The Official Auditions
While I was enjoying what was supposed to be a long, frosty holiday at Whistler (Christmas day was almost upon us), I received word that Justus Frantz needed me back in his orchestra immediately. This time it was called the Philharmonie de Nationen. As always the orchestra paid for a plane ticket, which at this late notice was CAN$735 and I took the train to the Vancouver airport, leaving my sister to finish her ski-honeymoon with Scottie.
I landed in Frankfurt on the 24th of December, and after leaving my skis and other unnecessary belongings in my Russian violist friend Juri Gilbo's basement, I took the train to Leipzig on Christmas day. We rehearsed Beethoven's 9th, Handel's Messiah, Carmina Burana and some Mozart Piano Concertos, and pretty soon we were on a plane to the Canary Islands. Justus had a ready-made public there on Gran Canaria, being full of old Germans. The program was very pleasing to their ears. Lots of clapping in unison and encores, speeches...
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On my birthday the orchestra played a very nice happy birthday and it was sung again at Justus' estate during lunch. He's being very generous with me. He had a large compound with rolling lawns. He sat down at the grand piano with his son and played duets. It was very touching.
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The orchestra and soloists enjoyed a New Year's Eve party at his place, from where we could see the fireworks.
We all said goodbye on arrival back in Germany, with actual cash money in our pockets.. suspicious?
I saw five Russians pile into the principal cellist, Sascha's BMW. I ran into him 20 years later in 2014 when I was making short films of the Australian Youth Orchestra on their European tour. I watched the new version of the orchestra enter the hotel, one by one after their concert. It was an older and more tired looking orchestra than it used to be. But I had to hand it to Sascha, still there in the factory. I wonder what kind of car he drives now.
My friend Dalia Schaechter (mezzo soprano) gave me her Berlin apartment for the entire month of January '95 while she was away. I slept 12 hrs a night for three weeks. Must have been tired. I practiced 5hrs a day, audition repertoire.
I used any time that I had left doing the busy work to get my applications in for auditions at a couple of schools. Plan A and Plan B.
The red tape of the German music schools was not necessarily difficult to negotiate, but the Freiburg school sent my papers back to Australia because something I had sent in was partially in English. I just pressed on and didn't take Nein! for an answer.
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One night I went to hear Frank Peter Zimmermann play the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Berlin Phil. I went on a Thursday with my Friday ticket. Oops. One of the ushers pointed it out on my ticket then he turned to help someone else. Now, I don't know why I did this, but when nobody was looking, I stepped over the velvet rope and walked into the hall which was about full with more people coming in still. It was clearly sold out. I was screwed.
Someone tapped on my shoulder and I turned around to see what my fate was going to be. It was a man with a spare ticket. Not just any man, it turned out to be the Frank Peter's manager, Marco Riaskoff.
Anyway, so... Fantastic free ticket for a ridiculously good concert, got to go backstage and meet Frank Peter, and went out to dinner with Marco and laughed for a couple of hours. He's hilarious. I came back the following night with my ticket which I didn't need because Marco had one for me. We have remained friends, even after I accidentally set fire to his dining room table one new year's eve in Amsterdam.
At the beginning of February I bought the important train ticket and then spent a few days in Köln, watched some lessons, did my audition, playing as my 'etude' Moto Perpetuo. That's all I remember, except that Rainer Moog and Matthias Bucholz, the two viola professors noted that I was right on the age limit, perhaps over it, but I was in. Rainer Moog had accepted me. I was very happy. It felt good there at the hochschule. I would be due back in April to start 'Aufbaustudium' - postgrad program.
In the days following the audition, Professor Moog gave me a lesson. It was the beginning of an overhaul of my entire technique: bowhold, vibrato, hand forms, and no shoulder rest, new chin rest. So basically open strings, and left hand exercises, vibrato exercises. It was a 'be careful what you wish for' moment.
I don't remember what my thinking was, but I still planned on doing my audition in Freiburg for Kim Kashkashian. It was scheduled for the end of the month, so I had a couple of weeks to kill. I called Barnabás and we agreed immediately that I should buy a plane ticket to Budapest for a ten day stay.
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His Dad picked me up at the airport. He was a cellist in the famous Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra. His mum was the harpsichord player. I had me his Dad once or twice when they were on tour. Lovely man. They had a beautiful house up on the hill - with a guest wing. It was winter and there was snow. As we got close to the house I noticed that the local kids were taking the bus up the hill and then skiing down through the forest.
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My time in Budapest was special. We played a few concerts at home for friends of the family. We read lots of chamber music. Barnabás had shot some video in Santa Barbara that past summer, so we had a lot of fun looking over that craziness. He ran off a VHS for me which I showed my family in March. They were charmed by him. Mum would meet him again when he was in Melbourne with his prize winning quartet.
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One night his Dad took us to a restaurant that had a "cigányzenekar" (Gypsy/Roma orchestra), with a well known prímás (band leader- well more than just that). The prímás knew the legend of the grandfather of Barnabás who was also a prímás, and they played one of his grandfather's arrangements or possibly original compositions, just for us. It was very special. I wish I could relive it. I remember well that we were given sports jackets to wear, so it must have really been a classy establishment.
The two of us went to big concerts, small ones.. I even heard Barnabás play a recital, and we went to a big Liszt Academy costume party. We had a whale of a time.
I had to go back to Germany to do that pointless audition in Freiburg. However, there was a great costume party the day after my audition, so I dressed up as a cowboy and had a blinder. Came home with a girl.
The audition the day before had been made awkward. I played very well, but one of the panel was acting like a douchebag, commenting that none of my audition repertoire was written for viola, Schubert was written for Arpeggionne, Brahms was for clarinet, Bach was for cello, Paganini was for violin.
-Dude, if I can play this stuff I can play any viola repertoire. Calm down and be quiet and let the sensible people talk. This isn't the appropriate time to express your hatred for your parents-
I only thought it.
Kim K. had accepted me, I found out much later, and she was obviously embarrassed by the dude making waves. I didn't really react, but I made a mental note that the place seemed inhospitable. In any case, their acceptance letter was sent by ship to Australia, so by the time it arrived, even if I had wanted to go it would have been too late.
I did go backstage at one of Kim's concerts in New York a few years later and she asked me where I went to study. She was quite lovely about it. She was like : "Yeah, he's a toughy." - referring to Moog.
-In 2002, shoe on the other foot, if she had decided to apply for the professorship at Stony Brook, I would have been on her committee. If she had come, I would have kept studying as long as possible.
The entire month of March, I spent in Melbourne,
LA Baroque Orch (solo in 1999)
Saskia wrote in 1997
Drove to Koln? , stayed a night with sabine, lucas, stayed with Ina stock, found apt, yellow carpet
Met felix
sextets
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and the Schumann piano quintet I played in front of a collection of France's best quartets at the time, in Deauville. Our car broke down in Lille and there was a train strike. Kind of a big problem when you have to perform that day.
The following week the mother of the two brothers in the Danel Quartet apologized to her cab driver for taking such a short cab ride, and he replied: "Don't worry, last week I took four boys all the way to Deauville."
The Schumann I got to record on period instruments outside Detroit in Ann Harbor with Jaap Schröder and friends. There's a beautifully written solo for viola in the slow movement which does well at the lower tension of A430.