After 50 years with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, 47 of them as Principal Cello, Anne Martindale Williams plays her final concerts with the orchestra October 2 and 4, including one of the most beloved cello solos in the repertoire, at the heart of Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

Near the end of Anne Martindale Williams's studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, her teacher, himself a celebrated chamber musician, offered some advice: "Well, if you can't get a job anywhere else, you can always fall back on an orchestral career!"

"I guess," she says, "that I have been 'falling back' for the past 50 years."

This October, that half-century is coming to a close. Williams joined the PSO in 1976 and has led its cello section as Principal Cello since 1979.

Music was hardly optional in her childhood home. Her mother was a professional cellist, and her sister went on to play violin in the Philadelphia Orchestra. Her father was a devoted listener who insisted he'd had a few violin lessons in junior high. Williams began serious cello study at seven. "I was not given a choice," she says. "The practicing always came first!"

She had hoped to study music therapy and help children with Down syndrome discover the joy of music. The conservatory led instead to Curtis, and Curtis to Pittsburgh.

Getting to Pittsburgh

The PSO had two cello vacancies in 1976, and Williams arrived prepared for a section audition. When she finished, a loud voice rang out from the hall: "Look here, missy, we would like you to go learn the music for the Associate Principal position and come back this afternoon and play again." The voice, she later learned, belonged to Music Director William Steinberg. She learned the music, played again, and joined the orchestra as Associate Principal in the fall of the Bicentennial year.

A few years later, André Previn awarded her the principal chair, to her genuine surprise. By her own account she was young and inexperienced. She was also a woman, at a time when the orchestra had no other female principals apart from harp. "I had a lot of studying and hard work ahead!"

Much of that work happens out of view. A principal cellist settles bowings, phrasing, and articulation with the conductor and concertmaster before the first rehearsal. She plays the solos woven throughout the repertoire. And, as Williams puts it, she helps "encourage a culture of mutual respect and unity."

Memories with the PSO

Audiences and colleagues alike have told her the PSO plays "as if possessed." She describes it as a shared desire to give everything to the music. "I don't know how that comes together with only a week's rehearsal!"

That spirit has traveled. On the orchestra's 1989 tour of the Soviet Union, after a concert in Moscow, a mother brought her young daughter to the edge of the stage with a gift for Williams: the girl's beloved doll, with yellow hair and red lips. In Berlin, a few years before the Wall fell, Williams and her colleagues stacked chairs in the Philharmonie dressing room at intermission. One by one, they climbed up to peer into East Berlin. "We could swear that it was greyer and darker than where we were standing."

At the Vatican, the orchestra performed Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony for Pope John Paul II at a Concert for Reconciliation, attended by representatives of the world's faiths. At its close, the Pope was visibly moved and asked them to play it again. With only three days in Italy, Williams stayed up all night. "How else could we see all of the glories of Rome?"

Through it all, she has felt the pride of representing Pittsburgh. "Playing at the prestigious Salzburg Festival is not unlike being invited to the Super Bowl," she says. "And we always win the game!"

Retirement

"It has taken me at least two years to even say the 'r' word," Williams admits. "I so love playing in the PSO and I can hardly imagine life without it. It is what I was created to do. But maybe it is time to pass the privilege of playing principal on to a new generation."

Her calendar suggests anything but a quiet exit: she has performances lined up, will teach with the New World Symphony in Miami, and will judge the Violin Society of America's international violin making competition. She is also continuing on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University.

Asked for a favorite piece, she gives the musician's answer: "Whatever I am currently working on!" But what she'll miss most isn't any single work.

"What a gift it has been for the last 50 years," she says, "to sit in the midst of the great classical masterpieces being played so exquisitely by my musical family."

October 2 & 4 at Heinz Hall

Hear Anne Martindale Williams' final concerts with the PSO, Gerstein Plays Brahms.

Get tickets: Gerstein Plays Brahms, October 2 and 4 at Heinz Hall