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Breathless Song

February 28, 2009 at 4:50 pm (Manila Symphony Orchestra, writing)

An essay on an event that I wrote for CNF class (it contains parts of my previous blog entry).

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Breathless Song

It was Monday, a month before the concert, and I was racing up the stairs of St. Scholastica’s College of Music. I was panting when I reached the Manila Symphony Orchestra’s practice hall, breathless and late for the rehearsal. The concert master, Gina Medina, had already lead the tuning of the instruments, and our conductor, Arturo Molina, was in his seat, hands poised, ready to command music out of the orchestra.

That day was our first rehearsal for our concert, Facets of Classicism, the first in MSO’s 2009 concert season. When I got to my seat in the second violin section, I looked at the piece and saw a jumble of notes – little dots of ink splattered on the page. We were to perform three pieces – Segei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, with Lydia Artymiw as soloist; and Symphony No. 1 in C Minor by Johannes Brahms.

On the first reading of the piece – and many meetings after – our fingers were left in knots, our heads spinning with notes.

From the start, each member of the orchestra was very much involved in the whole production. We helped in the planning, some were in charge of food, some were in charge of ticket sales and marketing, and all of us were working hard to perfect each piece. This was our concert. On the weeks leading up to the concert, we started practicing as a group for three hours every day, and countless more hours practicing on our own and with our section. It left us with back aches as we made our way home. Even outside of the rehearsals, I would catch myself humming Prokofiev’s running passages, my fingers dancing in time with the song in my head. It was as if every hour of the day was spent preparing for the concert.

Prokofiev’s Symphony No.1 may be one of the toughest pieces that I have had the chance to play. He never lets his musicians rest, setting the key at five sharps of six flats, throwing accidentals in just when we start to become comfortable. His running passages made panic rise in my chest every time I saw them approaching. At first, the symphony was my least favorite among all of the pieces in the repertoire. I could hardly play it. After a while, when everyone started to get a hang of the tempo changes, the key shifts, the rollercoaster ride passages, the music started to emerge from the ruins that became of us as we struggled to keep up with the piece.

Mozart’s concerto for piano gave the orchestra a chance to rest before the dramatic Brahms symphony. The orchestra part was simple and clean. Of course it had a playful feel, like any of Mozart’s compositions. The focus was really on the soloist.

When the orchestra met Lydia Artymiw, it was only a week before January 31, the concert date. We were assembled on stage at St. Cecilia’s Hall. Lydia was a tiny woman, dressed in a plain blouse and a high-waisted skirt. It looked like she was still a young school girl, learning the piano in Juilliard. But, the music that came out of her small frame was bold and elegant. She played the notes so eloquently, each accent marked by the sharp nod of her head, each passage finished off by a graceful lift of her elbows, as if she would suddenly take wing and fly above the music.

The Brahms symphony was definitely my favorite. It was the most dramatic – from the low notes at the start, to the high notes of the finale. It was as much of a challenge as Prokofiev, but the ending was much much more rewarding. Our conductor, Sir Toti, really brought the long notes out, as if pulling out heavy ribbons of music out of each of us. The fast parts on the other hand – the allegros, the prestos – were daunting. I practiced many parts over and over, committing them to the memory of my fingertips.

The repertoire we had demanded so much of the musician with its virtuoso passages, of the conductor with its multiple challenges, and as we were to find out, it demanded much from the audience as well, with the music wrapping itself around the hall, leaving the listeners breathless, straining their ears for more.

On the day of the concert, minutes before we were to take the stage, the orchestra convened backstage to tune and pray, something we do before every concert. After the prayer, though, our concert master asked our conductor to say a few words. Surprisingly, being the quiet man that he is, Sir Toti obliged. He told the orchestra, “I want to congratulate all of you, even if the concert hasn’t started yet. Because I know this will be a good concert. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. Just enjoy. This is our concert. The audience is just there to watch.”

“Let’s give it our all, ok?” our concertmaster said. She did not even have to say it – we had been giving it our all since the start of rehearsals and tonight was the one chance we had to shine on stage and finally play for an audience.

With that, we took the stage, playing Prokofiev, Mozart, and Brahms. The intensity was palpable throughout each piece we played. In the moment on stage, nothing else existed but the music. We were there in front of our audience and that was all that mattered. For that moment, our music was the most important thing the world.

In between movements, we could almost feel the tension in the audience as they restrained themselves from clapping. During the intermission, many of us rushed to the dressing room, still using every possible minute to practice. We wanted to give the best we could.

The concert was not flawless. God (and my standmate) knows how many wrong notes I hit, how many entrances I missed, but the grand ending of our Brahms symphony seemed to make all the mistakes disappear – the timpani’s booming beat pushed the orchestra forward, the winds held their high notes, the strings did a fierce tremulo until Sir Toti, with hands triumphant in the air, cut us off. The audience burst out in applause.

When Sir Toti motioned for us to stand, I faced the audience. Then, an odd tingle rose from the center of my body. It was like nothing that I’d experienced before. It spread throughout me and made a smile burst out on my face as the audience gave us a standing ovation.

I realized I was panting, from holding my breath throughout the last running passages, and from the sheer exertion of channeling all of my energy into my instrument. The applause continued to thunder throughout the hall. I looked around and saw that many of the other members were panting as well, some of them even wobbling a bit as they stood to face the audience. As an orchestra, we had played as one. Now, we were gasping for breath as one body, tired and spent, but filled with the music that courses through our veins.

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