JAVS Fall 1989

19

I'm sure you'd much rather be following 'The Don' in the backseat of a Rolls Royce, but I rather want it to sound like you're on the back of a jackass!" The passage has been crystal clear to me ever since! Sir John always knew exactly what he wanted and was willing to work until that sound was communicated to the player and he could achieve it. Our first performance of Don Quixote was postponed because of the assassination of President Kennedy. When we finally performed the work, Sir John came out and gave an eloquent tribute to the late president before the performance. The entire orchestra and the soloists performed with an eloquence and majesty that is rarely achieved. Many of those in the room, both performers and audience, were moved to tears. A few years after Sir John's death, a European guest conductor programmed Don Quixote in Houston. It was the first work that we'd originally done with Barbirolli and we were now performing under another conductor; and of course our memories rushed back to our memorable Barbirolli performances. At the obligatory party afterwards, the guest conductor was overheard telling a group of people that he felt he had made a tremendous impression on the Houston Orchestra, because there were tears in the eyes of so many of the players during the performance! But a handful of us players are left who played under the direction of these two men in Houston. Certainly we experienced two extremely different approaches to handling the members of a symphony orchestra. True, neither was in his youth when they were in Houston, but both had had brilliant careers conducting world famous orchestras. Stokowski knew how to strike terror to the very depths of a player's soul. Sometimes one played with an incredible intensity simply, it seemed, because it might be God himself up there on the podium! Certainly, with his waxen outstretched hands and the halo of snow white hair, Stokowski created an almost religious atmosphere on stage. However, it was at his altar, not the composer's, that you worshipped.

Sir John's approach was so entirely different that it makes comparisons difficult--I can only reach for the contrasts. He treated his players like colleagues, with respect and admiration, always insisting that we "get things right." And we would do everything in our power to do just that. His abilities to teach, inspire, lead and control an orchestra made him the finest conductor I have ever known. Wayne Crouse graduated from the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied with Ivan Galamian, Dorothy DeLay and Milton Katims. He became principal violist of the Houston Symphony and was soloist under such conductors as Barbirolli, Sir William Walton (per forming his viola concerto), Andre Previn, and Jorge Mester at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. Crouse has been associated with the Marlboro and Aspen Festivals and is currently principal violist of the Sante Fe Opera Orchestra. He is professor of viola and chamber music nd violist of the Quartet Wuartet Oklahoma at the University of Oklahoma.•

THE BACH SUITES A Narrative

by

Leonard Davis

One day when I was very young, my teacher announced to my parents, "I think he's ready for Bach." Since she was strict and serious, I could foresee more troubling pages on my stand, along with the problematical etudes of Jacques Dont and Hans Sitt. Side by side their yellow covers proclaimed commands from my teacher: "Dont Sitt!" For years to follow, I felt a pang of guilt when I sat to practice. At first, the new minuet seemed hardly different from any others. Not at all! This was Bach, where the slightest errors became mortal sins! That was my inauspicious introduction to Bach and I could never have known that his music would one day become such a magnetic force in my life.