Are musicians second fiddle?
A brief item rather cutely titled “A Cycle Built for 2” in the Jan. 6 Weekend Forecast section informs readers that “Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Esa-Pekka Salonen and pianist Mitsuko Uchida team up for their first survey of Beethoven’s piano concertos.” Nowhere is there any mention of any other musicians involved in these programs that included three symphonies by Haydn.
All these years I was under the apparently mistaken impression that a large group of musicians called an “orchestra” is needed, in addition to a pianist, to perform concertos and symphonies.
According to your writers and editors, it looks like all of my colleagues in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and I can take a couple of weeks off while our audience is treated to a deeply unsatisfying exhibition of the pianist playing the concertos (and even the symphonies?) all by her lonely self with the conductor.
Thank you, L.A. Times, for this unexpected extra vacation!
Mark Kashper
Los Angeles
Mark Kashper is the associate principal second violinist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
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