On 2/11/2017 5:53 PM, John Hudson wrote:
Peter ......... what attracted you to Austria and the Czech Republic in the
first instance?
If classical music is on your agenda rumor has it that Vienna has the most prestigious symphonic band, by far, on
planet Earth.
And probably occasionally the best. If such a thing can be known. I'm gonna say that it can't. "Most prestigious" seems
about equally hard to pin down.
As far as I'm concerned, the best was the NYPO on the road (1962? ish), Bernstein at the top of his game conducting
Beethoven (3rd? 5th?) with an awestruck young usher, me, sitting on the steps in the front part of the balcony of the
Berkeley Community Theater. (A 3,500 seat theater with excellent acoustics.)
When Bruno Walter, lifetime advocate of Viennese music and associate of Mahler in Vienna starting in 1901, retired from
a full time conducting life, Columbia Records offered him a job conducting for their recordings.
They offered to hire any orchestra he wanted that would do this work. He didn't even consider any major existing
symphony orchestras, saying all the best players were in LA. The Columbia Symphony Orchestra credit on those recordings
was a "pick up band" of Hollywood studio musicians. Walter happily made some of his best recordings in a big empty space
filled with musicians organized not in the least like a traditional orchestra.
I had the brief pleasure (smoking kills) of knowing a Hollywood studio trombone player, and meeting some of his
associates. One New Years eve, I was sitting next to another inebriated guest in a small room in a big, fancy house in
the (Encino?) hills. Then he pulled out his trumpet. I thought something like "Oh lordy, a drunk playing trumpet in this
small room is going to be awful." It was like sitting with the angels in Heaven.
I later asked Pete who IS that guy. He answered that I had heard him thousands of times, on recordings of everything
from pop to movie scores to classical. He was the most sought after trumpeter in LA. Pete thought he was the best
trumpet player in the world. And had the best job, working regular hours where he lived for way more money than most
musicians. Pete did that, too and also wrote with a partner for TV shows.
The Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra is also made up of these studio musicians. Pete told the story of an endless
rehearsal with some hot young conductor with marginal English, who went on and on, trying to explain what he wanted. One
of the players piped up and asked who the guy wanted them to sound like, NY, Berlin, Vienna, Chicago, London, etc.,
etc.; they could do that, if he would only say.
I've been remembering that while watching "Mozart in the Jungle".
Memories Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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