For three hours, Joe Nathan sits and watches the Minnesota Twins play ball. Then, the relief pitcher is asked to get three quick outs in the ninth inning. In 2007, the Twins played 1,458 innings. Nathan pitched in 72. Yet if he fails, a victory is lost. He is indispensable to the club.
Imagine now the percussionist perched at the back of the Minnesota Orchestra. He waits in fretful anticipation as the instruments around him furiously exhaust themselves, playing Mahler's Ninth Symphony. Finally, Osmo Vänskä fixes his eyes on the percussion section and gestures for the cymbals. CRAAAAASSSSSHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
"A Mahler without cymbal crashes just wouldn't be," said Brian Mount, principal percussionist. "There is so much build-up to a climax that only one instrument will do. And if I put the cymbals together badly, I never get that moment back. You're extremely exposed."
John Milton probably didn't have percussionists (or relief pitchers) in mind when he wrote eloquently about those who also serve by standing and waiting. And truth be told, percussionists would bristle at the notion that they only stand and wait, but to the casual observer it does appear they spend lots of time with their arms folded while the violins are furiously bowing.
"When we have public forums, we invariably get questions about the percussion section," said Gwen Pappas, the orchestra's spokeswoman. "Is it really a full-time job for someone to play the triangle? How do they decide who plays which instrument? Why does the timpani player always put his ear on the instrument?"
Jason Arkis, who plays timpani and percussion, took aim at those questions with a feistiness that betrayed his familiarity with the inquiry.
"Unless you come to the orchestra with the frequency that most people don't, you cannot get the full scope of what we do," said Arkis. "I never think, 'I only have two notes in this piece.' I make them the best two notes I can make. They are highly significant."
Beginning Thursday, audiences will get a better sense of the significance of percussion as the Minnesota Orchestra opens "Crash, Bang, Boom!" a three-week percussion festival that moves these natural back benchers down front. This week's program includes Bizet's "Carmen Suite," orchestrated by Rodion Shchedrin, and Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3.