Letter from Boston
April Fools' Day Concert
By MASAKO YAMADA
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エイプリルフールのコンサート
4月1日のエイプリルフールはいたずらや冗談を楽しむ日です。この日、雅子さんが訪れたコンサートは、曲目を知らせるプログラムの代わりにクロスワードが配られたり、客席の下に笛が隠されていたりと、ユーモアたっぷりで大いに盛り上がりました。
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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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