[Martin Elster]

Allen, your poem is really nice. I enjoyed it. In the HSO, some of the fiddle players did actually get riled sometimes — flustered even — when the percussion section played loudly. It’s the conductor’s decision, of course, how loudly or softly each instrument needs to be. It’s their job to achieve the right balance. And if the composer wants it loud, other members of the orchestra should get over it! Actually, the stage hands started putting up sound shields in between us and the French horns and trumpets. But in the last few years, they abandoned that idea, since those shields took up too much space.

During rehearsals of Ottorino Respighi’s The Pines of Rome, I was playing the Tam-Tam (gong) (as well as the glockenspiel). The Tam-Tam is prominent near the end of the piece. The second trumpet player asked me to play less loudly because she was pregnant and didn’t want the gong noise to rattle or disturb her fetus. That’s quite understandable, so I toned it down in the performances. I don’t know if Respighi would have liked it, but he’s under the ground.

Another time (many moons ago), during the first rehearsal of a program, the whole percussion section played a unison crash in a piece by (if I remember) Ralph Vaughn Williams. We played it so together that I smiled. Later, one of the female violinists got really angry at me (for smiling). She assumed that I smiled because the crash was so loud. I explained to her that it was because I was amazed about how precisely together we were on the first try. She really was irate! But I know that you, Allen, would never have complained.

It’s nice that you played violin, and I’m glad you imagined the g, d, a, and e strings vibrating.

Fliss, I like the imagery in your Spring Song.