Last night, I went to the Jack Singer Concert Hall to hear Jan Lisiecki, the Calgary-born nineteen year old international pianist sensation, play the Schumann Piano Concerto with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.
It was a very good concert. The Calgary Philharmonic has improved tremendously over the years, and Lisiecki is a very good pianist. Maybe not as fantastic as some claim, but very talented, with brilliant technique and an impressive shock of blond hair that moves around entertainingly as he plays.
The best part of the concert for me though was the orchestra's rendering of the Dvorak New World Symphony, which I thought was outstanding. I was sitting in the left mezzanine, which is basically right next to the orchestra, and you could hear and see the different sections, strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, as they played their parts, echoing each other in various ways, each with its own voice and of course timbre. This interplay, which seemed clearer here than on recordings, was beautifully done and I thought the whole piece was exquisitely played.
The musician closest to me was in the percussion section. At the beginning of the Dvorak symphony, not having any notes to play yet, he sat on a chair and rested his right arm on a stool next to him. Probably in his sixties, balding and rotund, he was dressed like the other men, in tails and a white bow tie, but his shirt was pushed out in front by his belly, and he wore the same expression of resigned boredom as the ex-alderman for Ward 1, where we live, Dale Hodges, the sourpuss of the Calgary City Council. I imagined he might also be a little jealous of the timpani player, a younger man, balding too, but less so, who had many more notes to play on the four big beautiful copper timpani which lay directly in the gaze of his older colleague. The older colleague himself had just two cymbals and a little snare drum, as well as a music stand with what looked like a single sheet of music.
I watched this older percussionist from time to time during the Dvorak, a little surprised he had nothing at all to do. He scratched his ear occasionally, and rubbed his nose, but otherwise, he just sat there, staring ahead at his colleague, who was leaping around, banging his timpani with white pompom drumsticks and all the enthusiasm of youth. During the second movement of the symphony, the older man stood up, and I thought he was going to participate, but it was just to move from the chair to the stool, which he now sat on with the same resigned look as before.
It was not until the third movement that he moved forward and picked up a small metal triangle which had been hidden from me by the cymbals. I thought he was going to play it, but he sat down on the stool again, resting the triangle against his tummy.
Then he got up again, at the end of the third movement, moved forward close to the snare drum and picked up a little metal rod which apparently went with the triangle. He held the triangle up in his left hand now, and the rod in his right. I was on the edge of my seat. Then, as the final movement started, he moved the triangle away from himself, and his belly, inserted the rod inside, and rattled it furiously for a few seconds. Then he sat down again.
Four times during the exciting last movement he got up and played the triangle, not furiously like the first time, but in what seemed a gentle, almost foppish sort of way, just tapping it lightly three or four times in a row, then standing back. You could hardly hear it above the trombones and French horns, not to mention the timpani, all of which were going at full throttle. I don't remember ever hearing the triangle in recordings I've listened to, except perhaps during that intense beginning of the last movement. Now that I know, I'll listen for it.
Now my percussionist set the triangle down and, lordy me! picked up the cymbals. We were still only half way through the last movement, and I was sure he was getting ready to contribute to some splendid crescendo. But no. Holding the left cymbal facing upwards and resting about a quarter of the right cymbal on top of it, he simply moved the right cymbal down and off, once, making a gentle swooshing sound and that was it. He waited a few seconds after this contribution, then carefully set the cymbals back in their stand and went to sit down again. Where he stayed until the end. No more triangle, no more cymbals, no snare drum at all. He didn't contribute anything to the amazing finale; he just sat there, looking serious.
I noticed though, as we were all applauding to congratulate the orchestra on its wonderful performance, that, unlike the other musicians, he clapped too, as if he felt at a certain remove, knew that the others had done more than he, and supposed, grudgingly perhaps, that he should publicly thank them for it.
