THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504090052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
The sheet music to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony instructs musicians to attack it allegre con brio. Briskly, with zest.
Saturday, when a troupe of novices playing everything from cellos and violins to harmonicas, kazoos and an accordion joined the Virginia Symphony for a go at Ludwig van Beethoven's most famous piece, the instructions were loosely translated: Play it boldly, play it joyfully, play it with courage and raw power.
Damn the adagios, full speed ahead.
The symphony took its music to the streets this weekend, popping up all over the region for a Marathon Weekend fund-raiser. Saturday afternoon they formed up in a cul-de-sac of Chesapeake Square Mall, right in front of Leggett's, beside Racecar Concepts, ``the official NASCAR shop,'' and invited all comers to sit in with them.
Some 50 people took them up on it. They were as young as 3, and as old as ``mind your own business.'' Child prodigies, marching-band refugees, serious musical hobbyists and rusty used-to-be's spent an hour under the baton of Maestro JoAnn Falletta, the globally famous conductor who led them in a fearless frontal assault on the most recognizable piece of music ever written.
You know this piece. Everybody knows this piece. It's the one that begins, Da-da-da Duhhhh. Da-da-da-Duuuhhh. It has been co-opted at one time or another by breakfast cereal merchants, synthesizer-crazed rock bands and as background music for documentary footage of Winston Churchill touring the bombed ruins of London.
The music might have become something of a bombed ruin itself Saturday, but for the skilled hand and wry grin of Ms. Falletta. She cut them no slack. If they were going to queue up for the chance to say they'd once played under the baton of a renowned maestro, then that's what she was going to give them.
There was no walk-through, no warm-up, no going back once she hit the downbeat. Da-da-da Duhhhh. Just like the skilled symphony professionals, the hackers would suddenly find Falletta's baton challenging them for an entrance. (You could tell the wanna-be's from the professionals: A pair of eyebrows would suddenly lurch skyward, screaming, ``Yeek, I'm lost!'' A friendly violin bow would flick quickly to the sheet music, whispering, ``We're over here.'')
Surprisingly, it sounded just grand. There was that moment, right at the downbeat for the fourth movement, when somebody's ukelele crashed to the floor - ``That was a first,'' Falletta confessed later - and there were occasional squeaks and whistles and wheezes where there should have been silence. But it was good enough to draw rousing applause from the scores of shoppers who'd interrupted their mall-aisle amblings to give a listen.
As long as she had everybody fired up, the maestro led the orchestra in a rousing encore, John Philip Sousa's ``Stars and Stripes Forever.''
``Wow, wasn't that fun?'' Falletta said afterward, grinning ear to ear. ``Wasn't it great? I'm always surprised just how well they do. I think the symphony musicians enjoy this more than anyone.''
The performance also marked the ``professional'' debut of Anna Bishop, a 3-year-old who studiously whipped her little bow across a pocket-sized violin throughout the best Mr. Beethoven could throw at her.
She had tucked into a chair right next to Lisa Bishop, her mom, who is a symphony violinist. Anna's father, Tim, plays percussion.
``I got a little tired,'' Anna said, but, ``It was fun.''
That's just the way Mr. Beethoven meant it to be. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by BETH BERGMAN, Staff
Anna Bishop, 3, plays the violin Saturday. Her mom, Lisa, is a
symphony violinist. Her father, Tim, plays percussion.
JoAnn Falletta, Virginia Symphony maestro, leads all comers in
Chesapeake.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA SYMPHONY by CNB