Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The musicians already know the music, so what does a Pittsburgh Symphony rehearsal actually sound like?

By Jeremy Reynolds

There’s more to playing music than sounding the right notes at the right time.

Anyone who’s ever sung or picked up an instrument knows this. There’s something extra that goes into communicating a feeling or idea through abstract sound. This is especially clear at a live orchestral rehearsal.

On Thursday morning in Heinz Hall, Giancarlo Guerrero, the guest conductor for this weekend’s Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concerts, sang, shouted and stomped in his efforts to coax precisely the right character of sound from the orchestra.

The orchestra was working its way in reverse through the fourth symphony of German composer Johannes Brahms, he of the serious music and waggish humor. (Brahms once tricked a friend into thinking the friend had discovered an unknown work by Beethoven by scrawling some notes on a fish wrapper.)

Is 10 hours enough rehearsal time for a professional orchestra?

“It’s a little bright, here. It needs a darker color,” Guererro admonished during a passage, moving his hands as though pushing a mass of water to and fro to demonstrate.

Musicians often throw around terms like color and darkness and warmth to describe sound. They are analogous to measurable acoustic properties and have to do with the character of a pitch and its mathematical tonal properties And, with the hundred or so instruments of the orchestra united in character, the sum of the music is greater than its parts.

For each performance weekend, the musicians typically have about 10 hours of rehearsal to prepare about 90 minutes of music to every last detail. All players are expected to arrive at rehearsal fully prepared to play their parts perfectly; rehearsals are for developing the group’s sound as a whole, and any individual technical problems can cause a significant waste of time.

Each rehearsal is a mix of running through large-scale passages or entire movements and drilling in depth into specific passages to make adjustments. To keep the day moving, Guererro spoke quickly and moved dynamically, leaping and fencing with his baton at times to demonstrate the emotion of the sound he wanted from the orchestra.

“The opening here is like singing in church,” he told the trombones at one moment, singing to the strings at another “It needs more of a... bah-bah-ENGHHH character!”

Apparently, they understood what he meant.

Classical music’s abstraction is part of what continues to draw listeners to the same works even hundreds of years later. The forms and tonal systems are familiar enough for listeners to make their own interpretations but not so prescriptive that there’s a right and wrong way to listen or draw meaning.

At the performances this weekend, audience members may not hear the exact particulars of what Guererro asked for before the concert, but the hope is that the orchestra’s precision and music’s power will evoke some sort of emotional response.

While this can sound mysterious and mystical, it’s actually fairly calculable — music that moves faster than one’s heart rhythm tends to energize. Deeper, smoother tones evoke calm, while lighter higher passages can bring excitement; it’s natural to relate melodies to the speaking voice. There is a growing body of literature probing the way sounds and pitches can activate and “tune” listeners’ brainwaves.

Far from removing the power and mystery of this art form, understanding these relationships can only help to better connect and tap into music’s power to touch the emotions and the soul.

And as for the literal story of the symphony, it was played at Brahms’ final public appearance in 1896 before he passed away. A standing ovation capped off each and every movement.

This weekend’s program features Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto, and Sean Shepherd’s “Sprout.” Concerts take place in Heinz Hall, Downtown, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets begin at $25 at pittsburghsymphony.org.

Jeremy Reynolds: jreynolds@post-gazette.com. His work at the Post-Gazette is supported in part by a grant from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Getty Foundation and Rubin Institute.

Original Article HERE