May 18, 2016
Music is intrinsically linked to history and geography, and flute has taken me to places and eras I would otherwise only be able to visit in my dreams. I could never have predicted my current intense love-hate relationship with piccolo or how my heart thrums each time I hear the Danse Sacrale from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Music is personal, yes, but it’s also communal, and it’s because of music that I’ve met such incredible people.
It sounds cheesy, but flute has been a constant through all the turbulent and angsty (ha) years of middle school and high school. Though I’m not majoring in music, I do plan on continuing to play the flute (because I couldn’t bear to think of my future without music as the backdrop). It was an absolute honor to stand on my high school’s auditorium stage at my last high school band concert and perform a piece that is quite unique.
I was first formally introduced to tone poems my freshman year when I joined my high school’s Wind Ensemble for the Illinois SuperState Concert Band Festival. Our Wind Ensemble played a band transcription of Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel (it’s actually Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks but that’s a very long name). I never tired of hearing the French horn solo, but I was oddly most captivated by the head chopping scene. Sundell, our band director, had told us how Till Eulenspiegel was a tone poem; Till is a prankster and the piece is jolly because it details all the mischief he causes, but at the end, it gets turbulent because he’s finally caught and is being led to the guillotine. What Sundell failed to tell us, and what we found out from a guest conductor, was that the scene of four thudding quarter notes was not Till’s fading final heartbeats, but instead his head getting chopped off (the Eb clarinet (Till) screaming on the high concert Bb and B), and then bouncing off the platform.
I’ve never looked at music in the same way ever since.
Charles Griffes’ Poem for Flute and Orchestra is a tone poem (obvious from its title), but it doesn’t paint a specific story or scene, and that’s the beauty of it. I have my own storyline I’ve crafted, which helps me play each section in the right character, but then the listener hears an entirely different story, and with an audience of ten, thirty, seventy, a hundred people or more, there exists many many more interpretations, all stemming from my original interpretation. That’s quite something.
It was my first and last time playing a concerto with an orchestral accompaniment. It was my first and last time playing a concerto for this many people. I teeter-tottered between nervousness unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, and utter passivity. Although I think the latter was self-imposed subconsciously so I wouldn’t actually pass out or trip or drop my flute because my hands got too slick from sweat. Although it was a band concert, my concerto was with orchestra (again, obvious from its title) and half of what got me through my senior solo performance was forcing myself to imagine that the auditorium was empty, not full. Empty like it was earlier today, during soundcheck, when Sundell sat in the otherwise empty auditorium, in the middle of all the seats, slouching slightly as he made sure that even my quietest note was audible over the orchestra. I’ll admit, I had my eyes closed for the majority of my performance because I didn’t want to get even more nervous from seeing all the seats filled and even the walkways filled with people, even though they were people who want only the best for me, because I didn’t know where to look if I had my eyes open because I have a tendency to un-focus my gaze and stare or space out, but most importantly, because I was trying to imagine and truly feel the same way I did during the soundcheck, I wanted to see Sundell’s lanky frame folded into a seat, to see his lone figure surrounded by empty maroon chairs, all of them folded up because only Sundell was in the audience.
Some point during the last 3 minutes or so of the piece, one little worry quickly flickered across my mind: did I skip some measures, because I’m nearing the end of the piece and this all went by way too quickly. My ears perked up a bit; I’m still with the orchestra, surely I’ve played all the measures. I’m nearing the end of the piece, and it’s not until I put my flute down, bow, that I realize my body is internally shaking (not visibly noticeable).
And so it ends, closure of my high school flute career. It couldn’t have ended on a better note; the auditorium was filled with people near and dear to my heart, people I was proud and honored to play for, people who the least I could do to repay them for all they’ve done for me, was to play this one piece for them.
After my performance, there was the annual Band Seniors’ gifts to our band conductors and band mom, and then Wind Ensemble played the piece they performed at Superstate this year: Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique. Which funnily enough, also contains a head-chopping scene, and is also a tone poem. To close the concert, there was the continued tradition of the Senior Video, and then it was all over.
It has been an absolute honor to play in Wind Ensemble under Sundell and every single piece we’ve played has a special place in my heart, especially Karel Husa’s Music for Prague 1968. From Mass Band (a band festival where all the high schoolers join all the local middle schoolers in one massive ensemble), to Superstate, from the freezing bleachers during pep band to the warm stage lights of the auditorium, VHHS Wind Ensemble has provided me with countless memories I will treasure forever.
Below is a recording of my senior solo, if you’d like to take a listen:
http://thecube.com/event/may-band-concert-2016-648558
my senior solo starts @ 53:05
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