Blog

I spent the last few days with the flu.  Talk about brutal!!!  It was tough to study.  It was also tough because I had to do things like an interview on CBS 7 and an interview on the radio.  I have to admit that I basically went to the interviews and had to come back to take a nap!  Never fun!  Tonight was my first rehearsal with the Midland/Odessa Symphony.  We did the Brahms Serenade No. 1 tonight.  What a great piece.  In comparison to his symphonies, I have to admit that the Serenade is a bit sprawling.  In other words, it’s long, BUT what’s amazing is that all the music is great.  In some ways, the piece strikes me as the “un-Brahms.”  Why?  Basically, it has a youthful joy that the later Brahms doesn’t have.  There is an innocence that hasn’t been tainted by his later turmoil.  (Later, he would be affected by the fact that his only love was un-attainable due to his respect for his mentor, Robert Schumann – Brahms had fallen in love with Robert Schumann’s wife, Clara.  Though Robert suffered from mental illness and passed away, Brahms doesn’t seem to have acted on his love for Clara, and he spent his life as a bachelor.)  The orchestra responded well for the most part.  I had them seated differently than they were used to.  (I had the opportunity to hear them in their hall a while back, and I felt like the balances could be helped by changing their seating, and the orchestra management was nice enough to experiment!)  It was a good day, but tomorrow’s rehearsal is going to be the indicator of how we do in the concert.  There is still a LOT of work to be done.  I wish I had another rehearsal, but I think most of them are intrigued by the music enough to be better prepared for both the rehearsal (and me) tomorrow.