‘My fingers were slipping all over the keys’: clarinettist Julian Bliss on his nightmare concert in the rain

Read on to find out the Concert Heaven and Concert Hell performances of clarinettist Julian Bliss...

Julian Bliss... Concert Heaven

John Mackey Divine Mischief
Julian Bliss (clarinet); The Baylor Wind Ensemble/Eric Wilson
The Midwest Clinic, Chicago (Dec 2022)

I commissioned a concerto for clarinet and wind ensemble by John Mackey and we were in the first few months of it being performed and played. We had the opportunity to perform at a band and orchestra conference in Chicago, called The Midwest Clinic, with the Baylor University Wind Ensemble. They’re one of the best. We were on tour, on the way to Chicago, and the conference was going to be cut short a day because of an impending snowstorm, and we were due to play on the last day! Baylor is very well known and has a good reputation, so a lot of people wanted to see them. 

The concert was brought forward to the evening of our arrival; we got there as quickly as we could, had a quick rehearsal and we were straight on stage. The room itself sits over 2,000 people and looks a bit like an aircraft hanger, full of seats and standing room only at the back.

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Concert Heaven & Hell... Julian Bliss

'There were standing ovations for every piece we played'

I think the jeopardy of making it on time made the concert even better, and to see these young people on stage just putting everything into it, performing for thousands of music educators – I remember getting that buzz that I love so much, that adrenaline rush of ‘this is happening’. The band sounded amazing, there were standing ovations for every piece they played; and then walking out to play the concerto, John Mackey in the front row – the whole atmosphere was really electric. 

There are a couple of things in that piece which are supposed to be humorous, and the audience laughed in all the right places; you could tell it was one of those concerts where everything was going well. Afterwards the reaction from the crowd was unforgettable; to see people so excited about music and, in other parts of the programme, seeing some of the band in tears because of this concert that they’d just done, reminded me of why I do what I do. 

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Julian Bliss... Concert Hell

Weber Clarinet Concerto No. 1
Julian Bliss (clarinet)
Germany, exact venue and year unknown

You like to think if something happens in a performance, it will always be of a certain standard and maybe the audience wouldn’t necessarily notice what was going on. But one that I do remember was a concert ten to 15 years ago, when I was asked at short notice to do a performance of Weber’s First Concerto at a festival in Germany.

I turned up and it was in a church in ruins with no roof – and all I had to wear was a black shirt. I didn’t even bring a suit! This being Europe in early Spring/Summer it was about ten or 11 degrees and cloudy. The audience were sitting out there and the idea was that they’d have picnic blankets and it’d be this lovely, sunny day… but that didn’t happen; they’re all sitting there bundled up and I’m actually shivering while playing, so you end up with unintentional vibrato!

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Concert Heaven & Hell... Julian Bliss

'To add insult to injury, it started to rain...'

I remember at the end of the first movement, where there’s a couple of difficult passages, to add insult to injury it started to rain. A wooden clarinet in the rain is not good… and the keys, doing some of these runs, were quite slippery! I was thinking, ‘What do we do?!’ I was trying to wipe everything off and carry on. It wasn’t full rain, it was the kind of drizzle we get in the UK, just hanging in the air. It was a nightmare, shivering, wiping off the instrument, wiping myself down and keeping going. But, you know, in the face of all that adversity, the performance itself was OK despite that. I will never forget it, though, and just walking off wet and cold, still shivering. Whenever I hear the end of the first movement of Weber’s First, it takes me right back to that moment. 

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So, maybe not so many outdoor concerts when it’s ten degrees and raining… or maybe I’ll wear one of those hat umbrellas next time!

Julian Bliss’s recording of works by Robert Schumann, with pianist James Baillieu, is out now on Signum Classics.