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Music Preview: PSO cellist Anne Martindale Williams moves from first chair to the hot seat this weekend
Friday, April 07, 2000 By Andrew Druckenbrod Post-Gazette Classical Music Writer
An audition taken "on a lark" 24 years ago by cellist Anne Martindale Williams has given the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra plenty of reason to sing like one.
In 1976, Williams, now the PSO's principal cellist, was newly married and had recently graduated from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Hearing of an opening in Pittsburgh for assistant principal cellist, she decided to try out, "Not really having prepared for it greatly," she says.
Williams' relative nonchalance stemmed from her mentor. "My cello teacher said, 'If you don't make it in the real musical world, you can always fall back on an orchestral career,' " says Williams, 47. "[This] was the attitude that was very prevalent towards playing an orchestra at the time." That viewpoint has mostly faded away these days, as hundreds now vie for any given orchestral job.
In Williams' case, the solo circuit's loss has been the orchestra's gain. Throwing herself into the task, Williams became one of the stalwarts of the ensemble, respected for her integrity.
And, by simply by proving herself the best candidate for first chair, which she claimed in 1979, she helped modernize the PSO from the inside. Female principals were still scarce in 1984 everywhere.
For that matter, it was "not common 24 years ago" to be a woman in any capacity in the PSO, Williams explains. But she didn't feel the brunt of that pressure until she was promoted to principal. "Some of the old guard of the orchestra [were] not particularly appreciative that I was the one chosen," she says. "It was a little difficult for a while. You have to prove yourself and go through a trial by fire."
Most musicians, however, respect the transcendence of music more than gender boundaries. "The bottom line is that you have to play well, and set standards for yourself and, therefore, for your section," says Williams. The most trying challenge has been the latter, managing the cello section. "You have to have learned some management skills -- not something that's taught to you at music school," she says. Williams is helping to offset that deficiency by coaching some of her students at Carnegie Mellon University about the issue.
But if administrative headaches make up the downside of being a principal, it's not much of one for Williams. "I could count on two hands, in the 24 years of being in the orchestra, the days I have not wanted to go to work," she says in a beaming way that makes you believe the rather implausible statement. "Some of my friends in other fields of music say, 'How can you play in an orchestra for so long in the same city?' But I really love it."
And then there's the true upside of occupying the first desk: solos. At least once a year Williams steps out of the pack to play exactly how she, not a conductor, feels. "It's a nice benefit," she says.
Soloing involves some switching of gears, however. "The majority of my playing is done sitting in an orchestra," she says, "and all of a sudden you are in the front and are expected to appear as comfortable as others who do this for a living. You have to change the way your head works so that you're mentally, emotionally and physically prepared for that situation."
Williams will perform Ernest Bloch's rhapsodic "Schelomo" for cello and orchestra this weekend. She prepared by performing it earlier at Waynesburg College, a clever strategy that musicians sometime employ to force themselves to get the piece ready.
"Schelomo" is an intense piece that uses the entire dynamic range of the cello and notes that often sway from traditional equal temperament. "Technically, certainly, this is not as difficult as Dvorak or Shostakovich [cello concertos]," she says. "But it's difficult emotionally. It's a piece that takes you on a ride through all the human motions."
The piece follows the biblical story of King Solomon. Williams gets to be king for a day, portraying Solomon himself through "Oriental-sounding melodies with lots of augmented seconds [intervals]."
Done right, the performer must act as well as play, although through the playing of the notes, not through histrionics. Williams has spent some of her preparation trying to get into the mindset of the great Hebraic figure as best she can. Last time she performed "Schelomo" with the PSO, the cellist got a little help from her friends.
"I am not Jewish but my very good friend, Isaias Zelkowicz, associate principal in the viola section is," she says. "Last time I played this, he presented to me a very large kosher salami to put me in the mood."
It's not a plaque, but it shows just as poignantly how this once green college graduate has definitely gotten the respect of her symphonic peers.
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WITH: Anne Martindale Williams, cello; Ulf Schirmer, conductor
WHERE: Heinz Hall, Downtown