.jpg)
The Case of the Nonharmonic Orchestra
The conductor of the Ekklesia Philharmonic orchestra has encountered a significant problem: half the instrumentalists don’t agree with what song they should be playing next. All parts of the orchestra have different views, yet it disproportionately affects some sections more than others. For instance, the trumpets generally want to play a lively Gigue, while the violins mostly want to play a stately Sarabande. The woodwinds are about evenly divided on this question - as are most of the other instrument groups. Whenever a rehearsal begins, the conductor barely gets through the first 4 bars before a horrible clash occurs as each group insists on playing their preferred piece. This riles the trumpets up to play even louder, and the violins follow suit - and the clash is so terrible that everyone grinds to a halt. A few stand to their feet in protest - some walk out, and there ends up being a shouting match - with the trumpets and violins taking the lead in the shouting. The violins get to the stage that they don’t even think the Gigue is a legitimate piece of music. The trumpets loudly proclaim that their differences are irreconcilable.
The knock-on effect of this over a few rehearsals has been startling: it is getting to a stage that the trumpets don’t even want to play in the same room as the violins, and are starting to set up an alternative orchestra in an adjacent room - just close enough that they can still be heard by everyone. The violins think this behaviour is rubbish and are using it as evidence for the fact that the Gigue must be wrong, because of how the trumpets are behaving. The flutes hate all the shouting and many of them don’t turn up to rehearsals anymore because it’s such a nasty environment. Some of the oboes are wondering if the violins are perhaps right about the Sarabande being better because the trumpets are so constantly combative about it. The violas point out to everyone that the word ‘unison’ is written on the score, calling everyone to play together - and that they can’t do it without the trumpets, or the violins - everyone is needed. They are trying to talk to the trumpets and to the violins to see if they might consider playing together again - but haven’t yet succeeded.
What makes this worse, is that it is concert season, and this dysfunctional orchestra is about to play in front of a huge audience. Indeed many people new to music sit in on rehearsals, and used to enjoy the beautiful sound - some even took up a musical instrument and joined in - but such enquirers are becoming few and far between now that rehearsals so often end in fights. People see the behaviour of both groups and abandon the idea of ever joining the orchestra. Beginners are throwing their instruments away in disgust. Some are doubting the existence of real music altogether.
And things soon take a nightmarish turn. The violins accuse the trumpets of not being real instruments. And the trumpets do the same back. The insults get wilder and wilder. The ones who really take this to heart, however, are the Trombones, who are not really part of the debate and just want the anger to go away. They have been questioning their place there for a while now anyway. They begin to say to themselves, "Because I am not a violin, or a trumpet, I surely can't be part of the orchestra!" And one day none of them turn up to rehearsal.
Yet no-one notices their absence - because some of the instrumentalists have begun aligning themselves according to how much wood is contained in their instrument - the "wood club". (Ironically many of the woodwind themselves - e.g. the Flutes - are excluded from this club.) And the trumpets bite back by creating the "brass club" - membership requiring a certain percentage of your instrument to be made of metal. The conductor holds her head in despair, trying to explain to them all what the concept of an "orchestra" is, using the 1st Edition Corinthian Orchestral Manual chapter 12... But she doubts whether they really care about what this chapter says anymore.
This conductor is in quite a conundrum. The Philharmonic has become the Nonharmonic.
On the one hand, she absolutely knows that there must be harmony for the orchestra to be a ‘lover of harmony’ (i.e. “Philharmonic”) - and for this they all ultimately need to play the same piece of music, at the same time. She knows the tragedy is that if only they would play together, they could make a beautiful sound. She has a few initial ideas of options…
She initially tried simply pushing ahead with one of the pieces of music - the Gigue - and then just playing with those who want to. Sadly, however, none of the violins join in, and many of them storm off to another room, now also refusing to work with the conductor (as well as each other), and the piece of music completely falls flat. She realises that she isn’t achieving unity of music with all the players if most of the instruments aren’t even in the same room!
She then tries offering both pieces in adjacent rooms, and allows instrumentalists to choose which one, careful to differentiate between the two groups. She finds another conductor for the Sarabande group and then goes ahead with the Gigue with her group. This seems ingenious to begin with, and is initially popular with both groups, yet they all soon realise that neither of the pieces will work because the Sarabande is missing the trumpet fanfare, and the Gigue is missing the intricate violin descant. The music produced by both groups is bland and lifeless. Attendance at concerts falls and no-one really wants to join the orchestra anymore - which only ever meets separately these days. Even the players feel dull and uninspired by the incomplete harmonies and silent bars, and many on both sides are so disillusioned that they don’t want to play anymore.
So the conductor tries a new, controversial idea: she remembers that there was one piece of music, the Euangelion Symphony that they all used to play together beautifully in the early days of the orchestra. There were still strong views and differences in style, but everyone loved playing together enough to not let these cause fallouts. So she tries inviting the bitter parties together to play this old favourite. Everyone else thinks she’s out-of-touch because all the other Philharmonic orchestras across the nation are either playing the Gigue or the Sarabande on repeat, on the radio, television and on videos on social media - often arguing why the others have chosen the wrong music. Some even suggested that this particular symphony was impossible to play without choosing which of the others to play first...
But the courageous conductor gave it a go! And here, slowly, one-by-one, the players decided to give the orchestra another chance because they all remember the musical devotion of their youth, playing this old, favourite piece - it is a part of each and every one of their stories. It was in fact the way that each one of them came to love music to begin with. As they begin to play together again, extremely rusty at first, over many months, to their amazement the violins start to learn to deeply love the mellow sound of the trumpets, and the trumpets realise how they missed - and indeed longed for - the soaring scales of the violins.
And then, after a particularly beautiful rehearsal where the trumpets and violins, with true heartfelt espressivo, form the chord of the final perfect cadence together, as the warm evening sunlight floods the room, everyone is so moved that Violin 2 stands up, walks over and shakes Trumpet 3’s hand. When leaning over, he sees the sunlight catch the other music on the stand, and what he says next shocks the rest of the violins, and utterly surprises everyone:
“You played so beautifully!"
A moment of pensive silence... then...
"You know what, why don’t we try out that old Gigue - the one in front of you.
It must be mean a lot to you... so I'd like to hear it after all...”
The conductor is startled but agrees. Some of the violins shake their heads in disgust and initially refuse to play. Yet the Gigue begins with an exquisite solo by this very same Violin 2, which so inspires the string section that one by one, all their previous objections seem to just fall away in the beauty of the moment. And so each and every one of them joins in within the next few phrases. The trumpets are enthralled by the beauty of the completeness of the piece and the hall is filled with the sound of their rapturous notes - as the same golden sunlight glistens off the brass of their valves and the polished pernambuco wood of their newfound friends' bows. To everyone's sheer amazement, that golden hour creates one of the firmest favourites on their repertoire.
So, once again, the orchestra became Philharmonic. And their music, played with the full orchestra, was so beautiful that all over the nation filled concert halls and lined the street to hear a little of the sound. No other orchestra could agree enough to play it in full, like them.
And so many multitudes came to know what music really is.