”Voices of Spring”

Jan 03, 2012

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Is it too soon to be looking for signs of spring? The Christmas tree has yet to be taken outside to begin its sad descent into yellowing decay, and the house disrobed of all seasonal trappings and I’m already looking for the first shoots of wild garlic bravely poking forth on our river bank.

The prematurely anticipated change in the season brings with it a new mental energy too, new things to think about practicing, new programmes to prepare for, and maybe a few reappraisals of old ways.

Much of the season just gone is of course about tradition and permanence, rather than the new. Anyone watching this year’s New Year’s Day concert from Vienna is seeing one of the world’s iconic cultural events, but one that is virtually unchanged from year to year, even from one century to another. This is of course, one of the oddities of the symphony orchestra concert, annually repetitious, but with often lukewarm ambitions to be “innovative”. We must constantly seek out new audiences, new compositional voices, new means of presentation, form new artistic alliances, whilst keeping a core audience cosily wrapped up in the repertoire they feel secure with, and deserve to hear.

A difficult balance, and not one achieved with gimmicky panderings to youth. (Gabriel Prokofiev’s Concerto for DJ and orchestra at last year’s Proms? Two separate musical expressions with nothing in common, apart from their respective ability to make the other sound silly).

As musicians we must, even though it might make us feel uncomfortable, seek out challenges, both in the way we approach the core repertoire, and in the way we look at new work. Our job must also be to bring an audience with us, one that is probably quite– comfortable–as–it–is–thanks–very–much–for–asking.

So let’s all enjoy this week’s annual festival of waltz and schmaltz, the season’s last slice of tradition, and then look forward bravely to a spring of invention, of vital playing and freshly curious listening.

Patrick McCarthy

Principal Trumpet No.2