I traveled all day by train from Philadelphia, arrived in Boston the evening before my appointment, and took a room at the old Sherry Biltmore a few blocks from Symphony Hall. I was in town to undergo a form of legalized torture that symphony orchestras use when hiring new musicians. It's called "the audition."
The morning dawned gray and bleak, and the February sky was threatening to drop another load of snow at any minute. Clutching my coat collar, I walked through the stage door at 8:30 in the morning and was conducted by a somber, wizened stagehand to a room where I could warm up with my bassoon. Opening the door, I received my first surprise of the day. There were about thirty people of every description in the room. Some were sitting, others were standing -- all were playing bassoons. Warming up under these conditions would be like trying to strike a match in a hurricane. My first impulse was to take the next train back to Philadelphia, but after having spent money for fare and hotel, I thought I should have at least "one turn at bat."
I put my bassoon together and started running through some scales. My fingers felt stiff, my reed wasn't vibrating evenly, but to make matters worse, a soft throbbing had started at the base of my brain and seemed to be spreading up both sides of my head. Not knowing what to do to keep the cacophony of thirty wailing bassoons from my ears, I kept playing louder and louder and had started on a few arpeggios when a door at the other end of the room flew open, and a short plump man walked in. There was something official about him that made everyone, including me, stop playing. He introduced himself as Rosario Mazzeo, personnel manager of the Boston Symphony. The format of the auditions, he said, would consist of several preliminary rounds behind a screen in which we would perform a concerto of our choice and selected passages from the symphonic repertoire. From these initial hearings, players would be selected to compete in a final round later that day. No, he didn't know what time we'd be finished, and yes, an accompanist would be available to play for the finalists. "And now," Mr. Mazzeo asked, "Who'd like to go first?" I pretended not to hear the question and bent over my bassoon to remove an imaginary piece of fuzz from between two keys. I was hoping to stall so that I would have more time to warm up and to prepare my concerto. But no one spoke.
"All right then," Mr. Mazzeo said, "I'll assign everyone a number, and when it is called, please come onto the stage." With pencil and clipboard, he walked around the room and spoke briefly to each of us. When he came to me, he told me my number was nineteen. I watched Mr. Mazzeo leave the room accompanied by "number one," who was looking very pale. The rest of us remained in the room, and it seemed to me that those who continued playing and fidgeting with their instruments had been assigned the lower numbers, and those who relaxed a little had been assigned the higher ones. Having grown accustomed to the room, I looked around and recognized former schoolmates and recent colleagues. We began talking nervously at first; then came the jokes and wisecracks which were intended to dispel our anxiety.
As we chatted, Mr. Mazzeo returned every ten minutes or so to announce that it was time for the next "number" to go onto the stage. When he called number fifteen, I started practicing again and found that I couldn't remember the whole second page of the concerto I thought I had memorized. I tried going over it again and again but it was no use. I had lost it somewhere between Philadelphia and Boston. While I was deciding whether or not to bolt for the door, I heard my number called. I turned and slowly followed Mr. Mazzeo out of the room.
The stage was completely bare except for two chairs and a solitary music stand. A huge canvas curtain was stretched across the front of the auditorium so that I couldn't see past the first two or three rows. "This is candidate number nineteen." Mr. Mazzeo announced to the curtain; "he will play the first movement of Gordon Jacob's Concerto for Bassoon." We both sat down, and having decided not to take chances with my recalcitrant memory, I spread out my music on the stand. By this time my heart was pounding so loudly I was sure it could be heard all over the auditorium, especially in Symphony Hall, were the acoustics were so good. I started playing and tried to concentrate on what I had to do.
Surprisingly, my fingers were behaving themselves, and although I was having a little difficulty with my breathing, things weren't going too badly. But then as I neared a passage that reaches a climax on a high note, my reed unexpectedly closed up, and the top note, instead of ringing out in triumphant glory, collapsed into a strangled gasp. "Thank you," boomed a voice from behind the curtain.
Back in the room, I had to wait until everyone had had an opportunity to play his concerto. When the last player, "number thirty-three," returned a hush fell over the room, and, remembering my last note, I started going over the train schedule in my head. I discovered that I'd have time for a quick lunch before boarding the 1:55 to Philadelphia. I was cleaning my bassoon when the door opened and Mr. Mazzeo and his clipboard entered. Everyone stiffened a bit, and a few people who had been sitting stood up. "The committee has had a difficult time deciding," he said, "but it feels the following people may be excused from the remainder of the audition." He then rattled off about twelve numbers. Nineteen wasn't one of them; I still had a chance.
We were assigned new numbers, and the next round began, this time with orchestra passages. Mr. Mazzeo continued to come in at the end of each round to announce the numbers of those who had been eliminated. Mainly because the passages we were asked to play had been from standard repertoire, and I had been over them a countless number of times, I had managed to survive the first two rounds. But when I walked on to the stage for the third time and looked at the music, my knees began trembling -- I sat down fast. The passage was totally unfamiliar to me. In some ways it looked like something from Stravinsky, or maybe Prokofiev; I just couldn't tell. It consisted entirely of rapid sixteenth-notes with large leaps, but what was worse, almost each note had a double-sharp or double-flat attached to it. These signs are difficult to read at first sight. Mr. Mazzeo motioned for me to begin. But before I had gone very far, maybe because the strain of the whole audition was beginning to take effect or maybe because I was being shaken by the sounds that were coming from my bassoon, the mistakes came rapidly. My vision blurred and I had to stop playing two measures before the end of the passage.
I went back to the room and pulled the train schedule out of my pocket. I could still make the 1:55, but I wouldn't have time for lunch. After packing my bassoon, I was reaching for my coat when Mr. Mazzeo walked in. He said we had just concluded the last of the preliminary rounds and announced the numbers of the players who were invited to the finals; much to my astonishment, mine was among them. "But first," he said, "we're taking a break for lunch. Come back in an hour."
Puzzling over why I had been included among the finalists after I had performed so badly in the last round, I left the building accompanied by five other finalists and headed for the Amalfi Cafe across the street. It wasn't until we were halfway through lunch, while everyone was recounting the events of the day, that I realized what must have happened at that final round. It seemed that everyone at the table had taken a "nost dive" over the same passage that I had flubbed so miserably, and consequently the result, as far as the process of elimination was concerned, was to cancel itself. In other words, since no one had been able to play the passage, it could not be considered a reliable test.
None of us had eaten very much, and when we returned to Symphony Hall, we still had a few minutes in which to warm up our instruments again. The final auditions were organized along the same lines as the preliminary ones, but this time an accompanist played through out concertos with us, and the canvas curtain had been removed. I looked out into the auditorium and recognized Charles Munch, the conductor of the Boston Symphony, and Richard Burgin, its concertmaster. A number of other people whom I didn't know were scattered throughout the hall.
Again, after all the concertos, came the orchestra passages, and then the eliminations. By late afternoon, there were three of us remaining and although I was encouraged that I was still in the running, I was growing more and more tense as the fulfillment of lifelong dream became a distinct possibility. Time stood still as each of us went to the stage, played, and returned to the room for more waiting. Finally, as I sat at a window watching the dwindling daylight, Mr. Mazzeo came in to make another of his announcements. The moment of decision was here; there were two of us left.
I walked onto the stage once more. I was tired, my head ached, but underneath it all, I felt an "edge," a sense of exhilaration. I looked at the music. It was from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a poignant countermelody that Beethoven assigns to the bassoon while the cellos and basses are singing their hymn in praise of universal brotherhood. I took a deep breath and felt an inner calmness, a calmness that comes at a crisis after a painful decision has been made. I realized that whatever happened at this final moment in the audition depended on forces beyond my control. All I could do was play my best.
I raised my bassoon to my lips, and everything I knew about bassoon playing, everything I knew about breath control, about tone production, about rhythm and phrasing, I put into Beethoven's little melody. I took a deeper breath and put in all my boyhood dreams, all the hours of painful practice, all the days bent over at the reed table, all the joy of making music that touches one's soul. I put in all the expectations of my teachers, and all my hopes for the future. When I finished playing, I left the stage calmly but emotionally drained. I went back to the room to wait. Before long, Mr. Mazzeo walked in, shook my hand, and said, "Mr. Ruggiero, I'd like to speak to you in my office. " I knew I had made it; I was no longer a number, and the 1:55 had left for Philadelphia without me.
(Matthew Ruggiero, assistant principal bassoon of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal bassoon of the Boston Pops, missed the 1:55 to Philadelphia in 1961.)