Behind the Orchestra

During the week of February 16-22, the Akordaj team participated in a Job Shadowing mobility in Budapest organized by our partners in Hungary. Because we felt that we could not go to the city with the most Orchestras in Europe without attending concerts, we decided that almost every day should end with a cultural event.

Because Budapest is a city with a great audience that storms the concert halls whenever they get the chance, every event we attended was sold out, so our seats were perhaps not the best. However, our sutuation has contributed to this article which is nothing but a review offered by one of the participants, Mara Dumitriu, who will answer the question “What is it like to perform behind the orchestra?”:

“Under the baton of Gábor Takás-Nagy, the Máv Symphony Orchestra performs a concert of several works by Beethoven at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. How fascinating can a concert with such a well-known repertoire be, especially when one of the works performed is the 5th Symphony? It is hard to put into words how beautiful this concert was. To be honest, this is not going to be a review about the music, but about an experience.

Bad luck, or should I say good luck, meant that we only got seats behind the orchestra. Yes, at this concert you could sit behind the orchestra and in front of the conductor. In order to get to our seats we had to go on stage. When the lights went down in the hall, the seats we were sitting in were still in the spotlight. Playing the first bars was a bit intimidating being still so visible to the audience. But all that was happening in front of me quickly took away the awkwardness and suddenly I felt like a fellow member of the guild with the person playing in front of me at Timpani.

Perhaps the sound isn’t as contoured as from those five rows considered ideal, but the feeling is simply like nothing else in the world. It may not be the best acoustic for the instruments, but you can hear the conductor’s rebuke or encouragement loud and clear. I think for me that was the most surprising aspect. Conductors sing, scold or praise their instrumentalists while conducting. It’s not the first concert I’ve been to, but you never hear the conductor’s voice from the hall.

We heard the “Corilan” overture, Symphony No. 8, and after a short pause, the famous Symphony No. 5. From the audience, watching the orchestra, it looks and sounds so harmonious. Each instrument fits perfectly in its place, leaving the impression of an extremely elegant puzzle. From behind it, however, the whole picture breaks up. Suddenly, each instrument captures your attention independently of the other. The whole harmony became, at one point, difficult to follow. My attention was constantly being pulled in different directions, to the trumpets, the violins or the double bass.

In this dizzying context, a few violins got out of control, but this did not go unnoticed by the conductor. Thus, at the end of one of the sequences, he took a small accordion out of his pocket, raised it discreetly to the musicians and continued the concert. It is their language as the audience remains immersed in the darkness of the hall. Who would have believed how many things are happening right under our noses, as we are too caught up in the charms of art to notice?

Following the notes on the score of the percussionist in front of me, I somewhat lost track of time, and the concert ended far too quickly. I was brought back to reality by the roar of applause. I started applauding too, with a bit of emptiness in my stomach because it was over, but with a huge excitement for having experienced something like this. Maybe a normality in Hungary, but even the applause was special. From time to time, the whole hall started to applaud in the same slightly slowed down rhythm. Then it was back to the classic applause, and then the rhythm slowed down again. We were even checked out of the corner of our eyes by a lady next to us, whether we were following the rhythm or not. I think it must be a cultural difference because I couldn’t find any other explanation.

Finally, above and beyond the quality of the performers, the Franz Liszt Academy offers a special experience right from the entrance steps. A building, in which an enormous amount has been invested, creates the boundaries of a universe of music and art. At the same time, the renovation has been made as authentic as possible, so that the doors of this institution also take the place of gates that help you travel into the past.”

As we can see from the above, any experience in concert halls can be a unique one, even when it initially seems that our seats in the hall are the most uncomfortable.

The Akordaj team encourages you to attend a classical music concert whenever you have the chance because it can turn this experience into something unique and unforgettable for each listener.

If you are also an active concert-goer and would like to give us a unique concert review, you can send us your material to office@akordaj.ro.