There are many musical “fragments” that get so well known that the rest of the work – if not forgotten entirely – is known by far fewer people than know the whole thing. I shared a prime example of that a couple of months ago in Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. Today’s choice is not quite so extreme as folks only knowing the first few bars of that from the film score of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this case it is a whole variation that is well known – Nimrod.
The rest of the Enigma Variation deserves to be heard as well and that is what I am sharing today.
I played this once in Glasgow Cathedral. As with many churches, the layout is not entirely ideal for seating a band or an orchestra and on this occasion the hon section found themselves largely hidden behind a pillar and quite a long way (comparatively) from the centre of the action. This, of course, plays havoc with what you hear – for an audience the sound of the orchestra is quite different to what the individual player hears – dominated as it is by those closer to them.
At the end of Variation VI “Ysobel” the horn has a sustained note and the movement ends with three (quiet) notes on a solo viola – which I couldn’t actually hear from where I was sitting 😲 I had to rely on watching her very closely as she was playing and stopping my note when she stopped bowing! 🙂
Usually I try to pick a recording/video that shows off the sound to best advantage, however this one does have some distortion. However, I think that this particular version is worth watching for the conductor. I have played under many ‘eccentric’ 😉 conductors – Rozhdestvensky is definitely that, but he seems to have an almost magical control of the orchestra.
Enjoy (and this isn’t too long for a Monday “big work”)