Holland Blog 3
It's Day 6 of the tour and today we're off to do Beethoven 6 in (in the very south of Holland). It feels like we've been here for ages already, although it's only half way through! Yesterday we had a much-needed free day. For the next few days we're based back in Utrecht.
Quite a few people (myself included) took the chance to go over to as it's only a short train-ride away and we won't be playing there on this tour.
I had a brilliant day, poking around the quiet backstreets of the Jordaan area,
getting a culture fix at the and avoiding surprisingly aggressive cyclists. Being music geeks, we couldn't help ourselves but to spend half an hour or so rifling through the fantastic sheet-music shop next to the Concertgebouw. Whilst we were there who should we bump into but 3 other members of the orchestra (who have asked to remain nameless, to protect their street-cred...)!
After we travelled up north to – a nice town encircled by a canal and plenty of cosy restaurants (perfect for a band in need of grub between rehearsal and concert). The hall was a strange one, a very wide stage but not an especially deep one. This meant that the strings we spread out quite a lot further than we're used to being, so I felt miles away from everything. The acoustic felt very uncomfortable at first, it was very difficult to hear anything that wasn't in the immediate vicinity, but I'm told it sounded good out front. It does make me think how lucky we are to have the as our home, not just for concerts but for all our rehearsals. I enjoyed the concert, although it was my first Symphonie Fantastique ever - having only been here a year I find I'm doing pretty much everything for the first time. The overture (Frank's Jugs) was a good play too and Pieter's Walton concerto was fantastic, it's a piece that is really growing on me. That night we stayed in a hotel on the outskirts of Groningen, but it was only a fleeting visit, what with a drink or two (ahem) in the bar and then a 9am bus to Enschede!
Enschede was basically shut. We arrived on Sunday morning, not a soul about. As it was the same programme as the previous day we only had a quick 'top & tail' rehearsal before the afternoon concert. It didn't seem to have sold all that well which was a shame as it was a great hall and I thought the orchestra were sounding bloody good. Afterwards, some of our party left us to return to Glasgow as we're only playing the smaller-scale Beethoven for the next few concerts. They'll re-join us on Thursday in Eindhoven for more Berlioz. It's more economical that way, but perhaps worsens our carbon footprint. The Berlioz uses massive orchestration for it's time...2 tubas, 2, harps, 4 bassoons....I think he asked for huge numbers of strings as well, 40ish first violins and 12 basses. Needless to say, we're running at less than half that, string-wise, or else this tour would have been an equally huge money pit. These days we're also playing on metal strings with modern bows, and besides – how many stages can hold that sort of a string section?! That said, the spectacle of row upon row of second violins would have been awe inspiring...you know it's true.
Just for good measure...here's Pieter ironing his shirt, snapped by Amanda Shearman:
...ironing so fast it's a blur!
Quote of the Day:
From a 2nd violinist: "Do dogs bark in foreign languages?"
David Chadwick
