| Author |
Comment |
David
Sanders 
Registered User
Posts: 562
(5/23/01 6:05:18 pm)
Reply
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Right
Seating!
Just thought I'd mention that for the last THREE weeks at the CSO,
we have been set up in the right seating. One week with Yoel Levi,
and 2 with Eschenbach. It's been a joy to be able to hear myself
again, as well as have enough room to play.
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Ryan
Selberg .gif)
Registered User
Posts: 224
(5/23/01 7:19:09 pm)
Reply
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Re: Right
Seating!
Congratulations, even if it is probably short-lived. I saw in BBC
Magazine where you will be in wrong seating #1 in London in
September, with a couple Mahlers, Carter, etc. At least the weather
should be good!
Ryan
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David
Sanders
Registered User
Posts: 563
(5/23/01 10:33:37 pm)
Reply
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Re: Right
Seating!
Actually that will be wrong seating no. 2.
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cellochris99
Registered
User
Posts: 191
(5/24/01 1:44:09
am)
Reply
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Re: Right
Seating!
This isn't related to the topic, but, does Yoel have any
interesting stories, good or bad, about his past experience at the
ASO? I'm curious about what he went through and how he REALLY felt
about his treatment there. Robert Spano is the new conductor at the
ASO now. When Spano started here, I think he was juggling three
different conducting jobs in different cities.
Chris
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Sasha
A M
Registered User
Posts: 41
(5/24/01 1:57:04 pm)
Reply
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Why do you
consider a seating "wrong"?
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cellofreak2000
Registered User
Posts: 109
(5/24/01 2:15:34 pm)
Reply
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...wrong
seating
.Sasha, we´ve had a couple of discussions about this within the
last month ... you might find them - thanks to Drcello - in his
CC-archive atwww.geocities.com/faircello/index.htm
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Jon
Pegis
Registered User
Posts: 60
(5/24/01 7:38:10 pm)
Reply
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Right
seating
It has been amazing being back on the outside. I suspect at times I
do hear the first violins a bit late, but it is more than worth it!
I never have to wear ear plugs, there's room to bow, and we're
sitting vertically rather than horizontally. Everyone has more space
when the cellos are seated in a row on the outside. I'm really not
sure why certain conductors seem incapable of understanding this!
Like David, I'm really enjoying myself!
Jon Pegis
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G
M Stucka
Registered User
Posts: 583
(5/24/01 11:00:56 pm)
Reply
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Re: Right
seating
The conductors who are incapable of understanding the practical
aspects to "right" seating have egos that are too large to allow for
ANY sort of clear thinking.
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Sasha
A M
Registered User
Posts: 42
(5/25/01 12:46:14 am)
Reply
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older and newer
seatings...
i didnt find the discussion with the engine, but from the replies i
understood that you speak about the cellos placing, on the side or
in the middle.
it has nothing to do with conductors ego.
music composed before 1900 was meant to be played with violins
separate and cellos and altos in the middle. i think its perfectly
ok to rearrange seating.
you will get accustomed to the
sound, how else you would think that 2nd violins would have used to
their place in the modern arrangement?
sasha
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MsCheryl
Registered User
Posts: 223
(5/25/01 7:11:39 am)
Reply
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Yes,
and.....
Cellists should play old music on gut strings without endpins and
we really shouldn't have conductors at all - the concertmaster
should have the honors. Having been in various seatings, I can say
that the outside rules! (also, because of where the cellists bow,
they need more space, which is lacking in the center of the stage -
and the heat is destroying my cello - it gets sooooo dry!)
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David
Sanders
Registered User
Posts: 565
(5/25/01 9:47:55 am)
Reply
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Re: Yes,
and.....
Very well put.
And we should never allow anyone to play on an
instrument made later than the music we are playing.
We should
also still be using typewriters, and the internet????.... forget
it.
The wrong seatings were used in an earlier age, for
various reasons, none of which I can quite comprehend. But
obviously, many, many conductors have come to realize what an
improvement it is to put the cellos on the outside. You can hear the
violas better when they are in the inside, you can hear the cellos
just as well when they are on the outside, and the 2nds being on the
outside where the cellos should be????? don't make me laugh! The
conductors, even the ones that want them there, are constantly
having to ask them to play much more, because they're playing
towards the back wall and can't be heard at all. And ensemble, well,
just forget it.
And by the way, not one person on our stage has
had a problem with room for the past 3 weeks. When we are in either
of the other seatings, there are many people in the 1st violins, 2nd
violins and viola sections, plus of course the cellos, who have
difficutly finding room to bow.
David Sanders
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MaryK
Registered User
Posts: 598
(5/25/01 11:23:59 am)
Reply
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Re: older and
newer seatings...
"i think its perfectly ok to rearrange seating"
Mmm hmm,
methinks you'll be humming a different tune after sitting directly
in front of the brass section for many years...
MaryK
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G
M Stucka
Registered User
Posts: 584
(5/25/01 12:51:15 pm)
Reply
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"ok to rearrange
seatings"????????
David Zinman commented to me about 10 years ago that he can always
tell when a new music director is in place with an orchestra----the
string seating gets changed. (I inferred from his remark that the
new boss usually can't think of anything else to do to make his/her
"stamp" upon the orchestra.
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Jon
Pegis
Registered User
Posts: 61
(5/25/01 1:12:25 pm)
Reply
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Right
Seating
Gary's comment reminds me just how often new music directors want
to make changes to the orchestra. I've never understood this--it
seems to me that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
Jon
Pegis
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drcello
Registered
User
Posts: 395
(5/25/01 1:22:54
pm)
Reply
| Edit
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Try this
link...
Here is a link to an older discussion:
http://www.cello.org/ccarch/may16_99/messages/249.htm
Marshall C. St. John
drcello@vei.net
Wayside Presbyterian Church
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Paul
Tseng ICS Staff 
Administrator
Posts: 1317
(5/25/01 1:24:38 pm)
Reply
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Re: Right
seating
Of the orchestras I've played in, the cello section has always been
on the outside. I wonder if concductors think that the sound is more
balanced with treble instruments on both extremities of the stage
front and the cellos in the middle?
Some String Quartets sit
this way and maybe they are trying to emulate that?
I
personally prefer the seating where we are on the
outside.
Mind you, I've never been a member of an orchestra
at the high level of you CSO dudes! You guys really know from first
hand experience!
How did Szell seat the celli?
Paul Tseng
My Website
Alexander's Photo
Albums
Free Cello
Music!
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Sasha
A M
Registered User
Posts: 44
(5/25/01 3:25:37 pm)
Reply
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nobody cares
about the composer?
hi!
the earlier "discussion" didnt shed much light to this
question. from j.s. bach to mahler the music was composed keeping in
mind the seating where 1st and 2nd violings are on the opposite
sides. in classical and romantic symphonies there is many
stereophonic and polyphonic effects that just dont get right with
the modern seating. the music is robbed one dimension, the space and
the movement of the sound source in the orchestral
space.
and, by the way, before 20th century there were
usually more 2nd violins in orchestras than 1st violins.
i
think if the music itself demands different seating, the musicians
should adapt to the situation. after all, our job is to make it
sound the way the composer has imagined it to be?
sasha
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David
Sanders
Registered User
Posts: 566
(5/26/01 10:58:12 am)
Reply
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Re: older and
newer seatings...
I can tell you for a fact that after 10 years of wrong
seatings I have not become accustomed to the sound. I have become
accustomed to wearing earplugs.
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Dick500
Registered
User
Posts: 91
(5/26/01 3:51:08
pm)
Reply
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REALLY wrong
seatings
Years ago, I had the "pleasure" of playing a number of times under
the baton of a rather elderly band director who fancied the
experience of orchestra conducting and had the political clout to
guarantee the experience. Periodically, he would stop, turn 90
degrees to his left, and begin his remarks to the first two or three
desks of the violinists he saw dimly in front of him by saying:
"First clarinets, ... "
Personally, I kind of like to sit on
the inside of the violists, especially if the pit is deep and the
seating goes all the way to the edge. Let THEM fall in!
Dick
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