Time to mark the parts

In my last post I spoke about the joys of re-discovering the Beethoven 7th Symphony, and in the process, as a conductor, making decisions about all kinds of details that affect interpretation. These include, of course, Tempo (how fast or slow), and Dynamics (how loud or soft). But, also the more subtle and intricate details of performance must be thought out before the first rehearsal takes place. These include Articulation (how short or long each note in a phrase should be played), Phrasing (how many notes are included in one "thought" -- think of how many notes you would sing in one breath), and, very importantly, Bowings. Bowings are simply indications of whether each string player plays Up Bow (pushing the bow up from the tip of the bow towards the heel of the bow) or Down Bow (pulling the bow from the heel to the tip of the bow) -- as an audience member you literally see the violinists moving together with the bow either going up or going down. This is all coordinated by indicating over the notes on the string players' page, whether to bow up or down -- an up bow marking looks exactly like a v, and a down bow looks like a staple or a lower case n (sort of). And we don't coordinate these bowings just because it looks nice to the audience, but to achieve a uniformity of phrasing and articulation -- thus the first violinists all play the same number of notes on one stroke of the bow, while moving the bow in the same direction. Generally speaking, in homogeneous sections of music, all string players bow with the same number of notes in each bow and in the same bow direction.

Obviously, this is not all decided randomly during orchestra rehearsal -- if we did, we'd need ten times the rehearsals we have, at least! Rather, bowings are always marked in the music -- in the part that is on each stand (and each string stand is shared by two players) -- well in advance of the first rehearsal. As conductor, I make most of the decisions about bowings while I'm studying and preparing my score, and then, usually, I mark those bowings into one part of each string section -- a "master" Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello and Bass part. Often I consult with my concertmaster, Gared Crawford (who joined the EPO as concertmaster last season), on whether these bowings are really the best for the section. Gared will play through them to make sure they are indeed playable and gives his input to me to confirm whether they in fact achieve the musical effect that the composer intended, and that I am after. [Our PR director, Carrie Marrett shot this photo of Gared and I working through the Beethoven 7th part the other day in the basement of the EPO offices]

This, my friends, is what I consider the true nitty-gritty phase of concert preparation. Rehearsals are the very intense, highly focused periods of playing through the music as an ensemble and getting it polished for the concert night. But it is this pre-rehearsal period of marking the orchestra parts, getting as much information clearly marked as possible, that allows us to concentrate on really making music in rehearsal - playing together, achieving uniformity of phrasing, intonation, dynamics, etc. Getting to that level of readiness prior to the first rehearsal is a long, tedious process involving hours and hours of my score and part editing, the input of bowings from the concertmaster and other string principals, and countless hours of part marking by our librarians, Tim Smith and Karen Renner.

I look forward to writing about the more poetic aspects of making music, but the rather pedestrian process of getting these performance details into the parts (and yes, I mark some dynamic, phrasing, articulation details into every wind, brass and percussion part as well) is in reality the daily grind of a conductor. It's a little like the old Dunkin Donuts commercial -- "Time to make the donuts," only for me it is, "Time to mark the parts, Time to mark the parts." By doing this, the players have a sense of direction from the time they receive their parts and begin practicing at home. Ultimately, we then have more freedom to truly concentrate on making music in the rehearsals and concerts -- and hopefully, giving our audience the truest possible representation of what Beethoven intended.