Which way does the beat go?

by Tom Hardy
(London)

Yehudi Menuhin, a consummate musician and one of the world's finest violinists took to the baton in his later life. Some still consider this a mistake, though he did create some very fine music making over these years.

One particular evening with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra where I was playing contra bassoon he suffered a moment of directional dyslexia at the start of the last movement of Brahms' First Symphony. There are some empty beats and then the rumbling of cellos, double basses and contra starting this movement and it's a hard moment at the best of the times. However, his movements and blank confused look led to that moment of panic on what to do...as is the case with most orchestras, we started without him whilst he lunged in a sideways direction. We all arrived safely at the next bar and the horn solo lit up the room and sanity reigned. The rest of the bassoon section gave me a shuffle for taking the right initiative to continue but as I was just fresh out of the Guildhall School of Music I must say it was somewhat scary at the time and only amusing afterwards!