A Boston Massacre: The Gory Details.

Okay, I'm exaggerating because I like the sound of the title. Just like the real Boston Massacre, gauged against the unfortunate standards of our times, would hardly qualify as such, yesterday's audition was really more of a minor let down (thus are they all). What most certainly was massacred was the Schönberg Chamber Symphony excerpt, which was quickly followed by the dreaded disembodied utterance of the pseudo congenial platitude, "Thank You." What follows are the gory details.

Most of the experience felt remarkably comfortable and familiar. Right down to the dry, somewhat puffy lip feeling I get the morning after airplane travel and a hotel stay. I did mistime the downtown commute by about a 35 minutes but that still gave me about half an hour to get warmed up. (Really though! An hour and a half to go no more than 6 miles?! I could have walked there faster! That is insanity.) Scheduled for 10:16AM I was apparently the first candidate. This meant I didn't have to listen to too many people warming up or the tail end of the previous audition. I've always been told to avoid being first if you can. Everyone on the committee has perfection in their mind's ear and the first poor bastard to shatter that mindset is doomed. I don't know how true that is, not having sat on any real life audition committees but I don't think it amounts to much of an obstacle, especially when you consider the committee is completely fresh. I think that is a bigger plus. The BSO doesn't do hourly blocks of candidates. They give everyone one hearing and call-backs are literally that; they call you sometime that evening if they have advanced you to the semis a day or two later. Sort of like having your car in the shop and waiting for the estimate. ("Hello. Yeah Mr. Kamp? Yer two driver-side C-sharps were low, yer Siegfried Idle was high, and yer gonna need a new mid-low range setting. We can't do anything with this one.") Except that in this case if the estimate is really bad you don't get a call at all... and they won't tell you their estimate over the phone, just that you've advanced... so I guess it really isn't anything like having your car in the shop afterall. But I digress.

Like I said, most of the experience felt remarkably comfortable and familiar. I even had the same warmup module as last January. Since my warmup was somewhat truncated I still hadn't completely rid my dry lips of that slightly unresponsive morning feeling and decided to be cautious and initiate an official ban on pianissimos. ("By power of the instituting player, and under penalty of severe self-beration, no extreme soft dynamic will be attempted at any time over the duration of excerpts unless circumstances during the act of performing are deemed, by said player, to be highly inducive to a successful outcome. Under no circumstances are extreme soft dynamics to be attempted at the beginnings of aforementioned excerpts (see Das Rheingold clause).")

Cutting to the chase, the Bach cello suite movement again started the round. I had last played it through before a QCSO rehearsal for AG the previous afternoon and it went really well but much faster than I felt comfortable doing in the actual audition. Too risky to play it that fast. The wheels could come off. Never-the-less, when it came time to start I found my tempo still on the quick side. I was able to hang on until the end of the first section and then reined it in at the beginning of the second (no repeats), which I always start a little more subdued and legato than the first half anyway. It went pretty well, all in all. (Much better than last time when my bottom lip slipped off the mouthpiece during a "double stop" and I had to finish with only one lip!) The excerpts started out okay - Shosti 5, a bit from Don Quixote, some Mahler 3, a chunk of Daphnis and Chloe- but none were really good, just okay... until Das Rheingold, which is, at times, the bane of my existence. It can go very well (it's just a warmup arpeggio after all!) but also horribly wrong (yes, but a slow, soft warmup arpeggio right through the break!). My first low B-flat didn't speak immediately as didn't the penultimate descending dotted half-note. And in between was less than stellar playing (Das Rheingold clause: This excerpt is technically not covered under the pianissimo ban due to the dynamic marking being piano. Ergo, the aforementioned dumb-ass should play it louder! Dumb-ass.) Still I was allowed to go on to a fast Schönberg excerpt (rehearsal 28 to 30 in case you're curious) which I've done well a hundred times only to step all over it this time. That was the straw, or log as the case may be, that broke the committee's back after which I was summarily dismissed.

I can't complain. My goals included playing the cello suite well, which I think I did, and getting to play more excerpts than last time, which I definitely did. I'm glad I got to play that particular Mahler 3 excerpt (the first movement one at the recap which then goes down to the low E-naturals) in front of a committee. I've never done that before and have always somewhat dreaded it, even though that one is a fun "practice room excerpt." Of course I wish I had played most things a bit better and a couple things much better but I'm a stronger player now than I was even just 6 months ago due to working up this audition. I'll just keep at it.

Now it is back to the grindstone. A couple tapes for here and here and lists for this group and this group (maybe I'll get to meet you, LR!) to start work on. Of course, I'm in Beantown for another day and a half yet. I hope the hotel guests next door aren't planning on napping this afternoon.