Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 On Receiving the First Aspen Award
- 2 ‘Music is now free for all’: Britten's Aspen Award Speech
- 3 Britten and Cardew
- 4 After the Fludde: Ambitious Music for All-comers
- 5 ‘A vigorous unbroken tradition’: British Composers and the Community since the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
- 6 ‘I am because you are’
- 7 ‘A real composer coming to talk to us’
- 8 Running Away from Rock ’n’ Roll
- 9 Finding a Place in Society; Finding a Voice
- 10 A Matrix of Possibilities
- 11 ‘I was St Francis’
- 12 Reflections on Composers, Orchestras and Communities: Motivation, Music and Meaning
- 13 ‘Sounding good with other people’
- 14 ‘Making music is how you understand it’: Dartington Conversations with Harrison Birtwistle, Philip Cashian, Peter Wiegold and John Woolrich
- 15 The Composer and the Audience
- 16 The Composer in the Classroom
- 17 Unleashed: Collaboration, Connectivity and Creativity
- 18 ‘One equal music’
- 19 Only Connect
- 20 Britten’s Holy Triangle
- Postlude: ‘Britten lives here’
- Appendix: A Practice
- Index
13 - ‘Sounding good with other people’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 On Receiving the First Aspen Award
- 2 ‘Music is now free for all’: Britten's Aspen Award Speech
- 3 Britten and Cardew
- 4 After the Fludde: Ambitious Music for All-comers
- 5 ‘A vigorous unbroken tradition’: British Composers and the Community since the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
- 6 ‘I am because you are’
- 7 ‘A real composer coming to talk to us’
- 8 Running Away from Rock ’n’ Roll
- 9 Finding a Place in Society; Finding a Voice
- 10 A Matrix of Possibilities
- 11 ‘I was St Francis’
- 12 Reflections on Composers, Orchestras and Communities: Motivation, Music and Meaning
- 13 ‘Sounding good with other people’
- 14 ‘Making music is how you understand it’: Dartington Conversations with Harrison Birtwistle, Philip Cashian, Peter Wiegold and John Woolrich
- 15 The Composer and the Audience
- 16 The Composer in the Classroom
- 17 Unleashed: Collaboration, Connectivity and Creativity
- 18 ‘One equal music’
- 19 Only Connect
- 20 Britten’s Holy Triangle
- Postlude: ‘Britten lives here’
- Appendix: A Practice
- Index
Summary
Clarinettist Douglas Mitchell was a member of the RPO’s Community and Education programme from its first day. At the beginning of this chapter, in which he talks to Peter Wiegold, he takes us into another recognisable music community, that of the classical instrumental teacher and her students. The teacher not only passes on instrumental technique, and the survival strategies for a tough professional future, but inducts his students into a very refined lineage of style and manner and, in this case, reveals to them a particular way of understanding the value of listening and support.
In a year ‘off’ between school and college I had lessons with the clarinettist Joe Pacewicz from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. I’d go to his house late on a Saturday morning and we’d do some playing; then his wife would cook a nice lunch, perhaps we’d listen to some CDs, then there was a bit more playing and talking. After that, he would have a shower, get ready and drive us into town, where he’d sneak me into the RSNO concert; afterwards, we’d go to a pub. I think all of that would cost me ten pounds – it’s only later you realise that this is someone who has given you his whole day, before he has to perform in a potentially difficult concert.
I was thinking of going to university, but on one of those Saturdays there was a long conversation with Joe, in which he asked me what I was going to do with my clarinet playing. ‘You may get a broad academic palette, but afterwards? You won’t get into the profession the way you are playing now.’ He said, ‘Let’s put in a lot of hours this year, and get more experience of playing all kinds of music’ – and that was the turning point in my life. The sessions were geared towards college, but there were also insights into orchestral playing, especially into style – why a short note in a Mozart symphony is different from a short note in a Stravinsky ballet. Joe stressed over and over that this was not just about sounding brilliant at solo clarinet; it was about sounding good with other people. And that is what motivated me, and still motivates me, much more than standing out in front.
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- Information
- Beyond BrittenThe Composer and the Community, pp. 153 - 160Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015