<<  -- 4 --  Jennifer Paull    REMINISCENT RETROSPECTIVES

I had witnessed one of the most amazing proofs of Boulez' extraordinary ability to hear every note and detail. Once, after only a few bars rehearsing a very contemporary work scored for a variety of unusual instruments including the oboe d'amore, he suddenly gestured urgently for us all to stop. There must have been nearly a hundred musicians in the studio. 'Second trumpet. You are playing trumpet in Bb, it should be trumpet in C'. We all gasped. He could hear everything! Most of us couldn't hear ourselves play, there was such a volume of sound! Boulez could hear one wrong transposition in the middle of it all. The orchestra applauded and he looked totally perplexed. 'What is so unusual about that?' he seemed to be asking.

There I was playing in The Rite of Spring. It was a dream come true as I so admired Boulez' interpretation of this masterpiece. I had bought a new pair of earrings, and I was very pleased with them. Somewhat like a little chandelier, pearl drops hung from a central turquoise stone.

Everything was going wonderfully until the Danses des Adolescentes. With the movement of my head as I tongued the staccato rhythms, one of my earrings had worked itself loose. During one of those wonderful micro-silences that punctuate this work at its most exciting, off it fell, crash! I kept going, frantically concentrating as one must in order to swim and not sink in the tide of intricate counting.

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