98 ❧ chapter six
Since none of us yet knew what the work really sounded like, we listened that
morning to broadcast tapes of our performance of the night before, hoping to
get to know it a little better before recording it in the evening. On hearing it as
a whole I was greatly moved, not merely because of my own overwrought state,
but because I was awestruck and profoundly happy at the progression toward
this beautiful piece that had been accomplished by the amusing but relatively
unpromising undergraduate whom I had known at Harvard thirty years before.
I participated in two subsequent performances of the Double Concerto, both
of which were disgraceful. One took place in April 1962 for the BBC, but with
inadequate rehearsal and an incompetent conductor. The other performance
two months later, also for the BBC, was less adequately rehearsed because its
conductor, Hans Rosbaud, was then dying of cancer and could not hold out
to the end of what little rehearsal periods had been allotted him. But he had
one of the fi nest baton techniques of any conductor with whom I have ever
played; and though in the performance we were never really together, he man-
aged to pull us through without a real breakdown. By this time I felt that I had
no obligation to participate in any more of such makeshift performances and
withdrew, not without regret, from any further participation in this magnifi -
cent work.
In recent years, adequate performances of the Double Concerto can be
obtained on far fewer rehearsals than were originally necessary. The printed
score is legible, and recorded performances make it possible to know in
advance what the work sounds like. It has quite properly taken its place among
the classics of twentieth-century music.
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rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
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