Letter from Boston

April Fools' Day Concert

By MASAKO YAMADA

I ran into my friend Suzanne while rushing over to my piano lesson, and she reminded me about the final concert of the season for a group she is in, to be held on April Fools' Day. I told her that I'd definitely go. It's common for musicians to help each other out by going to each others' concerts, but she's a special case: She is one of the teachers I had in college who added some sparkle to my life.

It turns out that her group has hired a new manager, none other than the director of the musical I played in recently. As I stood to buy my ticket, I realized that I did not have enough money in my wallet to pay for it. He told me that was OK — and then he pulled out $10 (¥1,050) from his own wallet. He said that he was bribing me to play in his next performance.

While I was getting the ticket, another music coach I've had in the past appeared from a back room, where she had been preparing the refreshments.

Of course, I didn't go to the concert just for such personal reasons. This group, The Musicians of the Old Post Road, always plays wonderful music. This concert had a special April Fools' Day theme, so the program was full of whimsy and humor. I'm not talking about polite classical music jokes that only insiders can appreciate, either.

The program was not printed. Audience members had to fill out a crossword puzzle to see what would be played. Winners of the crossword could then help "compose" one of the pieces. Orchestrated by Mozart, it requires people to roll dice to see which note will be played next. Apparently, this game was quite popular in his day.

Most of the pieces that the group played had a joke or surprise as their dominant theme. Another piece composed by Mozart was filled with musical cliches and stereotypes of his time. They included a first violinist who couldn't stop playing exaggerated cadenzas and French horn players who could never seem to play in tune (when they weren't playing, which was often, they couldn't stop chatting or playing cards or sneezing).

This is funny enough, but imagine the musicians wearing anything from a gypsy skirt to a shiny gold headband and sneakers, a frilly 17th-century style blouse, a tuxedo, and jeans and a baseball cap!!

The instruments they chose were also hilarious. They played a piece by Leopold Mozart on different toy instruments. The music was intended for such toys. The group members tooted whistles that sounded like tweeting birds and choo-choo trains, and they shook New Year's rattles and objects like maracas that sounded like rain. A very proper German man blew on two paper horns.

In another piece, three men sat at the piano and played together, two sitting in the middle and one standing behind them, arms wide apart, playing the high and low notes. Again, this was intended by the composer, one of the sons of the musical Bach family.

I liked the audience participation segments the most. For one piece, the ushers brought out color-coded wineglasses filled with water, and the audience members were instructed to play their glasses whenever someone held up a panel with their color. I had a yellow glass, so whenever the leader held up a yellow panel, I rubbed the rim of the glass to produce a windlike sound. The group members played their own instruments while we provided some harmony.

My favorite piece of the night was also an audience participation piece. We were told to look under our seats for whistles. We each had a dill pickle-o (piccolo) to play. It was a plastic green, pickle-shaped whistle. One of the organizers of the concert had commissioned Peter Schickele, aka P.D.Q. Bach, to write some pieces for the pickle whistle.

We played variations of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "Lullaby" and a jazzlike piece. The pickle-o could play only 4 notes, so a lot of the notes were augmented by the musicians up front. Please consider that most of the audience members were above a certain age, and they all had pickle-shaped whistles in their mouths!! I could see Suzanne's sense of humor shining through. And I had a wonderful time.

Shukan ST: April 14, 2000

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