Now I wonder if that isn't the worst of all possible attitudes. You'd think Bill Gates (to take a completely random example ) would be concerned about making a buck and orchestras and ensembles about the possibility of experimenting, at least in their new music 'strategies'. So why is it that Gates is the one supposedly saying "hire the best people and let them do what they want" and "If all your projects succeed, you've failed"? (Yes, I know the answer, it's because he can afford to. It doesn't change the absurdity of the situation though.)

It's similar in the ensemble culture to an extent, lest someone think I'm orchestra-bashing; I have too many colleagues who just want to play good pieces. Up to a certain point I couldn't give a damn about whether a piece is 'good'; I don't want a saleable 'product', I want an artistic process that deepens the musical engagement of the composer, the players and the audience. For me any other attitude is looking through the wrong end of the telescope.


Are there any particular ones you'd like to post here? I'd certainly be interested to hear how what you would have done differently in Vanity and in particular what for you would compromise the result and what wouldn't!

Exactly the model Boulez suggested, George... indeed it's pursued to some extent in various places, with many orchestras having chamber music series and even semi-detached new music ensembles.

One potential problem is that a body of players all of whom can play both Ferneyhough and Brahms as well as specialists can play either is a little bit tricky to find; orchestral selection procedures do tend to favour one particular area of skills, obviously enough. That very fact does tend to hinder the kind of musical cross-fertilisation that would make that model function at its most productive.

Also that the very best ensemble skills are trickier to build up when players keep rotating. (So to speak.)

But in principle it's really the only workable model. Just that for it to be productive on the new music side of it, that side needs to be given more priority than it usually is. It's also impossible for new music to be as saleable a product as known masterpieces - so there's friction between the artistic models as well unless there's some element of process-not-just-product on the repertoire side.

I think the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group at least started out as a subset of the CBSO, from players who wanted to do more new music. Though now they seem like separate entities - not sure about this, can anyone (Stuart?) clarify? The BCMG aren't always given the credit they deserve - whenever I've heard them, there's been much more of a sense of committment and belief in the music being played coming through than is the case, say, with the Sinfonietta.

Yes, I think you're right about the origins (though whether the players 'wanted to', or Rattle had the idea, or a bit of both, I'm not sure). These days there's no overlap of players that I'm aware of, and BCMG has its own admin and marketing team, though it's connected to the CBSO in as far as, for example, the CBSO Composer-in-Association (not that I've noticed them appoint a successor to Julian Anderson in that role, and he finished 2 years ago) also gets to work with BCMG.

Oh, I think that's reasonably well recognised. It's certainly been clear to me for at least 2-3 years (i.e. since I started regularly going up to Birmingham to hear BCMG).

Incidentally, are there any figures available giving the percentage of contemporary works that the British orchestras programme? I wonder, other than the BBCSO/BBCSSO, which orchestras do the most (how the CBSO compares with the LSO or Philharmonia, say)? Maybe the ABO has something on this.

That's a rather intimate question for a context like this, but... the most obvious solecism (to me!) was the decision to group the strings by threes rather than by twos. The original string parts were then laid out as violins 1-3, violins 4-6 and so on, which meant in practice that violins 3 and 4 (to name only these) had a desk to themselves, which made page-turning awkward. For the second performance the string parts were recopied in pairs, which then had the disadvantage that violins 3 and 4 (etc.) were sitting at the same desk but playing different music much of the time. Neither solution improved the players' mood or encouraged them to work out what was going on and why. Something the string players (can you see a theme emerging here?) were also unhappy about was the distinction made in the score between say a staccato quaver and a tenuto semiquaver, since the latter tended to clutter up the parts with rests and sounded the same anyway once enough people were playing it. Using longer durations with staccato points might have improved rhythmical togetherness in the strings in the leadup to their "petrified" chord at the end of the second part. On the other hand, more rehearsal and/or a change of personnel (either at the top or everywhere else or both) might have solved that problem. What would have compromised the result would have been for example to moderate some of the (typical for me, as you know only too well) too-high wind writing. I recall an exchange between myself and the principal oboist after the first rehearsal which went something like this:

Oboist: What do you think I should do about this passage here? (jabbing finger at page of part)
Richard (with sweet innocent mien): What do you mean?
O: Well, I could either leave it out, or play it an octave lower, or you find someone who can play it.
R: In that case I think we should find someone who can play it.
O: Do you know anyone in London who can?
R: (recites list of three or four names)
O: ..... (turns to orchestra manager who has been standing nearby listening)

I didn't see him again after that.

This indeed is why the orchestra has the balance between instruments and sections, and of registers within sections, that it does. For example, unless you want big dominant violin melodies, perhaps even doubled in octaves, there's no particular need to have 30 violins and the rest of the string ensemble in proportion (which means the sumtotal of violas, celli and basses being about the same as that for the violins).

Nor is there any particular need for the concept of "second violins" if the music isn't laid out in a typically "topheavy" way (although this has as much to do with the perception of tonal harmony as it does with the piano).

The reason for this phenomenon is, IMHO, very much related to the type of problems in Richard's last-but-one post. At a break in the rehearsal for a chamber orchestra piece I wrote about 8 years ago I had the following exchange with a 3rd desk violinist (from a professional orchestra) who walked past me muttering furiously

V: why don't you bl***y learn about the f***ing instrument before you write something like that for it? It's f***ing ridiculous!
S [somewhat taken aback by the ferocity of the question]: Well, can you tell me what the problem is?
V [only after he'd gone away and calmed down for a bit]: You see these fast high triplets here? Well they're almost impossible. If they were an octave lower, or some pattern, or not so fast, they'd be OK.....
S: Mmm-hm
V: ....I mean, it's not impossible - if I practised it every day for a week but we just don't have time to do that.
S: Oh. Well maybe we can do the section slower then.

So we did it slower, but I noted that the front desk violinists could play it at the original speed without too much trouble. The thing is that if you make orchestral players (and yes, it's usually the strings) feel insecure, they will bite back.

Ever since then I've taken the attitude that soloists (sometimes from within the orchestra) or front-desk strings have more of the difficult material. I think this is a fairly common solution to the problem but is by no means the only one. Orchestral players seem to enjoy playing Richard Strauss, for example, precisely because of the challenges he places on them - challenges that their repertoire-based training has allowed them to face without too much extra work.