiments, and they're sticking patterns. And even if I'm not playing snare drum, which I’m usually not, I still warm up on the snare drum because I know that if I can do that, I can pretty much get through most anything.
John Hagstrom: So have you ever wondered what moments in music the performers might worry about? I asked a few CSO musicians to share some of their more difficult moments within the orchestra's repertoire, and to explain why. And they also share some thoughts on how they make great music, no matter what. I started by asking John Yeh.
John Bruce Yeh: One of my scariest moments is Rhapsody in Blue, it’s the opening of Rhapsody in Blue. That's probably my scariest solo. OK, I'm all by myself, I just have to kind of lay it out there, and hopefully it'll go OK, and somebody will enjoy it. That’s sort of the attitude I have to take. Another one of my scary moments is Mahler 9, when I have to play the E-flat clarinet part in Mahler 9. You wait and wait and wait for a long time, and then you come in very, very soft and very, very high and very, very, uh, connected. And that sort of situation to be in is quite stressful, because you’ve got a lot of time to get nervous for the place where you have to come in and be very exposed.
John Hagstrom: Larry Neuman has been in the CSO's viola section for almost 30 years now.
Larry Neuman: You know what comes to mind immediately is the last movement of Mahler 1. Because there’s a huge, I think, a 14-bar rest before that, so we’re really counting like crazy. It gets quieter, and we’re back to kind of a pedal point, nothing is happening, it’s very quiet, and then the violas come in. (sings the notes) That's stressful for me, the timing is so subtle there. I don’t know if I talk about it with my viola colleagues, but I think we, I guess, we all feel the same that it has to be so precise. It has to be rhythmic, it has to be clear. Of course, it has to be in tune, it has to be projected in a clear, big sound without being forced.
John Hagstrom: The string section players work hard to fit together to blend into one sound, with 12 violas playing the same part. The woodwind and brass players have just one person playing on each part, so their challenges often come from being all alone and their part. If there's one voice that you hear alone more than any other even when everyone's playing together, it's the piccolo. And so, I asked Jennifer Gunn to share two of her most concerning musical moments, She told me about her part in the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, and also in Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade.
Jennifer Gunn: The famous one for me is the Tchaikovsky Fourth third movement. That's the biggest sort of pressure moment I think a piccolo player could have. Sheherazade is, that is, very difficult, but at least I'm joined by my pack of flute players, and I feel like I'm not quite alone, even though, let's face it, I'm alone at the top.
I feel like I at least have some help from the momentum of them being able to do it. Leading up to it, before the passage starts, I put myself in almost a sort of coma emotionally, you know, I've tried to calm myself down in a way that all I can think about is I know I put the preparation in behind this passage.
You have to go full speed. Like top speed, you're like pedal to the metal. You cannot slow down when you see the brick wall coming before you. You have to run straight into it. It's like all the brakes on the car have failed, and you're going 160 into the wall.
Before it starts, my heart rates probably on the slower side, but when it's over, it's like my heart rate has made up for lost time, and it's pounding through my nostrils. You know it's just like way up — (imitates heartbeat, rapidly) — “boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop!” And really, after the passage is done, we've got some down time, so I don't have to think for a little bit. Usually, if people watch, I will immediately basically stare at my toes, because I just need to regroup.
Larry Neuman: The Bartok Concerto for Orchestra is a great one. (sings) The violas have this presentation, and it’s very exposed. That’s a very famous one. It’s on auditions all the time.
And I'm reminded of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, another really famous viola section solo in the first movement. Very exposed, very quiet. What makes that one particularly scary as it’s so quiet and needs, ideally. consummate bow control. It's hard to control this very flexible stick with a flexible bow hair. All these springs, and you're trying to pull a long, slow bow, very quietly, and at the same time move your left hand up and down the fingerboard in just right notes. That excerpt happens to go quite high, so it's even more challenging, going out of the traditional viola range, register. OK, we’ve got the bow control — difficult. We’ve got the moving around on the fingerboard — very difficult. But also the pulse — it has to be done in a very strict time frame, so the changes — all these little transitions at just the right moment — tremendously stressful — if one is inclined to be like me!
John Hagstrom: Lots of listeners enjoyed Jim Smelser’s stories from the last episode of Intermission at the CSO. Jim’s played second horn in the CSO since the year 2000. I asked him what sorts of performance moments concern him, and I’ve worked with Jim for many years, but I learned some brand-new things from what he and all of these players had to say about their solutions to always be at their best, performing with the CSO.
Jim Smelser: I don't get nervous often, and it's not meant to be or sound like any sort of an arrogant statement. I'll say this — I will be anxious, or I will get nervous if I feel like I'm not ready for what I have to do, meaning I feel a little under strength or I feel under-rested, and you know you just don't really quite have the lung capacity or the lung power that you want to have, and you need to have. That concerns me because you need to get through that super long note at the end of the second movement of a Beethoven piano concerto, and there's no chance to breathe.
It's like taking a breath, diving under the ice, and you must swim to the other side. There’s —there’s no, there's no turning back. But other than that, you look forward to the moments to challenge yourself, and I think I play better with pressure — not unreasonable amounts of pressure, but if I found myself in a spot, let’s just say it’s a long, held-out note, and you just feel like you're just a little low on air. The way to get out of it is to look at the big picture. Then it takes the focus away from every little molecule of what you're doing, and thinking, from how you feel, to what you're doing and what you need to do.
John Bruce Yeh: I feel like I'm laying my soul bare for the audience to see and to hear, and so that in a way is scary on a regular basis. But after you've gone through that a number of times, and have had a certain amount of a success at it, and you know you didn't die, you didn't fall over, you didn't have a heart attack. Those tend to build the confidence so that you would be able to do it again.
Patsy Dash: We learn that repeated practicing and being tenacious, and not giving up — pays off.
Jennifer Gunn: Early on when I was a kid, the anxiety of the passage looming was enough. I didn't have the preparation behind me when I was younger, but now I know how to prepare, and I know how to prepare for all those situations of different tempi, different conductors, and I can trust that the preparation will get me through.
Esteban Batallán: That means you are able to hear what the others are doing, and you can mix, or you can blend with them. I don't know how it how to say that in English. It is like when you take something, and then you give something — that mystic connection on stage that we always have — that’s the magic of the music.
Jim Smelser: You kind of can rest assured that you’ve earned the ability to be here to get to do it again in a different setting, and you can just rejoice even more in the fact that you’re making music.
John Hagstrom: Making music. It's maybe the greatest form of human expression, and the power of lots of humans doing it together is worth the extraordinary effort each of us makes to do it well. The potential for us to work together to create something greater than any one of us is at the center of why we want so much to perform at our best. We want to share that energy, to transform ourselves — and our listeners.
And thanks so much to you for listening to this podcast. We hope you will take the time to explore and enjoy some of the great recordings made by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, some excerpts of which you've just heard. And we'll look forward to seeing you again soon at Symphony Center, after our intermission at the CSO.
For more information about this podcast, our guests and links to the music in this episode, please visit cso.org, where you also can find complete and up-to-date information about the exciting programming we're planning this fall on CSOtv, as part of our commitment to provide musical excellence both before and after our regular concerts resume at Symphony Center. While you're visiting cso.org, if you've enjoyed our podcast and would like to support the mission of the CSO, please consider a donation or a sponsorship. Intermission at the CSO is produced by John Hagstrom and Scott Brewer for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, and thank you for listening.
Next time on Intermission at the CSO, we’ll be talking with just one CSO musician. Someone you also heard is part of this episode, and that is Jennifer Gunn. She's been our piccolo and flute player now for 15 years, and she’ll be explaining how she prepares her parts, some advice for students and what she feels as uniquely great about hearing the CSO live at Symphony Center. Lots of other things, too, and you won't want to miss a single moment of all she has to say. That’s next time, on Intermission at the CSO.