So I was incorrect. And the sad thing is, I had a sneaking suspicion, even as I wrote it, that I was making an error, and writing the wrong thing. But I went ahead and did it anyway, because it was too late to make a phone call to confirm, and I just thought: Who cares?
And the truth is, no one cares but me.
Still, I’m writing to correct it. I knew that Haydn was a classical, and not a baroque, composer. I did not remember– as I’m certain R. Larry Todd, music professor at Duke and author of a best-selling biography on Mendelssohn and my erstwhile teacher, told me– that Haydn is basically considered responsible for creating the symphony, but I did know that he was a contemporary of Mozart, who is Decidedly Classical. I should have known. I shouldn’t have said it was a baroque piece we were playing. I should have said it was classical.
What is all of this? you might ask. To what can she possibly be referring? you might say. And I would say that I am correcting an error about a classical piece by Haydn in a recent entry on this blog.
And now I’ve done it. Corrected it, I mean.
The thing is that baroque music, in my limited experience, really is fun to play. And it’s bouncy. Really. It’s generally happy music, with a tidy tempo and clever variations and something basically pleasing about it. The Haydn piece we are playing in the orchestra shares some of these characteristics. Hence the error. Hence the correction.
I also must correct another error from that same blog entry, one that was pointed out to me, ever so gently, by gentle Byron himself: He does not use a baton. Ever. And this is because batons can be unruly things and hard to control, with tendencies that make retaining one’s hold on them Tricky and Unnerving and, it must be said, Dangerous.
I knew I made that error when I made it. In fact, it was no error. In fact, I lied. I said that Byron might point his baton at me, when I knew in fact that he would never do such a thing, not only because he is so gentle, but because he Never Uses One. I lied because it suited my writing. I have done it before, and I will do it again. Don’t say I never warned you.
Orchestra rehearsal, by the way, went swimmingly today. And we had ever so many people there, in all sections of the orchestra. And I was reminded, by the sound that came from my instrument and the reluctance of my fingers, that I Must Practice More.
If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist.
– Ned Rorem
