Letter to Lorin Maazel from Terry Johns

[Nick Armstrong]

(Mahler 3 post-horn maybe?)

O bugler! you are quite right, of course!

Would there also have been a doppler effect?

I think the lift would have had to be moving rather fast for that to be perceptible, wouldn't it...?

Surely it should be caps off for Cali*?

* = other Hosts are available,

[DracoM]

Or in Leonora 3, offstage musician being bundled out by security saying ' 'ere, mate, you can't go back in there and you certainly can't play that ****** thing out here either. There's a concert going on in there............go on, scram..'

[EnemyoftheStoat]

I think the lift would have had to be moving rather fast for that to be perceptible, wouldn't it...?

I know, I know - couldn't resist the trombone joke-ette though, and should have known it would get a raspberry.

[Nick Armstrong]

and you certainly can't play that ****** thing out here

[Nick Armstrong]

I know, I know - couldn't resist the trombone joke-ette though, and should have known it would get a raspberry.

PARP!!!

[amateur51]

Or in Leonora 3, offstage musician being bundled out by security saying ' 'ere, mate, you can't go back in there and you certainly can't play that ****** thing out here either. There's a concert going on in there............go on, scram..'

[Petrushka]

'One has to be a bit of a b*****d to do this job' - Bernard Haitink

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In this particular instance I have some sympathy with Maazel though, as is often the case in such a scenario, he was probably shouting at the wrong person. The conductor will, indeed has to, know his job and should be able to depend on others to know theirs. In the eyes of the public a fiasco like this would have looked like the conductor's fault. No wonder he was so angry.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A right to be angry, yes, Pet; but nobody should express anger with this sort of behaviour. If the report is accurate, then Maazel, like Ferguson, was abusing his position of prestige to indulge in behaviour that would rightly have the rest of us put on compulsory Anger Management treatment.

Psychotic and reprehensible - this wasn't wasn't being "a bit of a bernard"; it was wallowing in thuggish bullying.

[amateur51]

A right to be angry, yes, Pet; but nobody should express anger with this sort of behaviour. If the report is accurate, then Maazel, like Ferguson, was abusing his position of prestige to indulge in behaviour that would rightly have the rest of us put on compulsory Anger Management treatment.

Psychotic and reprehensible - this wasn't wasn't being "a bit of a bernard"; it was wallowing in thuggish bullying.

I agree ferney; and I love "a bit of a bernard"

[Hornspieler]

'One has to be a bit of a b*****d to do this job' - Bernard Haitink

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In this particular instance I have some sympathy with Maazel though, as is often the case in such a scenario, he was probably shouting at the wrong person. The conductor will, indeed has to, know his job and should be able to depend on others to know theirs. In the eyes of the public a fiasco like this would have looked like the conductor's fault. No wonder he was so angry.

So Terry Johns - better known to the horn-playing fraternity as "Dracula" (or just "Drac") has emerged from the shadows after all this time to publicise a letter of complaint which he wrote to Lorin Maazal.

Why? After all this time. I don't suppose Maazal even bothered to read it.

Yes, the incident was unfortunate and spoilt a concert.
Yes, Maazal was wrong to accuse the nearest person of incompetence without finding out what had happened.

All conductors lose their tempers when their performance suffers from an unforgivable mistake or happening.

Horenstein. Arthur Fiedler. Antal Dorati. George Solti (the screaming skull). Georg Szell (The Iceberg). Herbert von Karajan.

Yes., and even that quintessential English gentleman Sir Adrian Boult; who I have seen in a vile temper tantrum more than once.

"The baton is always in C major"
"The baton doesn't make a noise"
"If you ever heard him play, you'd know why he took up conducting"

But the fact is that the conductor always carries the can. It is the conductor - not the orchestra that is not invited back.

So give it a rest, Drac. Let's move on and concentrate on the essentials - keeping music alive and kicking for the generations to come.

Hornspieler

[Richard Tarleton]

I was hoping we'd hear your view, HS. As for the principal onstage horn's actions (I'm pretty sure it was Alan Civil), I thought at the time it was pretty quick thinking but perhaps all in a day's work for such a distinguished horn player? I gather he was a, er, larger than life character.

[LaurieWatt]

PARP!!!

Since Caliban insists on lowering the tone, I am reminded of a story told me by one of the LPO horn section of a performance in the old hall at Glyndebourne of Idomeneo. It was during a hushed passage just before some unaccompanied singing on stage. At a crucial moment of silence, Nick Busch, principal horn, exhaled an enormously loud emanation of noxious gases, in much the language of the comments under reply, which recocheted around the hall incapacitating the singers and subsequent wind contribution at that rather tedious point (I was assured) in the opera!

Ditto, in the same hall at the end of one dinner interval - I cannot recall which opera - when a lady of advanced years in the front row of the stalls was getting audibly agitated that her husband had not re-appeared to sit with her. Relief, as the lights went down, silence fell, when the old man was spotted clambering over the neighbouring seats, and, as he sat down next to his wife, said in a hoarse whisper which echoed round the hall. "You were right about the asparagus, my dear!" ...

[salymap]

Since Caliban insists on lowering the tone, I am reminded of a story told me by one of the LPO horn section of a performance in the old hall at Glyndebourne of Idomeneo. It was during a hushed passage just before some unaccompanied singing on stage. At a crucial moment of silence, Nick Busch, principal horn, exhaled an enormously loud emanation of noxious gases, in much the language of the comments under reply, which recocheted around the hall incapacitating the singers and subsequent wind contribution at that rather tedious point (I was assured) in the opera!

Ditto, in the same hall at the end of one dinner interval - I cannot recall which opera - when a lady of advanced years in the front row of the stalls was getting audibly agitated that her husband had not re-appeared to sit with her. Relief, as the lights went down, silence fell, when the old man was spotted clambering over the neighbouring seats, and, as he sat down next to his wife, said in a hoarse whisper which echoed round the hall. "You were right about the asparagus, my dear!" ...

Oh dear

[Serial_Apologist]

What a wonderful thread!!!

Whilst having no tales about off-stage choruses etc to tell, I do well remember an avant-garde solo percussion performance, in which the preliminaries consisted in said percussionist having to fight his way out of a large paper bag. The noises were all part of the performance.

[Zucchini]

...to publicise a letter of complaint which he wrote to Lorin Maazal. Why? After all this time. I don't suppose Maazal even bothered to read it.
Hornspieler

It would have been written at the time, not in 2013.

I'm surprised you aren't aware of his book, Letters from Lines & Spaces (5 star reader rated on Amazon):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0057AMS2Q/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=terryjohnsnet

Don't be sore just because another horn player has stories to tell!