Comments

Karen - the concertmaster rather than the conductor should be in charge of bowings for violin 1 (or section principal for violin 2s and other strings). A good concertmaster will distribute a copy of the part with appropriate bowings. The conductor, if s/he is not a string player, will not have a clue about bowings. If your concertmaster is not taking care of this, you should ask him/her to provide bowings in a timely manner. There are actually two separate issues. "Executive Orders" is written for choir with string quartet and guitar, and I am violin I in the quartet. So does that makes me sort of the "concertmaster," with those responsibilities?

During the initial rehearsals for that piece, I did notice that violin II and I were not always together with bowings, and before the dress rehearsal I showed her a couple of bowings that I wanted us to do together, and she seemed relieved to have me approach her about it. So I probably should have gotten a clue about that sooner, and will be able to before the encore performance of that piece, because there are more places where we two violins could be bowing together and aren't.

The issue that I want to discuss with the conductor for that piece isn't bowing, it's rhythm and fitting together as an ensemble. I had trouble following my part and counting during one movement when listening to the midi file and that was the movement I made a mistake on in performance too. I just don't get where to come in and how my part fits with the other parts. I listen to the midi file and count what's printed and then I hear the little computerized violin I come in where I don't expect it to--or I don't hear it when I think I should hear it.

But then there is the other issue of the full orchestra, where currently I'm a foot soldier in the back of the firsts. What I've observed is that the concertmaster is figuring out the bowings herself as we rehearse. I sat with her a couple of times in the past and that's how it worked then. My impression is that she's not entirely comfortable with that part of the role--and I sympathize.

I was concertmaster once, for a concert at Caltech a number of years ago, and getting the bowings stressed me out. But I did it. I remember even discussing bowings with my teacher in a lesson because I didn't feel comfortable figuring them out by myself for the entire section. People would ask me questions and I wanted to have an answer ready.

Karen - I think it is important to encourage the concertmaster to take charge of the bowings. One thing IMHO that is useful for everyone involved to keep in mind is that the actual choice of a particular bowing in a particular place (e.g., up or down on the third beat of measure four; should the last two sixteenths of measure 16 be slurred or not) is probably not as crucial as that everyone be doing the same thing. The conductor should be able to tell the musicians if a particular bowing causes him/her interpretive problems, at which point the bowing can be changed (e.g., the phrasing works better if the last two notes in measure 16 are slurred but are both up bow and dotted). Ideally, the concertmaster should have the bowings distributed in enough time so that the conductor and everyone else can tell if there is a problem necessitating a change. I recall the first advice my old teacher gave me on playing in an orchestra was to make sure to get the bowing right even if I couldn't play everything written on the sheet -- some sort of shadow playing as a first step to mingle in a group I guess. My limited orchestra experience in Canada coincides with what Tom said, it is one of a few jobs of a concertmaster to write down all the bowings for everyone in the section to follow.

Generally I find conductors are veryknowledgeable and the most helpful during rehearsals, as they’d teach us a lot about the music and how to put things together as a whole group. But sometimes, especially when we accompany a soloist, I’m not always sure whether and when it’s better to watch more closely to the conductor or the soloist (or the bowing for that matter).

I sometimes heard professional orchestra musicians complaining about how useless to have a conductor’s “chorography”, and after watching some DVDs performed by solo violinists accompanied by small or medium size orchestras without a conductor, the role of a conductor is more mysterious to me now than, say, 25 years ago.

oops, it should be "choreography". I like horeography