Believe it or not, Leroy Anderson is reasonably high on my list of
composers that I respect for what they do (or did). I wouldn't say that
I'm not capable of getting tired of cranking through Slay Ride,
Bungler's Holiday or the Constipated Crock for the zillionth time, but
he really did what he did very well. I also used to detest Viennese
Waltz nights with the same attitude that stemmed from the lack of
challenging horn parts and the middle-brow appeal. But, having played
these waltz sequences with conductors who had some of the echt Wien in
their technique, I really had to start respecting and even enjoying
them. Many of these have literally lead to dancing in the aisles and
that is something that you have to be a pretty hardened hack (which I no
doubt used to unconsciously aspired to be in my freelance heyday) to not
be impressed and moved by that.
I played in the Goldman Band for the final 30 years of its existence and
I played "On the Mall" somewhere over 1,000 times, I'm sure, and I don't
think that S& S Forever was too far behind that. Well, when the audience
is crying out like it was a rock concert for you to play your calling
card(s) or it's July 4th and you do Sousa all night, you've got to feel
like you're fulfilling some valuable function and you might as well
enjoy it. It really doesn't get much more real than that.
Given my druthers, I'd be a guest solo horn at the Met in the Ring and
late Strauss operas, like Capriccio and Daphne, playing at the
Philharmonic in the tuben quartet in the late Bruckner symphonies on my
nights off. I'd cleanse my palate with Mozart 29th, Haydn 51st and Water
Music on Sunday. In the real world, I play a load of G & S and concert
band music with only a couple of "serious" classical concerts a year on
the average and I try to find some real music in all of these wherever
it lies. I've played plenty of music that I've hated and worked with and
under countless unbearable jerks and, 39 years after my first paying
gig, I have to than all of them for enabling me to appreciate the
pleasures of small mercies like Leroy Anderson, Morton Gould (I actually
worked with him - a nice guy), Johann Strauss and the like.
Sermon concludeth,
Peter Hirsch
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