The Show Goes On In Dijon
What do you get when you combine a transport strike, a touring orchestra and a concert hall full of fans? You beg, borrow or steal (in a figurative sense, of course) replacement instruments and go on in your jeans. This is exactly what the LSO did in Dijon Monday night. Kathryn McDowell, the orchestra’s Managing Director told The Times, “Normally when we are travelling a third of the instruments are carried by hand. This time we had played on Friday night. People were going home and then getting up to go straight to the airport, and we thought it would be easier to put nearly all the instruments in the lorry.” Whoops.
They needed 28 violins, 11 violas, a full complement of cellos and double bases, two flutes - ideally solid silver – bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, tubas, various percussion instruments, timpani and some cow bells to play the Mahler 7 that was scheduled on the program. Parts were hastily copies and assembled and the instruments arrived from area musicians in spurts with the final ones coming just minutes before the opening bars.
Miraculously four German bassoons were found but the tubists had to contend with instruments pitched a fourth lower than they were accustomed to. Principal flautist Gareth Davies played “a very exposed solo” on a tin flute without a bottom B key. “The shop owner didn’t want to lend me his solid silver flute as it would tarnish,” he said. “The tin one was the same model I had learnt on when I was ten. I felt I had come full circle.
Midway through, the violas discovered a page missing and had to improvise [there's the makings of a really good joke here, if anyone wants to jump in] but otherwise the performance went off without a hitch and received a thunderous standing ovation.
(via Attic Fantasist)
