When I hear music in my dreams, it’s time to look up my viola again. Summer outside is beckoning and I don’t want to let go of those days off just yet because as soon as I start with music, I struggle against the new season with all the obligations that come at me like a block. Even my hands show some resistance to the necessary scales because they also know that after weeks of gripping rough rocks and climbing up the mountain, finding fine motor skills will be quite a job.
Yet gradually structure creeps into the days and the orchestral parts can no longer wait. First of all, I struggle stiffly through Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite Sheherazade and realize that I’m fighting more than playing. Soon I lose my focus and allow my head to slip into the oriental realms of the Thousand and One Nights tale. I interrupt the game and walk to the bookcase to look up the stories when my eye falls on the rehearsal schedule next to it; I pick myself up and reconcile myself with the viola again.
A few days later, in the orchestra, I notice that the holiday break is still having an effect on my colleagues. During the rehearsal my head is too much in holiday mode and my group feeling weakens: I can’t keep up with the quick musical ideas of the conductor. Luckily he lets us play. Yet now the violins stumble over a loop, as a result the flutes start a fraction too late, but that is actually due to the double basses that should have led this phrase. The conductor stops, searches for words but after a short while he only says: „I love double bass!And now have the group repeat the same phrase solo. Then he appeals to the poetic language of the music and leaves our mistakes unnamed. We are all looking for the right tone color. As if by a magic wand, something inside me changes and I am completely absorbed in the sound. Suddenly we are one big instrument again, the rhythm tightens and Sheherezade’s story flows together with the music in a resounding rainbow that rises above the orchestra.
I come home a different person, look at my calendar and don’t be alarmed that I have to go straight to the dentist, then to the next chamber music rehearsal and then, without eating, to run straight to a meeting. As if the sound rainbow protects me from the stress, I look forward to tomorrow and cry, I love violet!
Ewa Maria Wagner is a violist and writer.