I’m back. What, you didn’t miss me? For the past five days I was in the lovely city of Torino, Italy, home of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. But really I was in New York City, north of the Upper West Side, deep in the heart of Harlem.
I stopped proposing All-American music programs when I guest conduct in the US several years ago. The following story will demonstrate why:
I was conducting the ************ Orchestra, an excellent ensemble but one I had never been to before. Gershwin’s American In Paris was on the program, along with various American and Jazz inspired pieces. AiP was the first piece on the rehearsal so I gave a downbeat and sat back to gather information. When I come to a new orchestra I like to run through a piece to get an idea of the band, the hall, the situation. What ensued didn’t surprise me. The general dynamic level was between fortissimo and fortissississississimo. Directions in the score – tempo indications, articulations, things like that – were treated with the same level of respect as traffic lights in Mexico City. The Principal Trumpet was trying to swing the famous solo so hard that it sounded like he was coming off a three day binge at the Mustang Ranch. In short, it was loud, ugly, crass, and generally how AiP is played in this country 99% of the time. Dismayed? Yes. Surprised? Not at all.
I have been a Gershwin junkie for many years, ever since I heard MTT’s landmark CBS recording of Rhapsody in Blue with the Columbia Jazz Band and Gershwin’s own piano roll. The exuberance of that performance convinced me that we have been misinterpreting Gershwin’s music for most of the last century. He was a product of the Tin Pan Alley era – Cakewalk, Ragtime, and Vaudeville. He died on the cusp of the Swing Era but he never fully embraced it. His music was adapted by Swing artists in recordings and in film and that’s the way we have come to recognize it. None-the-less, that’s not how Gershwin performed his own music. This theory of mine had recently been confirmed by going back to his great piano roll recordings. These landmark recordings are full of the joy of 1920s style music making, and his double roll recording of AiP is about as straightforward as can be imagined.
So once our rehearsal run-through of AiP had been committed to the dustbin of history I did what I thought necessary and said: “OK, back to the beginning.” The shock from the orchestra was palpable. One of the musicians, a cellist I think, was so surprised that he said:
“We’re going to rehearse?” Translation: “Are you out of your mind? We’ve been playing this piece the same sh*tty way for the past 30 years! And after all, it’s just Gershwin!”
My response was:
“Yep.” Translation: “Yes, I am out of my mind. What’s your point? And the fact that you’ve been playing AiP the same sh*tty way for the past 30 years is not something I would necessarily be proud of. And, since you mentioned it, I think that George Gershwin had more talent in his little finger than all of us on stage combined, myself included. So if you don’t mind I would like to go back and actually make some music out of this wonderful piece that you have butchered so mindlessly.”
To their credit by the end of the rehearsal AiP was starting to sound like something decent, and one of the musicians came up to me at break (a horn player, I think) and said “It’s a pleasure to actually rehearse this piece and play it well.” This is a satisfying moment for any conductor. Yet the damage had been done. I was tired of taking American music seriously, especially the music of George Gershwin, when it seems like it wasn’t considered worthy in my own country. The Prophet Mohammed was right.
But abroad – that’s a different story. Half the time when I go to European orchestras they specifically ask for American music. They love it, they don’t play enough of it, and they want the experience. So when the Orchestra RAI of Torino asked me back for a concert of Gershwin’s Concerto in F/”I Got Rhythm” Variations (with my colleague/friend Jean-Yves Thibaudet on piano), Shostakovich’s 2nd Variety Suite, and Ellington’s Harlem I was happy to oblige.
One thing that happens immediately is that the European orchestras schedule enough rehearsal time for this kind of program. The “it’s American music so we’re only giving you two rehearsals, if you’re lucky” approach is confined to the good old USA. The second thing that you notice is that the European orchestras are generally scared out of their minds to play this stuff. They know that there are all sorts of idiomatic traditions that should be brought to the table but they don’t have those particular traditions, so they don’t really know what to do. (Remind me to write a post about the famous All-Gershwin concert I did with the StaatsKapelle Orchestra in Berlin – a truly incredible week of cross-cultural insanity.) This, funny enough, is a distinct advantage. You don’t have to spend most of your rehearsal time getting the orchestra to unlearn bad habits. Example – I would always get amazing push-back from trumpet players in the USA because they insisted on swinging the AiP solo. In Europe I simply explain the provenance, give an example, and they go “Hey, that makes sense!” Voilá, no swing. The way Gershwin played it.
This trip to Italy was particularly inspiring. The first run through of the music was a bit of a mess but I just kept encouraging them. As we went through Harlem they started experimenting. The clarinetist would try something – I’d smile. The trumpets would experiment – I’d encourage. We’d come to a passage where the strings were confused about how to play – I’d make a short suggestion. Pretty soon it was utter musical mayhem and lunacy….. and it started to sound amazing.
The result will be broadcast soon on RAI television. For those of you who happen to catch the performance what you will see and hear is an orchestra absolutely having the time of their lives. Smiles all around, outrageous solo playing, players encouraging each other to push boundaries as far as possible, and the most satisfying and explosive percussion cadenza at the end of this fantastic piece, this wonderful tone poem by Edward Kennedy Ellington. You will also see a conductor who spent the entire time with a huge smile on his face and frequently laughing out loud.
The truth is that they revere this music. They love Gershwin, they are mad about Ellington, and this week was a great respite for them between Mahler last week and Mahler next week. They were so happy and proud to bring this music to life. And the audience? Well, that’s the only time in my life that my limo has been mobbed on the way out of the venue. I don’t think it was because of my good looks.