To Seiji Ozawa, the Boston Symphony Orchestra season is filled with challenges. The audience at the opening night concert is greeted by leaflets declaring the musicians' grievances: A strike may cut off the season. Ozawa has chosen to make it a full orchestra, huge chorus, and outstanding vocal soloists: The local critics are eager to judge the results. And the season includes a performance at the reopening of Carnegie Hall, a major recording, and even a concert version of an opera.There is, as always, the tension between players and conductor. But for one of the musicians, the principal trumpet player, the season is both a challenge and a question of his professional survival, because of his conflict with his conductor. He feels forced to prove himself each time he plays. Yet his performances influence the way the whole orchestra sounds. The interplay between these two men becomes the dramatic center of an intensely moving story.The concertmaster, the choral director, the official coterie around Ozawa, the major players in the orchestra, are all part of a fascinating view of the BSO no outsider can witness. From rehearsal to performance, from back-corridor talk to at-home life, from Boston to New York to Tanglewood, here is an intimate, behind-the-scenes picture of one of the foremost orchestras in the world.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Principal BSO members, intense rehearsals and performance pieces including Mahler's Second Symphony are described in this overview of the orchestra's 1986-1987 season. "Demystifying and humanizing," said PW. "Vigeland is at his best in conveying the emotive power of music, making palpable the feelings of the musicians when a concert goes well and they are overwhelmed at the sound they have made."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Demystifying and humanizing the august Boston Symphony Orchestra--and expertly discussing, as the book's leitmotif, the intricacies of Mahler Two...Vigeland is at his best in conveying the emotive power of music." --Publishers Weekly
"An absolutely fascinating book dealing with tension--artistic, musical, and personal tension...Music is the background, but the theme is really a conflict of two people with completely different approaches to art--and to life." --Studs Terkel, WFMT --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
"An absolutely fascinating book dealing with tension--artistic, musical, and personal tension...Music is the background, but the theme is really a conflict of two people with completely different approaches to art--and to life." --Studs Terkel, WFMT --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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More About the Author
Carl Vigeland has combined lifelong interests in music and sports to create a body of work that explores the phenomenon of performance at its highest level.
He is the author of seven books: The Breathless Present, The Mostly Mozart Guide to Mozart, In Concert, Stalking the Shark, Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life (with Wynton Marsalis), Letters to a Young Golfer (with Bob Duval), and Great Good Fortune. A former newspaper reporter, Vigeland has written about many different subjects for a wide variety of magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Boston Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Country Journal, DoubleTake, Downbeat, Fast Company, Golf Digest, Harvard, New England Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, and Yankee.
In addition to his own writing, Vigeland has served as a consultant and ghost writer on a wide range of projects. A graduate of Harvard, he is a lecturer in journalism at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he and his family live. An amateur pianist and trumpet player, Vigeland is also an expert skier and golfer and has written extensively about those passions and the travels they have inspired.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderfully crafted inside view of a major symphony orchestr,
By A Customer
This review is from: In Concert: Onstage and Offstage With the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Paperback)
Vigeland offers a very well written, fly-on-the- wall, view of a year in the life of a major symphony orchestra and its conductor. It is a fascinating tale of how orchestras' create good, not-so-good, and sometimes great music in the midst of personality clashes between extremely talented, well intentioned, players and their Maestro, in this case Seiji Ozawa. The centerpiece of the book is a description of how the Boston Symphony Orchestra prepared for and recorded Mahler's second symphony. Hard to put down.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The professional musician's life - and more,
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This review is from: In Concert: Onstage and Offstage With the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Hardcover)
Vigeland's work is an exceptional picture of the professional musician's life. It is essential reading for any student seeking a career in classical music. More, it is a picture of how 'work' and 'life' weave together in positive and negative ways. Because of that, it is a worthwhile 'read' for anyone whose work and life are closely related.
5.0 out of 5 stars
In concert is on target,
By
This review is from: In Concert: Onstage and Offstage with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Paperback)
I am not a musician but I bought it for my son who is. I picked it up and couldn't put it down. I never knew what a big time symphony is really like. This author does a great job. I have to find other books by him. Whether or not you are a musician or not you will find this story fascinating. This is a must read for anyone who ever thought about playing in a big time symphony.
Gary
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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players committee, principal trumpet player, offstage players, audition committee, chorus room, fifth movement Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mahler Two, Symphony Hall, New York, Mahler Five, John Oliver, Charlie Schlueter, Opening Night, Seiji Ozawa, Harry Shapiro, Richard Dyer, Malcolm Lowe, Bill Moyer, Carnegie Hall, Peter Chapman, Anne Parsons, Edith Wiens, Randy Croley, Martin Amlin, Maureen Forrester, Nina Keidann, Ron Barron, Leonard Bernstein, San Francisco, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Dave Monette Browse Sample Pages:
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players committee, principal trumpet player, offstage players, audition committee, chorus room, fifth movement Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mahler Two, Symphony Hall, New York, Mahler Five, John Oliver, Charlie Schlueter, Opening Night, Seiji Ozawa, Harry Shapiro, Richard Dyer, Malcolm Lowe, Bill Moyer, Carnegie Hall, Peter Chapman, Anne Parsons, Edith Wiens, Randy Croley, Martin Amlin, Maureen Forrester, Nina Keidann, Ron Barron, Leonard Bernstein, San Francisco, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Dave Monette Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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