Pittsburgh Symphony live at the Vatican

trumpetchad · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:07 am Post subject:

Hey all-

Thought some of you would be interested in this. I had the privilege of going to the Vatican a few days ago with the Pittsburgh Symphony to play for the pope and about 6500 others. It made international headlines... The concert was called the "Papal Concert of Reconciliation" and was the first time an American orchestra has ever been invited to play for the pope.

We did a premiere of a John Harbison piece and then movements 1, 4, and 5 of Mahler 2. George Vosburgh (1st trumpet) sounded amazing on the Mahler. You can check out the concert from this website:

http://www.papal-concert-of-reconciliation.com/h_html_en/index.html

Or for just the videos:

http://www.papal-concert-of-reconciliation.com/h_html/../s_stream/konzert_DSL2.wvx (for highspeed)

http://www.papal-concert-of-reconciliation.com/h_html/../s_stream/konzert_ISDN2.wvx (for dialup)

If you go to the website, click on videos, and then choose a feed according to your connection. Lots of great pictures of the trumpets! I was assigned to play 3rd trumpet onstage for the Mahler and 1st on the Harbison piece... what an experience, what a privilege!

Supposedly there will be a DVD of the performance in the next few months.

Enjoy!

musicemt · Veteran Member Joined: 04 Jan 2004 Posts: 419

That is awesome! You said it...what an opportunity!

You're bound to make some people jealous with this one (starting with me!)

Ben
_________________
"Imitation, assimilation, innovation"
-Clark Terry

Zeus Guarnerius
Bach C 239 w/ Blackburn pipe/slide
Weril Regium flugelhorn
Yamaha 14B4-GP
Yamaha Shew-lead

JackD · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 10:09 am Post subject:

The Pittsburgh Symphony are great.

I saw this on the news (BBC, London) - they had film of the trumpet section warming up, so presumably I saw you.

Atomlinson · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 1:20 am Post subject:

Trumpetchad (whoever you are) you sounded great on the Harbison piece.

Mahler 2 is probably my favourite Mahler Symphony. It was a very good performance of what we got but a pity it wasn't the whole thing, and some of the audience don't seem to have heard it before and clapped in the wrong place during the first movement. The trumpets were superb, and I liked GV's solos. I will probably try and get a copy of the DVD. That auditorium in the Vatican looked and sounded like a wonderful place to perform in. Pity about the sculpture - looked like something out of the Aliens films.

I read that there was a performance at Heinz Hall earlier.

It would be nice to have the complete Mahler 2 on CD/DVD with the Harbison piece as a filler.

Anyway, a record of a historic occasion, and you were part of it. Privileged indeed!

Andrew Tomlinson

[ This Message was edited by: Atomlinson on 2004-01-20 04:23 ]

PC · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:07 am Post subject:

Congrats on the great video!

Great section playing on both pieces! I guess you're the one playing those C's 2-3 in the pp chords at the end of mvt. I? Reminds me of my glorious days back when I got to play same symph with the Israel Phil (mind you, down the line, not as 3rd trp.)! What fun!

I noticed GV plays C# with 3rd valve! Might explain the phenomenal tuning you guys achieve.

I remember being blown away by Beethoven 3 played by Pittsburgh 6 - 7 years ago on tour in Paris. The strings sounded extremely compact, as if one instrument of each was playing, but amplified to a gorgeous smooth tone. Horns and trps were exuberant yet at times almost part of the sound fabric.

Well done!

Pierre

[ This Message was edited by: PC on 2004-01-20 06:11 ]

FTee · Veteran Member Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 455

T-chad,

What parts did Neal and Chuck play? I had an internet problem (no, not that kind of problem) and couldn't watch the video. I assume that Neal played second, but who knows? Also, did Chris Hart go on the trip? Is Gilbert Levine as bad as every one says?

FTee

trumpetchad · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 8:35 am Post subject:

Hey everyone, thanks for all the kind words!

The video has been off and on, and the highspeed version basically requires you to shut down just about every other internet application you are running. Once it does come up, the sound and video are great.

FTee, Neal played second onstage and Chuck played 1st offstage. Chris Hart played 6th onstage.

PC, yep, that's me on the 2-3 C's. Better color, I felt, for the moment, and my middle open C's are sky high.

The hall resembled some kind of an airport hangar, if you can picture that. The acoustics on the recording sounded much better than the hall. We could barely here the players 10 feet away from us. The microphone for the trumpets was directly in front of George and Neal, so some of the lower section (3-6 trumpets) moments were somewhat lost. Sort of felt like we were playing into a bag of cotton balls. Those opening hits of the Harbison piece we could hear bouncing off of the back hall with barely any ring.

The Italian video company (RAI) that did the video was completely lost at the morning rehearsal. Lighting was horrible, and they couldn't figure it out. There were people all over the place making noise, etc. In fact, half the crew left when we took a break about 2 hours in because they "thought we were done". For the video to have turned out as good as it did is a miracle in itself.

I will tell you that Gilbert Levine probably rehearsed ONLY 25-30 bars the ENTIRE week (5 total rehearsals). We pretty much ran sections over and over again. One particular rehearsal, we ran the last movement 2 and a half times at full bore. It was a bloodbath. Throughout the week of rehearsals, we probably played the entire piece down a good 4 or 5 times, not counting the performances. During the morning dress at the Vatican, we were supposed to record the 2nd and 3rd movements of the Mahler for the DVD, but because we, again, ran everything down almost twice through (the Harbison we did at least twice plus spots, I know), he never got to it and they nixed the idea. Kind of a shame, because the DVD will be missing the entire piece. Oh well.

Andrew, the audience did the exact same thing (clapped after the big moment in the first movement) in Pittsburgh. George said in all of his performances, he had never heard people clap there before. Go figure. Most of the audience, I would imagine, in both the Vatican and Pittsburgh, had probably not been to many symphony orchestra concerts before.

One interesting tidbit that is NOT on the internet video, is that after we played, the pope spoke (which as you may or may not know, is pretty tough work now-a-days for him). After that, Levine and the soloists went up to greet him, kiss his ring, etc. Apparently, the pope said something to Levine like, "Thank you for bringing the Pittsburgh Symphony to me. Will you play an encore?" This was unprecedented, because according to most sources, this almost NEVER happens, if it has even ever happened before. So Levine came back to the group and said "Play from 48!" Boom, there was the downbeat. Of course the choir was doing the piece from memory and had no idea where "48" was. Most of us had already packed the music up. It was rather empty sounding for a few bars before the choir realized where we were. Obviously, this had not been planned at all.

Another interesting thing about the concert was that this setting was unlike any other concert hall setting. If you know anything about the Vatican, then you know there are lots and lots of rules that apply to the situations when the pope is present. First, no concert at the Vatican can go over 72 minutes, which is probably why they had to cut some movements of the Mahler. Secondly, the orchestra AND conductor had to be on stage before the pope could enter the room. And, nobody can leave until he leaves. So, they had to hire all of the extra offstage brass players for the piece, and had to get "special permission" for them to even play offstage with two doors open. Also, we couldn't do the premiere of the Harbison piece in Pittsburgh because when the Vatican commissions a piece, you MUST premiere it there, no exceptions. Crazy stuff.

Anyway, that's a little bit more info for you. A great experience, and one that I will never forget.

TC

PC · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 12:39 am Post subject:

Thanks TC for the story! Sounds indeed like a 1 in 1000 experience! Again, great sounding video, made my day at work!!

Pierre

Trptbenge · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 2:50 am Post subject:

A great opportunity. The video opens with a shot of the trumpets and my teacher from College Roger Sherman
was in the first shot. He is a fine player and a terrific gentleman.

Mike Ackerman
Atlanta, GA.

romey1 · Heavyweight Member Joined: 11 Jun 2003 Posts: 797

I hope George Vosburgh got to "kiss the ring" as well, because that was some terrific, ballsy playing!!!!

romey

jhatpro · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 5:25 am Post subject:

Wow! What an experience! Thanks for sharing it with us.

[ This Message was edited by: jhatpro on 2004-01-21 08:26 ]

trumpetchad · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 6:22 am Post subject:

Romey-

Nope, no trumpet players got to kiss the ring. The closest we got was probably about 40-50 feet away. With all the work George did, he deserved to kiss the ring!

TC

Atomlinson · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 6:26 am Post subject:

Talking of Roger Sherman, his book "The Trumpeter's Handbook" published by Accura Music in 1979 is a very useful book especially for anyone interested in classical orchestral playing.

It would be nice if Mr Sherman could bring out a revised 2nd edition. I believe this has already been done with the "Trombonist's Handbook" by Fink.

Andrew Tomlinson

Brewblue1 · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 3:39 pm Post subject:

Exciting stuff!

I had to chuckle, thought, when, at 32:00 of the video, his Holiness looked at his watch, maybe not realizing how much more music he had to sit through!

Chad, who played the other offstage trumpet parts?

John

_________________
Visit the Rafael Mendez Online Library!
http://mendezlibrary.asu.edu
2004 Rafael Mendez Brass Institute:
http://www.colorado.edu/music/Mendez

[ This Message was edited by: Brewblue1 on 2004-01-21 18:41 ]

trumpetchad · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 8:25 pm Post subject:

John-

The trumpets were

(onstage)
1st George Vosburgh
2nd Neal Berntsen
3rd Myself
4th Roger Sherman
5th Brian Buerkle
6th Chris Hart

(offstage)
1st Chuck Lirette
2nd Charlie Daval
3rd Jerry Gaudi
4th John Zellhart

-TC

PS. All six onstage trumpets were playing Laskey conversions