So many fascinating revelations have occurred while recording Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra this month with Chicago Symphonywith conductor Edwin Outwater. The soundtrack for this 25’ animated film, which journeys inside the orchestra to see how instruments work, is a vivid concerto for orchestra. Recording an orchestra during Covid is no small feat – and a real-world illustration of the film’s key theme: the orchestra as a beautiful example of “coming together.”
All film scores are recorded with a click track – i.e., a metronome – to ensure tight synchronization between music and images. For safety reasons, we’re recording in smaller groups – in this case by instrument families – and then putting everything together in post-production. Our recording engineer Shawn Murphy is a master at this, having just recorded Spielberg’s West Side Story (and several other films) in this manner. The Jedi-knight skills aren’t only required in the studio afterwards; the engineer also needs to set up the sessions so the players are as comfortable as possible.
So Shawn and his assistant Erik Swanson have made it possible, for example, to play back the violins while the low strings record, or play the brass when the woodwinds lay down their parts. That’s crucial for pitch and texture.
While there are obvious challenges to recording in isolation, some advantages have become obvious with this project. Because the film’s Sprite flies inside various instruments as they’re playing, we need some very close mic’ing of specific instruments. (The film’s poster art shows the Sprite inside the cello, for instance.) Spreading out the recording sessions over five days allows us to take the time to capture those close-up sounds.
Additionally, it’s interesting for the cello section to lay down its part without the brass blasting over them, allowing the cellists to really focus on their sound. One possible pitfall is precision obsession: in some orchestral tutti passages, players lean into their instruments more aggressively than they do when isolated. The orchestra rages euphorically at the climax of Philharmonia Fantastique, and we’re encouraging players to add grit to their sound at those moments. The accumulation of those intense instrumental textures are what makes a climax so thrilling.
After a year without orchestras, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion during the first session with violins. Just hearing them tune provoked a visceral emotional reaction; it’s been so long since I’ve heard a section tune. The lack of public discussion about the plight of the performing arts – especially when compared to, say, restaurants – has made the pandemic especially challenging for so many artists. It’s nice to be back with an orchestra I love, finding creative ways to make music again. Let’s hope orchestras look to September 2021 as a time to come back together in big ways. While that may be a challenge, it’s so crucial to the well-being of our collective cultural psyche. Orchestras are defined by the act of coming together, so let’s look to them as we emerge from this long year.
Photos by T. Rosenberg