Open Writing

Crash! Clatter, rattle…

Oboe, in bits – silver, and ebony,

Glittering,

Dead on the stage.

This was an illusion of disaster. The oboe, which was dropped at the end of a long and demanding rehearsal, needed only a few gentle adjustments. The silver bits scattered over the stage were spare parts and screwdrivers, not crucial pieces broken off as I had first imagined.

The small orchestra, of which I’m a member, was working towards a grand concert titled Soirée de Francophony, the last being a combination of the words “Francophile” and “symphony”, created to describe a programme of French music.

The programme opened with the feminine and fiendishly difficult Concertino for flute and orchestra by the French lady composer, Cécile Chaminade. To my delight, I was asked to perform the solo part of this work, which I’ve played many times with piano accompaniment. It was the chance of a life-time to perform it with orchestral backing. I practiced hard for weeks, polishing the virtuoso runs and improving my breath-control.

Our guest conductor, Rexleigh Bunyard, was to present the World Première of her own composition, “Requiem for the Living - In Paradisum”. The orchestra found this particularly challenging, with many changes of rhythm and time, while trying to integrate the boy-soprano and soprano soloists and chorus. I was required to supply strange sounds, technically described as ‘flutter-tongued trills’. At another point the flutes were required to ‘improvise ecstatically a la Chaminade’. This was a challenge, which the second flute player and I addressed with enthusiasm. Recordings of whale songs were introduced during a later rehearsal. These were such strange and unexpected sounds that the musicians had to employ enormous concentration each time we played the piece.

“Parade” by Eric Satie, required many extra instruments not often heard in an orchestra: a typist and her old manual typewriter, tap-shoes, police sirens, fog-horns, gun-shots and an organ. More traditionally, there was a phalanx of flutes, a piccolo, a tuba, glockenspiel and xylophone. The list of instruments was as strange as the music was to our conservative ears. One of the classically unusual instruments was a very high-pitched clarinet, the E-flat instrument, which shrieks rather than making musical sounds. It was frequently accompanied by one of the extremely low-pitched instruments, either tuba or double bass. This work, too, took vast amounts of mental focus.

After an interval the programme continued with “Marche Joyeuse” by Emmanuel Chabrier, a boisterous and noisy but fairly straight-forward piece, the only difficulty for me being the extreme high pitch at which the flute has to be played. Such high notes are difficult to read and tie the flute player’s fingers in knots.

The final work was the glorious Piano Concerto Number Five by Camille Saint-Saëns. The soloist was a lovely, petite young lady who drew majestic volume from the piano, creating glorious ripples and runs and glass-harmonica sounds, eliciting a vast range of emotions from everyone listening.

The ‘preview concert’ at our usual venue was poorly attended. To our surprise, however, it was thoroughly enjoyed by those members of our usually conservative, older audience who attended. A young mother and her three-month-old baby were also there. She said that Rexleigh’s In Paradisum, whale songs, flutter-tongued trills and all, was so beautiful it reduced her to tears.

The official performance of Soirée de Francophony was held in the Wits University Great Hall. The last time I performed here was as a teenager, I had to stand on a chair in the deep orchestra pit in order to project my sound. It was nostalgic to return as a soloist after so many years. The once-red chairs were replaced by comfortable, blue ones, the stage had been extended by a lovely curved proscenium, and the backstage area was enormous.

Before the concert, I ambled to the foyer where I bumped into my first flute teacher, Chippy Yutar, now approaching ninety. “I’ve come especially to hear you this afternoon,” she told me. What a thrill!

Our orchestra spread out backstage; musicians paced, muttering into cell-phones, conducting conversations with violin bows. Groups crouched on unused platforms among gleaming instruments, the polished wood of violins, the brass of French horns and paper-clip-shaped trombones catching the dim light that filtered through dark overhead curtains. Snatches of dialogue came to me: “Ronnie’s a grandfather now.” “Oh – great – when did that happen?” “Last week sometime.” “Please send him my congratulations?”

Then it was time to begin. The players in their crow-black dresses and penguin-suits filed on-stage, instruments tucked under their arms. They tuned to the lonely wail of the oboe. Rexleigh, our conductor, marched on-stage, dressed in a purple trouser-suit. She bowed to the audience, then turned and beckoned to me. The pleasurable flutter of anticipation in my stomach increased a notch as I worked my way between the ranks of first and second violins and suddenly realized that my music-reading spectacles were sitting uselessly in my music bag, backstage. The vary-focal glasses I was wearing were not ideal for music reading. There was, however, no going back for the specs, so I continued to the front of the stage, bowed rather absent-mindedly to the audience, nodded to Rexleigh, and thought, “Let the show begin.”

We swept through the Chaminade with delight and aplomb. The orchestra were in tune and sounded better than I’d ever heard them. Thanks to my weeks of personal preparation and rehearsals, I didn’t miss a beat or a note in spite of the notes appearing rather fuzzy on the page. From the darkened auditorium I felt waves of love and support.

After bowing to the enthusiastic applause, shaking hands with Rexleigh and our leader, I walked half-way off stage, to be met by a gorgeous child carrying a bouquet. We returned together to the front of the stage, where I accepted the tribute and we all took another bow.

Then I rushed back-stage to change spectacles, take off my turquoise Chinese-silk jacket and return to the flute-section to become a flutter-trilling orchestra member.

Our playing contained a swing and a spark that afternoon that we’d not previously achieved. It was a delight performing in an auditorium designed for grand occasions. The compliments I received personally were food for my soul, and no doubt added to the size of my head. Chippy Yutar told me, tears in her eyes, that she was proud of me… After all these years, those words brought tears to my eyes too.

Soirée de Francophony became another marvelous memory to add to my horde, to be taken out and dusted off and gloated over from time to time.

Until next week… ‘here comes Treble!’