Pottstown Symphony Orchestra
by Marcia N. Lynch
My father wished to instill in me a serious love of classical music. It began with “A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” a 33-rpm record, which featured on the cover a nice-looking boy about my age, around 7 years old, with a French horn. After teaching me to identify the instruments and the seating chart for the orchestra and explaining that you never applaud after the first movement, he took me to a live performance. In our hometown, the Pottstown Symphony Orchestra did not have a venue with plush seats and a fancy balcony. The musicians were seated on three tiers of risers in a community room with folding chairs for the audience. No matter, I was going with my father to the orchestra, and he had high hopes for the evening.
There was that friendly, discordant miasma of sounds as they tuned up. Something I hadn’t heard on the records we listened to together. The conductor entered, the baton was raised, the music swelled, and then it happened. The cymbalist dropped his cymbal. And it didn’t just fall, it crashed down all three tiers with an awful sound. Like the gingerbread man yelling, “you can’t catch me!”, the poor, red-faced cymbalist vainly tried to stop the runaway disk.
For me, this was better than a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I tried to suppress my laughter because my father was not pleased. This was supposed to be the culmination of my early music education, but it remained a hidden delight to me even after I controlled myself. However, this mishap has done more for me than a flawless performance. The conductor kept conducting, the orchestra kept playing, the ringing noise eventually faded away, and the symphony ended harmoniously. I have thought back on this event many times, and realized that the worst things I fear may happen won’t be as tragic as I imagine. I have been humiliated, embarrassed, often wished that runaway cymbal would stop, but the music keeps playing, and the final chord will be resolved. I’m just a member of the fallen human race. It’s only the Pottstown Symphony Orchestra, after all.
About the Author
Once upon a time Marcia N. Lynch was a children’s film editor, crafting live-action fairy tales for PBS. She and her husband of 40 years live in Arlington, Virginia where one of her poems was chosen by the ArlingtonArts Moving Words competition to ride around on the local buses. She has just published her first book of poetry for children available on Amazon, Dear Miss Tickle: Poetry and Art for the Young at Heart.
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