Orchestra Music

It was nice to get back to orchestra this week, though the music is challenging. We (the cello section) received an e-mail the day before the rehearsal with fingerings for Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." It is in five flats, with bass, tenor, and treble clef--goes up to a high G flat, but only briefly. The rest remains more playable, no higher than a high D, thumb-positiony.

After going over it a bit, myself, in orchestra, and with my teacher today, I think that it is going to be as horrendous as I though it would be.

It is, at least, adagio. The hard part might be remember which clef I am in.

Here is a fine version of the piece, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich:



There are eight other pieces, all with their own challenges.

I am very happy to be playing Bach's Fugue in G Minor (the Lesser), which I used to play with my flute quartet. Playing it fast enough will be the issue.

We are also playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever," which I know well from playing it on flute every week in the summer during our Town Band concerts. It is fun taking the lower part for a change.

Our pops tune is Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Symphonic Reflections," a medley of Jesus Christ Superstar, Don't Cry for Me Argentina, King Herod's Song, and Memory. That one seems pretty doable.

Unfamiliar to me is "Tatarian Dances" by Elena Roussanova Lucas. We don't have much in the way of melody, but I really like these dances.

"Band of Brothers" by Michael Kamen has an unrelenting section of triplets that will require some focused playing, and counting.

We are also playing "Variations on a Theme by Handel," by Maurice Whitney, "Legend" by Merle Isaac, "Poem Symphonique 'Les Preludes,'" by Franz Liszt.

It will keep us busy for a while.