Conductors are often caught between a rock and a hard place -- balancing the preparation of many weeks of concerts with the strict adherence to the printed score.
Many community bands come together for a rehearsal or two and then essentially to sight-read 10 or 12 weekly concerts.
And as a composer you can be as angry or upset or put-out or indignant about it as you wish, but the fact of the matter is that not all of us are blessed with audition-only, play-everything-perfectly-or-you're-out groups. Many of us work with less-than-ideal situations from a musical-perfection point-of-view.
I paraphrase that old prayer: God grant me the strength to fix those passages can be fixed, the serenity to accept that which can never be played quite perfectly and the wisdom to know the difference.
With my community orchestra I was amazed at how quickly the would forget what we had gone over at the previous rehearsal regarding rhythms, pitches, basic stuff. Often the next rehearsal would seem like they were reading the music for the very first time.
I am happy for you that you never have had to work in such situations.
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
At 08:05 AM 10/4/03 +1000, helgesen wrote:
I wholeheartedly agree with Ray and others. Players- especially 'non-pros', tend to treat 8ves (up or down) as optional. And to Richard- Yes, I'm afraid that outside of the "do it or you're fired" world of the pros, leger lines are more respected than 8ve etc.
In all this discussion ... where is the conductor? What conductor would put up with this behavior, pro or not? I've conducted plenty of amateurs, and by golly they played what was written, or tried to. If there was an impossibility or poor writing or arranging, it might be time for a change. As a composer, I'm pretty staggered by this entire aspect of ignoring notation!
Dennis
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