"It seems like I haven't seen him in public for a long time."
"He was barely able to attend the event, so I'm afraid it's not appropriate."
The audience present naturally knew him, but before standing up, many people did not notice that he was present today.
It should be said that this conductor has won a lot of respect from the music industry. Although he became a monk halfway, the orchestra's series of superb performances so far are inseparable from his hard work behind the scenes. His baritone performance at the New Year's Concert also impressed
Very impressive.
Some music critics previously pointed out that he rarely took to the stage to perform in official performances, and teased that this was related to his "playing experience" from a financial background. However, they were quickly attacked by a group of counterarguments with detailed evidence.
.
In a symphony performance, the performance on the stage is everything to the audience, but for the artist, more than 80% of the factors have been determined by the effectiveness of rehearsal. This is consistent with the solo logic of "practice off stage - perform on stage"
of.
There are not a few people who have listened to Kaplan's stage rehearsals - a group of artists, music critics, cultural dignitaries who are close to the group, as well as distinguished customers of "art naming" partners, all express their appreciation for his performance.
The professional level and research attitude are as good as many.
Kaplan's musical insight is too strong and he is too sensitive to details and defects, so much so that he is willing to be the behind-the-scenes artist who checks for omissions and fills in the gaps, leaving the final blow of the perfect performance to others.
He is actually not aggressive at all. If he is in the role of an appreciator, he is very tolerant of other people's flaws and is willing to communicate and encourage them.
But he couldn't tolerate flaws in his hands.
This kind of person is overly awed by art, even to the point of being a little sick.
In fact, loyal fans of the old symphony orchestra would like to hear him conduct a performance in person anytime.
But when what they wished for happened now, many people's mood became complicated and they couldn't cheer.
Capron helped the rows of seats move out of the aisle. He felt pain all over his body.
It feels like someone is holding a long nail and stabbing into the bone seams, or using a hook to pierce the joint adhesions and then pick out the fascia and flesh inch by inch.
At least hundreds of parts.
"Perhaps I have an even greater inferiority complex about art than finance. I am always overly aware of my own shortcomings in abilities, and then when faced with experts, I retreat to the rear..."
"A kind of contradiction based on rational cognition...inferiority or self-confidence?"
"Sometimes they are limited to a corner of their professional repertoire. They may not have as much storage of serious music works as you do, and they may not be as familiar with various interpretation methods as you do."
"Believe in your ears, trust in your professional learning achievements and accumulation of appreciation experience."
"If you have less time than others, then you need to take some steps sooner than others."
I have to say that mind wandering is a bit serious, but before the music starts, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in order to cope with the pain.
The audience sat quietly, their eyes following the shambling figure.
"Artists should applaud when they come on stage" is common sense that everyone in the market knows, but it has been forgotten by everyone.
When Kaplan was about to reach the podium, only the record company's technicians reacted and pressed the switch to start recording.
Kaplan put the score on the music stand and opened the cover with a shiver.
After a short period of movement, my back was already cold.
He pulled out a ten-percent-new, almost unused public baton from the hole in the podium.
This action caused the musicians to hold their instruments reflexively, and the audience began to clear up the last scattered coughs.
Kaplan's legs were shaking, but his right arm raised the baton solemnly and steadily.
The motives, harmonies, counterpoint relationships and expression terms of twenty or thirty voices flashed through his mind. These scenes that he had practiced countless times flowed and dissected, and finally stopped at the dialogue with the composer himself.
on the fragment.
"How should the opening atmosphere here be presented so that the audience can feel the so-called 'sense of intimidation, judgment, and epicness'?"
“If the introduction of the First Symphony is ‘quietly descending and penetrating’, then here, you might as well try ‘suddenly torn out from the silence’.”
With his chest rising and falling, Kaplan slowly closed his eyes and opened them again.
Wrap your wrist in the air to indicate the shot, then gently but decisively dip down.
The sudden unsettling tremolo was poured out by the string section, falling from the intensity of ff to an unstable background of strength and weakness. The cello and double bass played the rough and powerful "Interrogating Motive" fragment in C minor with stronger intensity of ff.
The first movement, funeral march, solemn Allegro.
Violent, disturbing, and extremely dramatic.
The audience felt as if a hole had been punched through their souls instantly.
Why are you born, how are you born, and what kind of past is worth remembering?
"Interrogating Motive" makes its first movement in a fractured form, combining extreme stillness with extreme speed, shining with a sharp black light.
Some kind of prophetic picture appeared inexplicably before the audience's eyes: in a lonely cemetery shrouded in darkness, a sudden glow broke through, the soil cracked, and the stone tablets trembled.
Something that cannot happen in reality.
But this scene seems to be just a flashback of the plot, and it quickly fades as the introduction ends.
The music enters the presentation section.
"If I could see the afterlife with my own eyes, I would like to see myself lying majestically under garlands and flowers."
Some of the words on the title page of the composer's manuscript flashed through his mind. His left hand indicated the beat, and the oboe and English horn (alto oboe) played the first theme, starting from the whole note and moving upward in a long and difficult line.
Climbing up, with a bit of chilling torture.
The clarinet, French horn and violin enter one after another, while the "questioning motive" of the double bass always swims and sweeps under the shadow, forming a stormy polyphonic counterpoint.
In the connecting sentence, the whole band enters a continuous downward flow.
Two bars of a dark minor scale, then two bars of a more intense chromatic scale.
The color conflict of the harmony reached its limit, and the restless rolling of timpani appeared in the sky.
"Crack!——"
The pain caused by the raised arms was heartbreaking, and in exchange, the large and small snare drums were smashed down, twenty or thirty copper pipes roared upward, and the big gongs and big cymbals struck with earth-shattering and harsh sounds.
Kaplan felt that his vision was starting to become a little blurry.
This was only a short while.
However, it is a very minor factor.
The initial struggle gradually subsided, and the lingering triplet of the double bass made the color transition to the key of E major, which is seven different key signatures.
Control the shot carefully and gently.
The violin plays the second theme in a pastoral style, and the horns use four-part harmony as counterpoint.
The warm fourth degree jumps in, the simple ascending scale, the melodious and graceful winding and falling.
The composer praises life and nature here as always, just like reliving the morning light and youth of the campus days.
After a brief period of tranquility, the uneasy tremolo and "questioning motive" of the introduction appeared again.
Every deceased person should be asked this solemn question before being buried, and must also answer it.
Including myself without a doubt.
He waved the beat, and the first "torture theme" was accelerated. The band gave firm support on the downbeat, leading to the brass group's hopeful, horn-like third "resistance theme", and the violin played a tough descending note with dots.
group as a reply.
These motives soon evolved into a huge theme group of expositions, which ended with a programmatic integration in the style of a psalm.
Sweat dripped from his forehead, his body undulated slightly with his gestures, and the heavy steps of the double bass gradually weakened.
The development begins with the violin, a lyrical passage in C major, and the second pastoral theme.
The flute and clarinet took over the peaceful thoughts, and the key moved down to the key of B major. They outlined the warm twilight, but the sudden return of the sharp re note dragged the listener into the lonely night of B minor.
Among the dim and silent repetitive sounds of the string section, Kaplan led out a very special group of woodwind ensembles.
Although it was not the first time, he was still surprised by the composer's insight into orchestration that struck straight to the soul. The combination of bass clarinet and alto oboe made the flowing melody seem to be traveling alone in the dark night.
In this lonely pulse and breathing, he couldn't help but think about it over and over again.
He was thinking over and over again that the elements that constitute a funeral are really the most essential tone of human sadness.
He was thinking over and over again that there was nothing praiseworthy about those mischievous lives, but the living people kept hearing about them, hearing countless traces of haste and insignificance.
The strings once again descended uneasily, and the sound of horns sounded all over the mountains and plains, until the introduction "Interrogation of Motives" whizzed out, and he waved his hand to cut it down with a tense whole body——
The two violent strikes of the bass drum, gongs and cymbals, and the descending octave hammer of the timpani severely smashed the melancholy thoughts of midnight to pieces.
The atmosphere was so ominous and abrupt that the audience was frightened to the core.
The string section shudders down the chromatic scale, turning into an angular and dotted rhythmic sound group. The trombone and tuba blow the melody that was once used to travel through the night. The flute, oboe and clarinet are interspersed among them, presenting an uncertain trio.
Legato fragments.
When the music develops to near-chaotic out-of-control, the horns launch the solemn motive of "Doomsday".
This continuation material from the Gregorian era is a vital seed. Although it disappeared briefly in the wind and rain at this time, it will bear fruit in the final movement and inherit the solemn "Hymn of the Resurrection".
.
However, the audience at least discovered that the sad tone of ordinary funeral marches has been completely abandoned under the conductor, leaving only the sharp blades and lightning that cut through the black sky, allowing everything in the world to appear in detail in the daytime.
The theme group in the recapitulation part shows a more subtle counterpoint relationship than that in the exposition part. Kaplan felt that he was summarizing something, and he summarized it in stages. He thought that the "mirror surface" should be wiped clean.
Flawless, one should be able to observe the reflection of the deceased's entire life from a higher perspective.
The proposition about death is within reach, as if reaching the top, all the turbid energy has dissipated, leaving nothing behind.
He wanted to exchange glances with the musicians he spent time with, but found that his field of vision seemed to be filled with oil mist, making it difficult to see everyone's facial features.
As thought before, this is not the most important factor for a conductor, and pain and weakness are more of an obstacle.
But after all, it means that part of the body has begun to die.
Fortunately, the ears did not die first.
Then he suddenly thought of records.
In fact, recordings cannot be played back infinitely. There is a limit to the number of times a person can listen to each work in a lifetime. If you listen to it once, you will lose it once.
He felt that if he had more time, he would at least still have a batch of favorite works that he could listen to again.
It's one thing to discuss the philosophy of death, but it's another thing to think about continuing to live.
But if you have no choice, it feels good to leave an extra set of records for others.
Maybe I can record the next few movements better.
At the end of the recapitulation, amid the uneasy funeral pace of the harp and double bass, the C major chord of the flute and oboe suddenly penetrates, and the mi tone is lowered in the sustained sound.
The blunt major and minor keys are forced to piece together, bringing with it a hint of ominous warning.
It was intentional on the part of the composer.
Under the sudden diminished seventh chord played by the horn, the whole orchestra played a stormy chromatic phrase, and the first movement ended with two weak pizzicatos.
If this was just a symphonic poem describing a funeral, its achievements and characteristics would be comparable to the First Symphony.
The symphony hall was completely silent, and the audience was so frightened by the terrifying atmosphere of the first movement that they could not move their necks.
Like a long, sublime poem, too sublime to be terrifying; like a long, terrible poem, too terrifying to be sublime.
The audience found it hard to breathe, but Capron was breathing heavily.
He took out a small bottle from his pocket, poured out six small green pills in succession, put them directly into his mouth and chewed them.
The crunching sound of the pills bursting was a bit strange in this situation. A small number of people broke out of their stagnation, and their eyes suddenly became filled with deep worry.
Because Kaplan stood in silence for a long time with his hands on the podium pole.
In fact, these 20 minutes were already the most strenuous activity he had done in the past few months.
But there is still more than an hour left behind the Second Symphony.
He had been holding on to the railing for three minutes without making any movement. Maybe someone could come up and suggest that he lie down and rest for a while, even if he waited for an hour, but no one dared to do this for a while.
The musicians sat quietly, and by the fourth minute, some members of the audience were already considering whether to applaud.
Because this can be regarded as a divine premiere of an outstanding work.
The cough that had been suppressed for too long began to sound, and some signs of rustling attempts to applaud also began to appear.
At this moment, several masters in rows 6-8, including Niemann, Schillings and Svelink, stood up, turned to face the audience in several directions, opened their arms, and made a silencing gesture.
, then turn around and sit down again.
Although the music has not yet been published, due to personal relationships and the early completion time of the first movement, they have seen the score of this movement.
Fan Ning noted at the end "take a rest for at least five minutes" to temporarily forget the horrific incident.
Most of the audience didn't understand it very well, but the master's prompts made them sit upright again.
Finally, Kaplan raised his head again.
The conductor released the railing he was holding, and in a field of vision covered with oil film, he groped for his fingers on the score and slowly closed it.
It’s no longer possible to watch it, so it’s okay not to watch it.
It's just that I didn't look at my wife and daughter more than once before I went on stage, which is a bit sad.
This move still caused misunderstanding by most of the audience, but he raised the baton again.
Moreover, a smile actually appeared on the dry and charred face.