When the music sings

One good sign of amiable relations between a maestro and his symphony is when the musicians are willing to sing as well as play. Symphony musicians get extra pay for "doubling," playing a second instrument, as when the third chair bassoonist switches to contrabassoon, and when a piece calls for singing, the musicians can ruin the party if they want to. When I lived on the mainland a friend in Washington D.C. played in the first violins of the Richmond Symphony and I would drive the two hours down to Richmond because he got me into rehearsals. You can learn a lot in rehearsals. (I once got into a National Symphony rehearsal of the Enigma Variations with Leonard Bernstein and he really annoyed the musicians, at one point whining, "I'm trying to help you!") Once the Richamonders, to get back to them, did a reasonably interesting contemporary piece called "Guale" which required singing by the musicians. They were quite surly about it, not only because many of them weren't too fond of the music director but also because one rare point of agreement between them and the music director was that they all disliked the composer, who had the bad taste still to be alive. At one point he compounded the offense by interrupting them, shouting from the back of the house that they weren't doing something right. "Porco miserio," the conductor muttered, an excellent epithet which I have included in my own repertory ever since. So one of the most pleasant surprises at last weekend's Honolulu Symphony concert came during a Johann Strauss Jr. piece when the musicians were prevailed upon to sing and didn't look like they minded. Both the elder and younger Johann Strausses were witty men of great good spirits, if somewhat indiscriminate romantic behavior, and their music sounds best when performed with a sense of mischief. Andreas Delfs did that. But he did more. For the first time in many live hearings, I finally heard sufficient mischief in "Till Eulenspiegel," the musical biography of Europe's most legendary prankster, by Richard Strauss, no relation to the other guys. This weekend the Symphony is back to do a program that includes one of the brassiest Sibelius symphonies. This is music to crank the speakers on, and even then there is nothing like hearing it live. If you are not in the custom of going to the Symphony, here is all you need to know:

• Go to http://www.honolulusymphony.org for ticket prices and dates and times and what's scheduled to be played. Virtually any seat in the house is good but if you're up in the balcony you can see more.
• Wear something comfortable. Hardly anybody dresses up. It's Hawaii for crying out loud.
• Park at Blaisdell and walk to the mauka end.
• If you don't know when to applaud, just wait for everybody else. No big deal.