Counting Time at the Bowl

If it’s the Hollywood Bowl season, it must be time to drag out the tired, perennial charge of “lack of rehearsal time” to fill up space allotted to The Times’ music reviewing staff for their columns about the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Tuesday- and Thursday-night symphony concerts. Of six of the 12 symphony night concerts thus far this season, Martin Bernheimer, Daniel Cariaga, John Henken and Timothy Mangan have bemoaned, variously: “Minimalist rehearsal schedule . . . ,” “brief rehearsal period allotted every Bowl concert . . . ,” “Rehearsal time is severely limited,” and so on.

Times change, gentlemen. Bowl symphony rehearsal time varies from three to 8 1/2 hours for each program, depending on the difficulty of the program. The average of all the rehearsal time scheduled for this season’s 20 symphony programs is more than five hours. This is one hour more than previous season averages. Most illuminating, perhaps, is the fact that most conductors do not use all of their scheduled rehearsal time, some not even close to using the time provided for them.

Please, let’s put away these misleading cliches unless you have first checked for accuracy.

ROLAND MORITZ

Monterey Park member Los Angeles Philharmonic