"In a certain opera house of northern Europe, it is the custom among the members of the orchestra, several of whom are cultivated men, to spend their time reading books - or even discussing matters literary and musical - whenever they perform any second-rate operas. This is to say that they read and talk a good deal. Next to the score on every music-stand, some book or other is generally to be found, and a performer apparently most absorbed in scanning his part, or most earnestly counting his rests while watching for his cue, may actually be giving all his attention to Balzac's marvelous scenes, to Dickens's enchanting pictures of social life, or even to the study of one of the sciences. I know one who, during the first fifteen performances of a well-known opera, read, re-read, pondered, and mastered the three volumes of Humboldt's Cosmos. Another, during the long run of a silly score now forgotten, managed to learn English; while a third, thanks to his exceptional memory, retailed to his neighbours the substance of some ten volumes of tales, romances, anecdotes and risqué stories.
One man only in this orchestra does not allow himself any such diversion. Wholly intent upon his task, all energy, indefatigable, his eye glued to his notes and his arm in perpetual motion, he would feel dishonored if he were to miss an eighth note or incur censure for his tone quality. By the end of each act he is flushed, perspiring, exhausted; he can hardly breathe, yet he does not dare take advantage of the respite offered by the cessation of musical hostilities to go for a glass of beer at the nearest bar. The fear of missing the first measures of the next act keeps him rooted at his post. Touched by so much zeal, the manager of the opera house once sent him six bottles of wine, "by way of encouragement." But the artist, "conscious of his responsibilities," was so far from grateful for the gift that he returned it with the proud words: 'I have no need of encouragement.' The reader will have guessed that I am speaking of the man who plays the bass drum." :D
It's great fun reading this! (Even more so if you are a musician and play in an orchestra!)
Here is the beginning of the "First Evening":
'"A very dull modern French opera is being given.
The musicians take their seats with obvious disgust and ill-temper. They do not condescend to tune up, a detail to which the conductor seems not to pay any attention. But when the oboe plays its first A, the violins cannot miss the fact that they are a good quarter tone above the woodwind.
“My!” says one of them, “the orchestra is delightfully dissonant! Let’s play the overture just as we are, it will be fun!”
And so the musicians stoutly play their parts, not sparing the audience a single note. I mean to say, not depriving, for the audience, enraptured by this dreary rhythmic cacophony, shouts for an encore and the conductor has to begin again. Only, as a matter of policy, he insists that the strings be good enough to take the pitch from the woodwinds. He’s a busy body.
The men are in tune; the overture is repeated, but this time it makes no impression. The opera begins, and little by little the instruments stop playing..."'
Read this book, is fantastic stuff! ("Evenings with the orchestra" By Hector Berlioz)
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