The Musikfreunde and me: Ravel, Grieg and co keep us together

It’s the end of another series of concerts with the Musikfreunde Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra; one I was very close to skipping entirely. At the end of the previous concert, I’d had enough of orchestra for a while, and overall I was feeling uncomfortably stretched. Orchestra had become another stress raiser rather than reliever and I needed to give myself some breathing space for other things in life (like composing, biking and “just” family, for example). In the end (of the beginning of term), a lack of alternative trombonists meant that I stuck with MFH for this programme, too.

Through house searches, potential job offers, overloaded drudgery at work and general family life, I managed to attend most rehearsals - and the three concerts this semester made it all worthwhile.

We played in the Neubausaal in Schwäbisch Hall, then at a school concert in the Gymnasium in Neckargemünd and finally in our standard main venue, the Stadthalle in Heidelberg. There was something about the programme, especially the Ravel and the Grieg that reminded me of the joy to be found in music.

The Grieg in particular is too easy to dismiss as one of the standards these days (and, judging by the audience in the Stadthalle on Saturday evening, it can still pull the crowds). However, it’s still simply wonderful music to be part of and, at the hands of a decent pianist, as we had in Randolf Stöck, it has everything: lyricism and a positive dynamism that are hard to match. Ravel’s La Valse is witty and very difficult to pull off for an amateur orchestra - I think we did a decent job of it.

It was also rewarding for me personally to get to a relatively decent playing quality again. I didn’t feel too outgunned by the hired hand, a trombone student from the Mannheim Musikhochschule, who helped out on bass. As always, the psychology of performing is tricky to master: everybody’s pumped up and tends to play on the edge in terms of volume, losing control in the process. I certainly fall into that trap, but I am at least becoming more aware of it. As always, though, “negative” corrections are difficult: if only one person plays more quietly, he’ll still be swamped by the mass, whereas if one plays more loudly, he’ll stand out and can pull the orchestra along with him. It’s something our principal conductor, René Schuh tries to remind us of each time - we still forget.

So, we’ll see if I end up taking a break for the winter semester instead (it’s more conducive to evenings in, anyway). There’s plenty of time to decide upon that, however, with rehearsals starting again in October. In the meantime, hopefully I’ll get some duet or trio playing in, to keep the trombone chops in half-way respectable working order…