Sometimes the brain creates a little lull for itself before it pushes "publish" on a series of thoughts it has doubts about. During that lull, it can weigh the consequences and measure the doubts. My lull on a little matter that involves the response of the New York Times critic to the Oregon Symphony's Carnegie Hall concert is about over. Here goes.
Followers of the symphony already know what I'm going to talk about -- the word "maintained." But really, I want to speculate about musical memory and the power of narrative, and maybe let Kozinn off the hook a little bit.
Yesterday, I had coffee with my old colleague David Stabler, and he mentioned that violist Charles Noble had written an interesting post on his Noble Viola blog. Here's how the post begins:
"I’m dissatisfied. Not super unhappy, not depressed, just dissatisfied. With playing in an orchestra. There. I said it."
He's not specific about his discontent, although from the post and the subsequent comment thread we learn that he hasn't taken a vacation in a long time and that the artistic achievement of the Oregon Symphony isn't the issue. He also suggests that he often feels this way during the orchestra's season, but usually not until March. And though he's tried to do some things to keep the music fresh, they haven't worked: "But I still find myself on the ragged edge of burnout already."
Finally, he asks for some advice from his colleagues. In the comment thread that advice includes, taking up Chinese cooking, playing more chamber music, studying the scores more closely and just sucking it up and forging onward, Beckett style: I can't go on. I can't go on. I must go on.
I'm not a musician, let alone a symphony musician. I don't know Charles Noble personally. And my advice on this sort of thing is often terrible. But that's not going to stop me from hypothesizing, now, is it?
I will argue from analogy and from my experience with daily newspapers.
