I had the feeling that David Robertson was on his game right away in the morning rehearsal of Debussy. (By the way, the Fusion concert at Touhill tomorrow night is sold out!) The metaphors were fast and inventive. David translated a French phrase as “the feeling of having one too many valiums.” He told the musicians to play one passage “kind of like old Marlon Brando, like there’s no voice left after 40 years of chain smoking.”
And, because he is a generous conductor, he told the players at one point where a transition was particularly challenging, “Turn the page [of the score] slowly and calmly and I’ll wait all day if I need to.”
