What about the orchestra?

Intimacy in a big ensemble

What about intimacy in a large ensemble?

I’m on the right with the frizzy hair. Oboist Bill Bennett is just above to the left. Rob Kapilow of PBS’s “What Makes it Great?” conducting. Photo courtesy of Miriam Hartman Beazley, first chair viola, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; shown as first chair viola here.

If sitting in the middle of the viola section, I would play next to the winds, which attuned me to the woodwind choir. They are a handful of instrumentalists (oboe, bassoon, flute, clarinet in various combinations) that together create tremendous color.

Orchestra playing is about intimacy. You are in obeisance to the composer, whom you must channel through the music. You have to be exquisitely sensitive to the music created around you, while staying in continual touch with the conductor through eye contact. It’s ‘paying attention’ on steroids; harmonizing with 80 or 90 other musicians, while serving the music itself.

In college (photo above), I was often a few chairs away from Bill (William) Bennett, an oboist of great sensitivity and clarity. Each rehearsal I was reminded anew that listening to him was a gift. His sound was warm and resonant, and he was as attuned to his place in the ensemble as anyone I’ve ever heard.

Bill and I became close after college. In a few short years, he was hired by the San Francisco Symphony and ultimately promoted to first chair. Fortunately, my job took me frequently to the Bay Area. Bill would put a ticket aside at the box office, and I would be treated to a sublime orchestra concert. Then we’d go out for dinner and talk life and family and politics and, of course, music.

Or the Symphony would come to Washington and Bill would come over after his concert. (I recall one rainy evening when he arrived—waterlogged—an hour or so after we got home from the concert, with a few friends. We talked our way around the table as they dried off.)

The oboe is fiendishly difficult. To produce a sound beyond quacking, it takes years of learning to breathe, fix your embrasure (mouth position), and adjust the reeds. Making reeds—two of them shaved and fastened together with thread—is is an art. Bill spent two hours daily making them.

Bill brought no ego to what is one of the most important seats in an orchestra, second only to the concertmaster/mistress (first chair violin). His kindness and wry sense of humor were hallmarks.

In 2013, while performing the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the Symphony, Bill collapsed and died a day or two later. We had planned to see each other in about ten days when the Symphony came to Washington. (They cancelled that tour.)

In an agony of grief, I found this recording of Bill playing an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Today’s newsletter bows to the intimacy between player and conductor. On the video, Bill’s very special rapport with Michael Tilson Thomas, then the conductor of the Symphony, is apparent. I hope you’ll take a quick listen.

Last Friday, I was delighted to interview Julia Ridley Smith about her new short story collection, SEX ROMP GONE WRONG at Potter’s House in Adams Morgan (DC).

And yesterday, I gave a talk about THREE MUSES to a group of retirees at Leisure World in Maryland. I’m always tickled to do this.

Posing with Jerry Leventhal.

Sending love,

Martha

P.S. ICYMI, here is last week’s newsletter: Music and intimacy.