Ask An Expert: Revolving Winds & Resting Cellos

We have a double dose of questions this weekend, both concerning what we as an orchestra do with ourselves and our instruments on stage. Firing first is Gail:

Q: I thoroughly enjoyed last nights "Dvorak & Rachmaninoff" program - kudos to all involved! I wondered why there were so many personnel changes in the woodwind section from one piece to another - it seemed like there was a revolving door for the flutes and clarinets. Thanks again for a memorable evening.

Well, first of all, thanks for coming, Gail! It's definitely a fun program to play, and the audiences have been great all week. The reason for the wind and brass changes is twofold: first of all, the instrumentation is not exactly the same for all three pieces on the program. (For instance, there's a saxophone in the Rachmaninoff, and there are differing numbers of winds involved in the two pieces on the first half.)

Secondly, it is traditional in most orchestras for principal wind players to divide up the duties on long programs, simply because there is a physical limit to the strength of the human lip, and if a principal flute, for instance, tried to play every single piece on every single program, s/he would likely do serious physical damage by the end of the season. Sometimes, a principal will play the entire program one week (as our principal oboist, Basil Reeve, is doing this week) and then not play at all the next week. Other times (as you saw with our flutes and clarinets,) the principal will sit out one of the pieces on the program, and be replaced by the assistant principal. The non-principal wind players may shift around as well, but since their parts tend not to be as physically taxing, they are more likely to play everything on the program.

And just for the record, we string players, who of course play more notes in more pieces than anyone else in the orchestra, also have a system of "relief" services, whereby each of us takes a certain small number of concerts off each season to allow us to preserve our muscle strength. Unlike the winds, we don't swap out from piece to piece within a single program, but we do each sit out one or two programs a year. (Usually, these relief services aren't scheduled for our weekly subscription concerts, but on weeks when we're playing multiple sets of Young People's Concerts or pops shows.)

And speaking of strings, I believe Katie had a question about our cello section...

Q: Hello! I've noticed that at your concerts, the cellists put their cellos a certain way on the chair when there is intermission or something. They put the scroll on the chair, and then just kind of rest it there. I haven't seen that too much and so I was just wondering, is it safer to put my cello like that on a chair, or to have it sideways on the floor?

Ah, yes, the cello blockade! Katie is absolutely correct that our cellists rest their instruments at an angle against the seats of their chairs during intermission, rather than take them offstage or lay them on the floor. According to our principal cellist, Tony Ross, the main reason for this is that, since only the cello's endpin touches the floor when they lean the scroll against the chair, it's less likely that the varnish will be scratched by coming in contact with the stage.

Additionally, anyone who's ever played cello in a youth orchestra can tell you that non-cellists are absolutely horrible at noticing cellos resting next to chairs, and are forever walking into them, knocking them over, or at least coming close to doing serious damage. So by resting their cellos against the chairs, our cellists have not only made their instruments a lot more visible to the rest of us than they would be at ankle height on the floor, but they also effectively create a barrier that makes it impossible for the rest of us to even consider walking through the cello section. Safer for everyone, really...