Dear Alma, Why do orchestra players look so glum?
NewsFrom our agony aunt’s mailbag:
Dear Alma,
Why do orchestra players look so miserable? From what I understand, in the big US orchestras they earn $100-200,000 a year with secure jobs and good health care and pensions. In Germany and France it’s much the same.
Their working week is 20-25 hours which gives them plenty of time to earn more, giving lessons or running a business. Or, if they prefer, providing child care and having an afternoon lover. It doesn’t look that bad a life to me.
But when they come trooping on stage half of them look like they’ve swallowed bad caviar, lost half their investments in a market crash or found their lover’s got the clap. What does it take to make them smile?
Puzzled audience member
Dear Puzzled Audience Member,
I hear you. I do. But I want to take a second to look at you, the audience member. The performing arts are unique in that the performers are symbiotically connected to the audience. It’s not a one-way street like an art show, it’s more like the red-billed oxpecker and the zebra. A mutualistic relationship. We need each other. We need you.
Why do I go to the symphony? I love the spectacle, the waves of choreographed human endeavor, like the grasses on the great plains. The repertoire, seeing an amazing soloist, watching the conductor, the lobby scene – seeing and being seen, and having a chance to sit somewhere for a couple of hours with no option of having to check my phone and be immersed in dumb minutiae.
While I hear your complaint, an orchestra is always made up of a variety of ages, levels, and energy levels. It’s grueling work; the 20-25 hours we see in paper is like seeing an iceberg – it’s only 10% of the work, with the 90% blood, sweat and tears just under the stage. To keep in tip-top shape, you need 2 hours a day on your instrument, added to that the work on the specific repertoire for the concerts. The wear and tear on the body necessitates keeping in shape physically as well as emotionally, as orchestral musicians work in tight quarters with a wide variety of personalities that need constant juggling.
I went to an orchestra concert a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to hear the soloist and the piece they were playing. But the whole thing was charming! There was a street performer playing for us while we waited in line, the audience was colorful, dressed to the nines with velvet dinner jackets, fascinators, and flavorful finery. I saw friends, both in the orchestra and in the audience. The world premier was delightfully introduced as a banter between conductor and composer. The soloist was dashing and the conductor had some cool moves. Sure, there were pockets of players who were just doing their job, but do their jobs they did. Some with derring-do, and some with stoic precision.
What can we do, as the red-billed oxpecker, to feed our partners, the orchestra? We can show them our enthusiasm – I love how the audience claps as the Berlin Philharmonic musicians enter the stage.
Puzzled Audience Member, it sounds a bit as if you have had a weekly date at the same restaurant, and maybe you have fallen out of love with your weekly dish. Why don’t you mix it up a bit – go see a baroque orchestra, chamber music, or a school production. It’s the variety which will be alluring. And here’s a shout-out to all of the amateur orchestras, regional symphonies, and groups making it work in tough situations. We hear you. And we thank you.
Please send me your questions and comments, I love hearing from you. DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
Performing music well is stressful. Musicians aren’t going to always look happy
Thank you, Alma, for this energetic and nice way of answering the cranky letter.
You want them to grin while playing the French horn or the piccolo? Good luck with that.
Dear Alma,
This is Torn https://slippedisc.com/2023/09/dear-alma-my-stand-partner-was-fired-for-playing-away-i-could-be-next/
and I wanted to check in. I was the one tempted to secretly take a job away from my orchestra. I took your advice, and I really have been sleeping better. I have gained a new respect and thankfulness for the security of my orchestra job, and realize that if I want to make a change, I need to do it in a respectful way. Thank you, Alma!
If someone wearing a fascinator sat in front of me I’d feel obliged to bat it off with my programme.
Maybe you aren’t sitting in the balcony? They are pretty little actually.
In a profession where mere perfection is permanently taken for granted it’s pretty damn stressful particularly for section leaders and woodwind and brass who have their independent parts. Conductors only notice you when you are not producing the goods!
A doctor’s wife in a flat above a professional orchestral violinist asks his wife . “Does he really have to practice so much?”
A few days later the violinist meets the doctors wife ……
“Moaning about me playing so much ? Your husband just buries his mistakes, 2000 hear mine ”
Yes ,it’s Liverpool Phil 1969
Assistant Leader
True, very true
Dear puzzled audience member,
That is because they are working. Which means they are focused to listen, to themselves and their peer musicians, and mastering an instrument flawlessly which required more than ten thousand hours if dedicated practice and instructions to master. Looking stoic works best for doing that and not distracting oneself with putting on a show on top of it all.
You should try that ‚listening to the music focused‘ thing as well. It‘s really fun and transcendental.
Meanwhile we might think about adding acting lessons into classical musician‘s curriculae as well. (maybe not)
May I add that, in North America and elsewhere, rehearsal time is very limited? Therefore, performing well in an orchestra is extremely stressful, not to mention ignoring certain bad conductors in order to keep it tight. Smiling and moving around are the last things the players care about.
It is very stressful to play well I’m a concert.
I was recently criticised ( in a fairly nice way!) by a conductor who commented on my stern face while playing. ( BTW I am in uk where working conditions are considerably harder than US) . I told them that that is my normal ‘concentration face’ , with maybe a touch of stress in for good measure. If a conductor makes an error, it usually goes unnoticed by the audience as a good orchestra will just carry on regardless. If a player makes a mistake it is generally more apparent to people and even conductors have been known to shoot angry looks at players because of it. This is our life… only the toughest survive!
You scratch my bratsche and I’ll scratch yours!!
I have always imaged orchestral musicians having an extremely stressful occupation. Particularly in the top line orchestras where every imperfection is heard by the other musicians and the conductor. There’s a famous concert with the Concertgebouw with Kleiber where he sheets a deadly look towards the brass during the Beethoven #7. It’s absolutely priceless to watch and it happens 3 times, and I felt sorry for the musician afterwards!!
Concentrated people look grumpy. That’s how it is.
Not necessarily glum, but concentrating (which is a serious business)! But, actually, one does often see smiles and exchanges of looks at some particular passage or musical moment. And, as Alma says, it’s two-way, and audiences often look pretty grim (for the same reasons?), though perhaps afterwards saying how much they enjoyed it!
I’ve often seen members of the Berlin Philharmonic smile at one another while playing. The musicians are not always stern, but you know they are at the top of their game.
My late father-in-law (no music lover he) once asked “why do these musicians always look so serious, like they’re not enjoying themselves?” I was so taken aback that I didn’t properly answer the question, just that they were playing ‘serious’ music.
Dear Puzzled
You are confusing glum with intensity and concentration.
Ever trird learning to and playing an instrument? No then you should try it . It will do wonders for you and your soul.
If you do want razzamatazz then go to TaylSwift or Kylie because thats great but in a different way. Or a great orchestra playing entertaining pieces. Go watch Neeme Jarvi with the Berlin Philharmonic at the Waldbuhne. It’s online and is great fun.
they earn $100-200,000 a year with secure jobs and good health care and pensions. In Germany and France it’s much the same.
Er, are you sure about that? Not every orchestra over here earns like the Berlin or Vienna Phil…
I congratulated a fellow on his orchestral salary once and he mentioned some of the extraordinary expenses associated with the job. Your instrument is not free, for example.
When an educator, my principal once criticized me stating that the students, middle schoolers, looked too serious when on stage during their concert performance. My reply was to ask if the math teacher was similarly expected to have smiling students as they concentrated on their final exams. Or, were both sets of students encouraged to focus and remember all they had been taught.
You don’t grow out of the need for focus and concentration. It’s called professionalism.
A fellow with whom I studied Musicology at university (matured-aged, both of us) was a Music teacher at an exclusive private school. He had the boys singing Byrd and Tallis in the school choir and after a concert the (Rugby-loving) Principal came up to him and said, “No need to take it all quite so seriously, old chap”!
The orchestra player who makes $200K a year looks glum because she’s thinking why is she, who is the top 1% of her profession, making so little compared to a doctor or lawyer in a comparable professional tier.
Or the conductor, or the soloist, or the Intendant, etc. etc.
Because no one is going to die or be incarcerated at the hands of an oboe player?
She’s living on love!
As somebody once told me, “I’d live on love but I can’t stand the hunger pains”!
That‘s socialist thinking. Only problem is, in all such countries that tried to pay the same to top tier professionals across the board, EVERYBODY made MUCH LESS. You didn‘t think this through.
And if you wanted the money of a top lawyer or doctor, you simply should have become one. Stop the whining. Try a solo career. That‘s your opportunity to make much more. Good luck!
Or, compared with the often incompetent conductor standing right in front of her.
It is not being glum. Live performance requires incredible concentration just to be together with 80+ your colleagues. And the orchestra principals have very difficult solos to perform as well. It is not unusual to perform 2-3 different programs in a week, with different conductors who are also human. If they don’t make mistakes many make ever so slight changes during the performances, especially if a soloist/soloists involved in a concerto, oratorio etc. You do see orchestral musicians smiling at the end of a piece. It is a smile of relief.
I can’t say I’ve ever noticed my local band (The Cleveland Orchestra) looking particularly glum as they take the stage, though at the end of a concert they certainly seem to be. But that’s because they are exhausted. What audiences don’t seem to recognize is that the concerts they attend are as much athletic events as they are musical performances. Perhaps even more so. Consider the fine motor skills, the strength and stamina, among other aspects, to play the symphonic repertoire at such a high level. No wonder they look exhausted and, yes, glum.
Most serious music-lovers DO think about that, all the time. One only needs to look at any orchestral score – particularly from the 19th century – and follow this whilst listening, to realize the challenges for musicians, section leaders and the fact that they are reading parts and not the whole, must read the notes and play, follow the conductor and listen to each other. It’s akin to multi-skilling of the music complex type, short of brain surgery. Sure, many pieces would almost be known by rote but many are not.
I remember being at a concert with the BPO/Rattle some years ago and they were playing a difficult new work. As I sat very close to the orchestra I could see them, from the outset, establishing a beat where there didn’t seem to be one and negotiating what sounded to me like a dog’s breakfast in the most professional manner. Yes, it was very impressive.
Growing up during my formative years this wasn’t more apparent during the Mehta years at the NY Phil watching all the fiddle players…….
At the annual American orchestra league conference about 10 years ago I attended a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert. When the musicians stood and faced the enthusiastic sold-out audience after the opening work, not a single smiling face could be seen. The conductor was smiling, but my eyes were on one violinist near the podium at the front who looked inconsolably miserable. What this collectively communicated to me was “We hate being here”. Later in the concert, the soloist performed an encore without orchestra. The musicians’ faces (without exception) communicated “I’m not interested”. Not a good look. Audiences don’t twist themselves in knots like Aunt Alma to justify or ignore the obvious.
I also note that when musicians are on strike and picketing and need to win public support they are at ease smiling at patrons.
According to Classic FM, Andre Rieu “is one of the biggest solo male touring artists in the world, outselling on occasion AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen and even Coldplay with his shows.” I wonder how much of that success comes from ensuring his audiences know he and his orchestra aren’t bored and are happy to be there making music for them. How revolutionary!
I don’t suggest musicians should grin and mug while playing. I do think they should acknowledge their audiences with grace and humility when they stand for applause.
I betcha lots of thumbs down are coming.
Great great answer.
That BPO thing doesn’t happen in Berlin (at least before 1999, my last visit of dozens), where they don’t/didn’t make that kind of entrance. Only on tour some places, e.g. New York.
Actually I saw it just a couple of months ago and many times in recent years in Berlin…
I’ll sum it up in two words ‘intense concentration’ screwing up is not an option.
Berlin Philharmonic musicians always appear in good spirits and often smile at their colleagues!
A orchestra is not a happy-face Lawrence Welk show band that’s playing chewing-gum-for-the-ear kind of music with pasted on smiles showing both rows of teeth like the singers. If one wants smiling faces, maybe attend a light-weight pops concert.
$100-200,000 a year? Not in France for sure!!!
All those of you complaining that they’re concentrating, go to the opera or a choral concert, or watch the Last Night of the Proms. There you will see performers at the same level, visibly enjoying what they are doing, and communicating obviously with each other, the conductor and audience.
If an orchestra is looking grim or bored it’s because the players are grim or bored.
Symphony concerts really are weird.
It is an interesting point for musicians to think about. I believe the article and the comments take musicians too seriously.
I think the audience member is right to pose this question.
Culturally, there is no doubt a difference in orchestra deportment. But within norms there is a reason to evaluate how to communicate more effectively.
The peculiar thing is that you would not go to other arts programs like an opera or vocal concert or theater event and not see some sort of physical deportment that engages the audience.
I wonder if this is truly just cultural or if the players aren’t taught to engage their audiences. They are taught to focus on the art versus the story.
The reason why I say this is because when you have the orchestra play a fun and exciting piece you will see body movement and even smiles. You might even see a musician break the fourth will and wink at an audience member. The synchronization of the players in the strings is already there. Likewise, you can see this great choreography in the brass as they breathe and perform.
I know these items are important because when you see groups like the Berlin Philharmonic market themselves, they capture these engaged moments in the marketing. These are the videos that become viral!
While I appreciate the “seriousness” of the comments and article about the work involved with being a professional musician, I disagree that performers have to look distanced. I believe performers must work to intentionally engage the audience in practical ways. The music does not speak for itself in live performance, music is a thing. It takes a human to make it happen. Human to human connection is what sets apart live performance and makes it ring.
Sure, it is work but musicians are setting the tone and atmosphere for the audience. Connection to the audience is the musicians number one role on stage. That means, they have to take time and opportunities to figure out how to do it well based on their music and intended effects. Communication and story telling is a practiced skill.
All relationships take deliberate effort. I am hopeful in this case, musicians look in the mirror and discover where this question has merit and behaviors can be practically changed to better enhance the customer experience.
Just like all customers, they vote with their money. So, the question or intent of the question can be disregarded, but folks my experience and data suggests that audiences want to be a part of something larger than themselves, they want to experience an event. A good follow up question may be how we give the customer what they want. What changes would be needed to break the fourth wall and communicate more effectively on stage.
This question is a good one to evaluate and reflect upon.
A lot has to do with the great level of concentration required to produce a note-perfect and also highly musical performance. They are concentrating!
Nobody complained about stonefaced Heifetz…
The principals make $500-750k.
Is this a sick joke? “Their work week is 20-25 hours…”. NO, IT’S NOT. Orchestra musicians are expected to show up at the first rehearsal of each week with that week’s repertoire (sometime 2 or even 3 entirely different concerts) already learned — with their individual parts performance-ready. A musician who shows up not having learned their parts for that first rehearsal would never be able to keep their job — or get another one.
The rehearsals are to put it all together and work on the phrasing, balance, and timing to make a cohesive and beautiful performance.
And then they start all over with new repertoire the next week.
Does “Puzzled Audience Member” really think orchestra musicians just sit down and sight read the music at the rehearsals and then go do other jobs or worse, lollygag the rest of the week?
How do we best combat such colossal ignorance?
I guess this explains the preposterous practice of having stand partners grin at one another in concert videos.
Because they hate their job.
Yes, very stressful and tiring.
And if you’re professional enough to power through that, you’re professional enough to force a smile for five seconds or applaud a soloist.
I’m tired of paying $150 for the experience of feeling the musicians were put out and angry that I showed up to support them.
Looking at you, SFS.
Is that headline even grammatically correct?
I’ve thought about that question too.
Sure, there’s concentration and hard work, but it’s not an operating room. The reason for the “glum face” has a more basic cause. Orchestra musicians must conform and work as a single entity. Happiness creates a sense of individuality, while glumness, or more accurately a kind of emotionlessness, or dead pan, allows for conformity. It’s an unconscious way of everyone blending together, of just doing their job. Someone joyful in an orchestra would stand out like a flamingo in a heard of zebras.
This is one of the challenges women in orchestras faced. They stood out and destroyed the sense of uniformity. They also do not have a standardized and uniform attire like the men do. When harpist Anna Lelkes was the only woman performing with the VPO, the orchestra forbade TV cameras to show anything but her hands. She also had to wear a gown with a white V shape down the front so it would look like the men’s attire.
It is worth considering that the music of no other culture requires such conformity to the collective and submission to absolute authority. But of course, we are told this doesn’t say a thing about us. Just keep that glum, conformist face and don’t ask troubling questions. Just follow orders…
Another oddity is that many, if not most successful modernist composers in Europe write orchestral works that further limit the musicians’ individuality. They become small statistics in a wash of sound dotted with the occasional shriek or bang. Individuality is further reduced. It’s high seriousness of a rather protestant sort. No room for any Rossinis today.
Dear Audience Member:
How many top athletes smile when performing?
How many heart surgeons smile when performing?
How many Police smile when performing?
Your ignorance is staggering!
Also – why not try going to a concert to LISTEN to the music – if only your eyes are up for working then maybe go to an art gallery instead.
Maybe they’ve just been served a pay cut or threatened with redundancy
I totally understand that with all the intense concentration required when playing in an orchestra it is virtually impossible to smile. But why so few smiles when standing and acknowledging an audience ovation at the end of a work? Sure musicians are tired, I get that. But isn’t the applause from the audience part of what they play for, and surely some small smile of satisfaction is what many in an audience would like to see? It seems almost a rare occurrence these days.
It’s called concentration and focus.
This is a stupid comment. They are doing something horribly difficult and concentrating.
In the US, at least, it’s because every string player spent their youth thinking they were going to be the next Heifetz with a big exciting solo career, but here they are playing Florence Price for a hack conductor to a half- full hall with 25 other frustrated fiddlers doing the same thing.
Imagine sitting next to a person you hate for 40 years…
Or sleeping next to it.
It happens too often.
The icy pianist Alexis Weissenberg was asked once why he looked so serious onstage. Answer? “This is a serious business.”
I take it that in making that comment Weissenberg was not himself being serious. I once presented him in two recitals. The evening before the first, I took him for dinner. Mid-way through he said there was something he had to tell me. He needed to change the programme! When I asked which work on the programme, he staggered me by saying the whole programme. It mattered nothing to him that he could have faxed through a desired change days before the recital programmes had been printed and given us the opportunity to inform the public before all the tickets sold out. Serious business? Not for Weissenberg!
I love these Letters..thank you ..Cornelia Mohrig und der Orden Ginkgo Biloba
Food for thought:
https://www.esm.rochester.edu/iml/prjc/poly/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Stress_Discontent_Levine.pdf
They are very serious about their work which requires a lifelong commitment, tremendous preparation and incredible concentration every moment on the stage. No, it’s not a 25 hour per week job. 25-30 hours personal practice is required to maintain a high level of skill. They are shamefully underpaid for their expertise.
Artists are not entertainers.Clasical music is deep….and to want somebody to entertain you at classical music/artistic music/ is at least insulting for music artists.