Open Writing

Dressed in jeans two sizes two big, overlong T-shirts, or wearing skin-tight hipsters, stretches of midriff showing, with sneakers on their feet, the parade of young musicians seemed endless. There were twenty-three of them, the youngest eleven, the oldest twenty-four, all auditioning with the hopes of being chosen to perform with our orchestra in the Youth Concert planned to take place in August this year.

Some were self-conscious, sneaking looks at the group of older musicians who were there to judge them. Others were terrified, buried behind their music stands, playing as fast as they could just to get this ghastly experience over. Among them were a few shining stars, youngsters whose pores oozed music as they played their instruments, absorbed, oblivious of us old fogies slouched at the table midway down the hall.

There was an endless stream of players of that shrill instrument, the soprano recorder. Most played movements from concerti by Vivaldi. When listening to so many of Vivaldi’s works, one after the other, one wonders if he wrote one basic work, then, with great subtlety, amended it to suit any of the four hundred or so soloists, playing different instruments, who asked him to compose for them… Certainly they all sounded similar in that hall. One of my colleagues thought he recognised the C Minor concerto: “Didn’t you play that on the piccolo with the SABC Junior Orchestra all those years ago, Isabel?” he asked. “No,” I replied, “I played one in C Major – but most of the runs and sequences were the same, and so was the difficulty with breathing!”

There were two boys in their mid-teens who clutched their tiny plastic recorders in huge ham-sized fists, great fingers waving enthusiastically, lips almost swallowing the mouthpieces, baggy trousers and slouching shirts swaying in time to their passion of music. Thankfully there were a few offerings not written by Vivaldi: a Donizetti flute sonata was performed delightfully on the recorder by a youngster of fourteen; and there was a passionate performance by a young lady of a work by Malcolm Arnold. This latter, unfortunately, shrieked on those ghastly high notes rather too much for our liking, and the young lady looked lovely only until she started playing, at which time her body language told us that each note was being vomited from somewhere deep within her…

Three recorder-players were chosen to perform in the concert, including the youngster who played the Donizetti and two Vivaldi-players whose choice of concerti were better than most and whose musicality was impossible to ignore.

There were pianists, including several young girls performing Mozart’s concerti in this, the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary year of his birth. Most of them, instead of equating Mozart’s music with elegance and grace, saw the many notes he wrote as a reason to panic, to rush and stumble through them as fast as their fingers could move. Three young pianists, however, made us sit back in our very uncomfortable chairs, relax and become absorbed in the music they played. The first was a young boy of eleven, who played a movement from a Haydn Concerto with sheer delight; the second was his sister, aged fourteen, who gave a beautiful rendition of a movement from one of Mozart’s concerti – with a few fumbles which will be corrected by August; and the third was a nineteen-year-old, in his first year of studying for a medical degree – he played the First movement of one of Saint-Saën’s concerti with brilliance and humour. All three were chosen.

There was a small contingent of fluffy-sounding, flat-playing flautists, all young ladies. The urge to go on-stage and tell them how to stand, how to tune, how to hold their instruments was strong, but I resisted. One shone out among them. She too was chosen, with her offering of Mozart.

The same youngster who played the Donizetti on the recorder offered us a Mussorgsky work on saxophone. Again, his musicality shone through. Unfortunately, he hadn’t warmed the instrument sufficiently, and he played badly out of tune.

A lovely young lady of sixteen came in, wrapped against the cold in a soft, dark-pink scarf. She whispered that she was going to sing for us, but couldn’t do too much this afternoon, as she had ‘flu. She walked to the stage where she stood before us, poised, confident and lovely; the accompaniment began; out poured a voice of such beauty we were thrilled. In spite of hip-hugging jeans and a rather short T-shirt, she was elegant, graceful and self-assured. “I could have danced all night,” she sang – and we believed her! She also sang a Mozart aria, which charmed us all. From the moment her first notes poured from her throat, she was a definite choice for the concert. If that was how well she sang with ‘flu, we thought, just imagine the magnificence of her voice when she’s well…

Lastly, there were two violinists. The younger was very relaxed. Hers was another offering of Vivaldi, whose works are not easy to play on any instrument, least of all on the violin. Her confidence, her ease of bowing and excellent intonation made a good enough impression for us choose her.

Our last choice for the August concert was the second, slightly older, violinist. Tall, slender, shapely and blonde, this eighteen-year-old moved the music stand away and stood, head bowed, listening to the opening chords of Bruch’s concerto. Then, she put bow to strings and we were all transported by this most lovely of works for the violin. At the end of her performance, we all shook our heads, dazed by the passion and beauty she had produced.

It was a humbling experience to listen to all twenty-three of these young musicians. Each of them has parents who are prepared to sacrifice time, effort and money – and peace and quiet at home while tedious practicing is done – for the sake of giving their children an education in this most precious commodity, music. Each of them has the desire to perform, the talent and the self-discipline needed to reach high standards. Even the weakest performer that afternoon worked many hours for this audition, had been learning the instrument and working towards this peak in their abilities for several years.

While so many young musicians live for and through music, music itself will live on.

Until next week – “here comes Treble!”

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