Who is your favorite underrated composer?
My favorite underrated composer is Korngold. He wrote amazing chamber music and an amazing violin concerto and symphonies. The reason he’s underrated – or not taken as seriously – is because he was a Hollywood composer. People never really respected his serious compositions that much, but I think they’re fantastic.
What’s the hardest piece you’ve ever had to play with the Orchestra?
Everything’s hard. Well, not everything is hard, but one of the pieces I find most challenging actually is Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. I guess in terms of learning notes, playing a lot of difficult passagework – Mahler is very challenging, especially for the first violins, there’s a lot of leaping around. But once you learn it – once you learn anything, it becomes less challenging.
I guess there are different types of difficulty. There’s rhythmic difficulty – which you would get a lot in a composer like Stravinsky, where the notes aren’t really hard to play but playing them in the right place is difficult, like in the Rite of Spring. And then, there’s someone like Mahler, who writes a lot of notes, and Wagner – oh my God. Wagner – he writes tons of notes, so that’s time consuming. And then there’s difficulty like Beethoven, where everything has to be just right, you know, Beethoven and Mozart – right together, and rhythmically very precise but also very beautiful. That’s how I’d classify the difficulties of orchestra playing.
If the whole music thing hadn’t worked out, what would you imagine yourself doing right now?
Lying in a ditch. I don’t know. It’s not really an option—It’s what I had to do.
Favorite way to unwind after a killer performance?
Go out with friends to Monk’s.
Favorite band/group to see in concert?
I like going to all kinds of concerts – I used to be super into Rock concerts when I was a teenager. Probably one of my highlights was at the DRC pavilion with David Bowie in concert. And then, of course, I also love seeing classical concerts. I used to really love going to Carnegie Hall to see all the orchestras from Europe – they all came through New York, when I was in school, and I got a lot of inspiration from those concerts.
What is your guiltiest musical pleasure?
80’s music.
How did you manage to avoid distractions in college to practice violin?
Well, I would sort of reward my distractions with more practice. If I were extra debaucherous I would make myself practice more the next day.
Have you ever used the fact that you work for The Philadelphia Orchestra as a pick-up line?
No. It doesn’t hurt – but it also doesn’t seal the deal.
How do you determine whether to respond to the conductor immediately or with a slight delay?
It depends how clear the conductor is, and what kind of cue he gives – the upbeat. If he gives a slow, more indirect upbeat, we’ll probably play a little later.
That’s actually a very interesting question, because I had no idea, when I first came into the orchestra, where to play. A buddy of mine said: don’t play when the stick comes down – he said, play when it reaches the top. The stick will come up, and then will come down, and go up. If you play at the top, then you have time to react – everyone has time to react together, and then that’s one of the ways we can all read the conductor in a similar way, rather than all of trying to play when he gives the downbeat. [However], in rhythmic passages, you have to be with the conductor –assuming that he’s clear – because if we played behind, it would become a mess. In a rhythmic-like tempo, we tend to play more on the beat.
How else do you express yourself musically (aside from the orchestra), and how does that impact your life as an orchestra musician?
I’d say the way I derive the most inspiration aside from the orchestra is playing chamber music. I’m really lucky to have a number of wonderful colleagues who are excellent chamber musicians, as good as they get. So I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of musicians from the orchestra regularly, and that’s been a great thing for me, coming here. That kind of keeps me fresh, makes me stay on top of my solo playing, in addition to working in the orchestra, which is a sort of different style of playing.
--David Gottlieb
