uplifting jobs. Wherever the players are on the ability range they can
growth, both as individuals and as a group, is quite intoxicating. I’m
orchestras for most of my life. The potential within Kensington
There’s one other thing about this. Every concert is an event. Every
concert is played with total passion and commitment. Not always are
all technical hurdles jumped clean but the determination to
communicate the players’ love of music-making is infectious to an
audience.
What does it feel like as an amateur on the inside of Mahler’s Fourth?
Well, there are moments of pure elation, a sense of time standing still – the slow movement last night was one. There’s the joy at being part of such a huge sound, of being swept up in a luscious tune (but trying not to overmilk it). Then there are moments of frustration with one’s fingers and one’s brain, for not being able to do the things that you know Russell has been reminding you about during the rehearsals and for fluffing the runs that you’ve practised so hard when you’ve managed to grab some time after work. There are also moments – dare I say it – when one’s mind goes totally AWOL and starts dissecting what happened at work.
There’s the sense of discovery – KSO is particularly special for performing challenging modern works, so that for every old friend such as the Mahler, we get to meet something new, such as Lutoslawski’s Chantefleurs et Chantfables – a slightly mad but beautiful song cycle featuring turtles and alligators, brought off impeccably by Katherine Watson last night. And no, not all of these pieces come off. Sometimes rehearsals become pure note-learning and rhythm-bashing sessions, and the audience doesn’t appreciate ‘the bit before the good piece’. Occasionally, you even end up liking the new piece more than anything else on the programme. But we’re out there, challenging ourselves, and challenging our audiences.
I think that for all of us, being in the orchestra provides a magical alternative reality to our lives as teachers, administrators, accountants, managers, parents, executives, students, writers. It would be trite to say that all the cares of our working day disappear when we start our rehearsals at 6.30 on a Thursday. They don’t. But they go out of focus a bit as we struggle with our notes, our intonation, and Russell’s perennial complaint that we don’t play in time.
I’m a somewhat erstwhile member these days – a key quality-control rule means that you can only miss one rehearsal per run and work trips mean I often miss out – but whenever I come back I see the familiar faces, catch up with the life changes, queue up for coffee and jaffa cakes, and stare up at Russell on the podium, it feels a little bit like coming home. Most of us look a little older than when I joined 15 years ago, but that’s it – we’ve grown up together. And there’s always young, fresh talent making its way through, too, to keep everyone on their toes and to keep the life cycle going.
Russell’s right when he says that amateurs are underappreciated. There are fantastic players in KSO – the strings, of course, but the wind and brass are the best I’ve come across on the amateur orchestral circuit, and many of the group could have made it professionally if they’d chosen that difficult path. Artists of the calibre of Nikolai Demidenko and Jack Liebeck, who are happy to come and play with us, must know something. But I sometimes get a sense of sniffiness in professionals towards amateurs. No, we can’t necessarily play the Tchaikovsky and Brahms violin concertos. We don’t play consistently in tune. We don’t always listen to ourselves in the objective way that professionals are taught to do. Sometimes Russell has to repeat the same point a few times before we get it. But what we do, we do with love, commitment and a certain amount of wisdom. We’re also the ones who buy the CDs, go to the concerts, and buy the nice strings and cases. The music industry has a lot to thank us for. And as a member of KSO, I feel I have a lot to be grateful for – I can have my jaffa cakes and eat them.
From Toby Deller, viola playera:
Full disclosure: I do play (viola) professionally, just a regular freelancer. I’m not paid to play in KSO, though, in fact I pay my subs just like everyone else It’s good for my continuing professional development, to use the jargon. Mostly, though, I like – really like – playing music, and my tastes are wide, and KSO goes some way to catering for that.
Another confession: Mahler 4 is one of several pieces that make me cry a bit (sometimes just thinking about them leads the tear ducts to water). I have to make a bit of an effort not to get too involved with it as I’m playing or it can be awkward reading the music. Luckily for them, the audience don’t have that problem. They are free to be moved, and hopefully some were last night. Even if not by the orchestra, then by Katherine Watson’s singing, intoxicating right from the start of the Lutoslawski.
It’s not, as one might expect, the big climaxes that set me off in Mahler 4 but the final movement. It’s so cruel – the music and text paint this picture of an untroubled paradise. At the end, you’re all relaxed and ‘Ah, that’s lovely’, until it dawns on you that it’s all make-believe, you’ve been had. You must return to an imperfect world. Not a million miles from having to go back to the office the day after playing Lutoslawski and Mahler