The Royal Welsh College Wind Ensemble was conducted last Friday by bassoon legend Pascal Gallois, in a concert that included Olivier Messiaen’s extravagant masterpiece Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum.
Student Shaun Rigby was one of six percussionists required for the performance:
“Everyone in the department knew of this piece, purely because of its outrageous selection and use of percussion. Some of the instruments used within the work are conventional instruments like tam-tams and tubular bells. Messiaen then goes in the complete opposite direction and decides that one player is to cover six tuned gongs, and the remaining three percussionists are to play 3.5 octaves of tuned cowbells. That is just peculiar!
I don’t think any music college in the UK has 3.5 octaves of cowbells at their disposal so we had to hire the instruments in. Luckily, we got the instruments two weeks before we started rehearsing, so we could become accustomed to them. When the gear arrived, there was so much it couldn’t fit into the lift in one go.
We were fortunate that Chris Stock (Principal Percussion, BBC National Orchestra of Wales) came in and led a sectional on the work before we began rehearsals with the rest of the Wind Ensemble. This really helped us to fully understand our roles within each movement; it really is important to know with a piece of this calibre when you have the melody or when you are accompanying, and who you are accompanying. It was also useful to find the correct balance between the three players on the cowbells.
When I arrived for rehearsals with the Wind Ensemble, it was obvious from the first 3-4 bars that Pascal Gallois really knows this piece. He knew exactly what he wanted from every player and was able to help technically with every musician (including tubular bells and gongs). To have a conductor as renowned as Gallois for both his playing ability and his conducting prowess was fantastic. I never thought that the College would be able to find a conductor who had worked with Messiaen himself. It certainly is a highlight of my music college career so far.
Gallois really did push each musician to the extremes of their volume. When the audience start to put their fingers in their ears to protect themselves against a 38″ Tam Tam roll at ffff (plus the additional five fortes pencilled in by a previous performer!), you know it’s really loud.”
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