Just Watching

I had an interesting day at work yesterday, and I somewhat doubt that I'll ever have another one like it. We're playing Handel's Messiah this week, and as is standard these days, the orchestra and chorus are both cut down to chamber size, so as to be more authentic to what Handel would have expected for a performance of his oratorio. Now, whenever we cut string players from a performance, we always leave one extra player in each string section for the first few rehearsals. This player is called the "plus," and won't play the concerts unless someone else in the section gets sick. So basically, you rehearse the repertoire, and are then on call for the performances.

I'm the plus for our Messiah this year, and I know already that I'll be playing Sunday's concert, since our principal will be out of town that day. So I showed up for rehearsal yesterday afternoon and took my place at the back of the reduced section. But only a few minutes into the rehearsal, the conductor (the estimable Christopher Warren-Green) realized that, with such a small orchestra, the extra players were making it difficult to accurately judge the balance of sound. Since soloists frequently struggle to be heard above the orchestra in Messiah, proper balance is a real concern. So, smiling apologetically, Chris looked at those of us in the plus chairs, and said, "How would you feel about not playing - you know, just watching?"

We felt fine about it, since obviously, we've all played this piece many times, it's not overly difficult, and as long as we were still in the room, we'd hear and see whatever particular changes and stylistic things Warren-Green might ask for. But as I put down my viola and settled in, I immediately felt profoundly out of place, like an interloper who'd snuck into the orchestra and was just standing there, staring at the musicians. I felt like this for the whole afternoon, especially once the chorus showed up. (Since they were behind me, I now had 40 or so people watching me watch the orchestra. Surprisingly, only one asked me what the hell I was doing there if I wasn't going to play.)

I tried putting a magazine on my stand eventually, just to give my mind something to do when nothing requiring my attention was going on. (Wind and brass players, who frequently have long gaps or even entire movements where they don't play, do this all the time, sometimes even in concerts.) But I found that I couldn't focus on the article I was reading while the orchestra was playing. If I heard something start to pull apart in the ensemble, I reacted physically the same way I would have if I'd been holding the viola, leaning in towards my principal and bobbing my head with the pulse. It was a very odd sensation, almost like an out-of-body experience. This was my orchestra, and I was on stage, but really, I wasn't, at least not in any way that mattered. Disconcerting. Sort of fun, in a pseudo-voyeuristic sense, but still, disconcerting.