Those who know me and/or have read my blogs before know that I am an orchestral player, to my core I’d say. I love interpreting orchestral parts combined with the directions of a maestro and blending my playing with my fellow orchestra musicians. I have been doing this for almost 40 years now, 30 years professionally, and I hope to be able to do this job until I retire. It is also great that I found ‘my’ orchestra family in Cape Town, one of the most beautiful places with South Africans just being the most lovely people ever.
Now I also enjoy playing solo programs, but since playing in the orchestra is a full time job for me I don’t get to have much time to play solo recitals.
The difference between orchestra and solo playing is quite substantial. You can compare the orchestra playing with running sprints and a 800mt with breaks in between (symphony playing) or full on marathons (Verdi operas…😅) and you don’t have to get record times, it’s pretty chilled. Solo playing is more doing a heptathlon, needing to be fluent in various disciplines and preferably break a record or 2.
Since the 800mt and sprint are part of both orchestra playing and solo playing you can easily still play in the orchestra while preparing for solo playing, but when you are just playing orchestra you are definitely not in shape for the other 5 solo ‘disciplines’ ! 😳
Why am I writing about this this week? Because I, a full time orchestral player, have the honour to play the solo bass part of the first movement of the famous and demanding Concerto in f# minor for Double Bass and orchestra by the legend Serge Koussevitzky as part of the South African conductor’s competition held in Cape Town with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. (That’s a really long sentence…). Maestro Arjan Tien decided this would be a good piece for the final round for one of the candidates, programmed it and I get to perform it. This is both super exciting as super scary 🫣 !
My training and also my trusty bass’ training started in January already, because yes, my personal bass needs to get in shape too as I mostly play on Smokey the 5 string bass. I invested in some new nice solo strings (Evah Pirazzi 🫶🏻) because my ‘old’ ones were really old, and I dusted off my part that I used first in 1994 and analyzed with a fine tooth comb in 1998 for my exam recital at the Royal Conservatoir in The Hague. After this I have won many orchestra auditions playing this concerto, but ja….the last one was over 20 years ago… but I know the piece inside out at least.
So here I am, at 52, a full time principal bass player for 20 years, preparing a solo concerto that I last played when I was young and vital and 💪🏻👊🏻🏋🏼♀️ (you get the picture 😉). Of course I want to play this flawlessly and superbly, I am a perfectionist after all, but then I think by myself: ‘I am in the end a full time orchestral player and not a full time soloist!’
I never in my life thought I’d play this amazing concerto with my favourite orchestra and I am just taking it all in and enjoying it fully. I won’t play the best version ever, but it will be my version, a 52 year old orchestral player version 😊
To be continued … 🙂
Roxane Steffen 