Bury the violas!
Here’s a fun little story that one of my more senior colleagues recently passed along to me:
Many years ago, the conductor Hans Werner Henze was rehearsing Stauss’ tone poem “Till Eugenspiegel” with the Chicago Symphony. There is a particularly snarly passage for the bassoons and violas in this piece–it’s the sort of thing that regularly appears on auditions for those instruments, yet it is almost impossible to play in context.
Singled Out
When the orchestra got to this passage during one of the rehearsals, Henze stopped the orchestra.
“Violas and bassoons, may I hear you from letter E?”
The members of these sections collectively gulped, took a deep breath, and plowed through the aforementioned passage.”
After they finished, Henze smiled. Addressing the rest of the orchestra, he said,
“My dear colleagues… this is what we must cover up!”
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Jul 10th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Hi,
I read your blog every now and then. I’m a violist in Texas (I also teach middle school orchestra). I may sound like a typical violist, but I love your posts about the violas! I started out as a violin player and I did think that the viola was a bit weird. Later in high school, my private instructor made a passing remark about how he’d thought I’d make a great violist. I swear I nearly got sick! I did end up switching after some thought.
Thanks for the viola stories.