Music: Saariaho at the Armory--the electronic orchestra
Two concerts this week showed me how far advanced has become the use of electronic instruments in traditional classical/orchestral music. The Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela opened the Carnegie Hall series under conductor Gustavo Dudamel (also conductor of the LA Philharmonic). Dudamel has rapidly advanced in the conductor hierarchy, e.g. conducting the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics in prestigious events. This orchestra is young, oddly male-dominated, and unique in being largely composed of graduates of El Sistema, an ambitious decades-old program to train Venezuelan children from poor economic backgrounds to play instruments. Dudamel himself arose from this program. However, given the current turmoil and social implosion/explosion in Venezuela, Dudamel is now accused of being disconnected to political reality, with a laser-like (myopic?) focus only on music (see this interesting but snippily odd NY Times review of the first of three Carnegie Hall concerts, which devotes only one brief paragraph to reviewing the concert, with the rest discussing politics and ethics). Their Saturday concert offered a single mammoth piece: Turangalila by the great 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen. This is a true showpiece for an orchestra, with a vast range of color, dynamics, and timbre, and includes all of Messiaen's characteristic mysticism, bird calls, pulsating quasi-religious ecstasy, and overwhelming climaxes. The performance was well conducted and technically polished, with excellent piano riffs by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, but lacked the bass-centered tonal plush that more established orchestras can offer; they are certainly better than the student-level orchestra hinted at dismissively in the NYT review, but are not really at the level of the orchestras normally picked to open the Carnegie Hall season. Messiaen without overwhelming tonality is missing the point, and I thought the orchestra fell a bit short here, although the extended, central Jardin du sommeil d'amour (Garden of Love's Sleep) movement with its hypnotic, soft, repetitive motives was really well done.
Turangalila, composed in 1946, was an early piece to use electronic instruments for added color, here the Ondes Martenot, later famous from 1950's B movie science fiction movies, esp. when Martians attack. Messiaen uses it not just for eeriness or shock value, but subtly integrates it into the orchestral texture. In the 1960's-70's electronic music mostly went its own way, with composers and concerts uniquely devoted to it, losing the chance for integration into traditional instrumental music. Some of this may have been due to the less advanced sound and computing technology available then (think of the old keyboards and synthesizers). But this is changing. A Thursday concert at the Armory featured music by composer Kaija Saariaho, one of a group of very talented contemporary Finnish composers (including famed conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen) writing interesting and individual music these days. Saariaho freely mixes electronic and conventional orchestral timbres to excellent atmospheric effect. I was persuaded that this integration may be a fertile basis for the evolution of classical music.
Like Messiaen, Saariaho relies a great deal on creating atmospheric, unique, evolving sonic color. At best, this music radiates, and mixes rhythmic pulsation with shimmering effects. At worst, her fixation with color creates stasis. The influences I hear are Ligeti (think the Kubrick 2001 ending act), Scelsi, and the less exuberant side of Messiaen (both composers really like the xylophone!). You can get a sense of her music here. The Armory concert, featuring the NY Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, was a major, US exposure for this composer, who is well known in Europe, but less so here. Her opera L'Amour de Loin will also get its US debut at the ultra-conservative Metropolitan Opera later this fall. In the Thursday concert the 100 piece orchestra with a percussion battery of 7 was set in the dark, capacious (read aircraft hanger-like) Armory space surrounded by lighting designs and medieval-new age-lava lamp video backdrops (intermittently effective). The featured piece Circle Map (2012), inspired by Islamic poetry, only held my interest intermittently (that stasis thing reared its head). The ambiance was enhanced by the Persian carpets arrayed around the orchestra, with many patrons seated crosslegged immediately in front of the players and conductor, looking at their legs (the rest of us were in elevated bleachers). At one point, a number of the violins appeared to be exiting the stage like the end of the Haydn Farewell Symphony, but there was no joke here...the wandering players intermixed with the seated floor patrons and continued playing. I am not sure if this was primarily a musical (surround sound) or spiritual device, or both. Lonh for soprano and electronics (1996) was striking, using the space to good effect as the soprano wandered around the orchestra and audience in circles as she sang, accompanied by an in-motion electronic score that featured a different soprano (Dawn Upshaw) singing, creating interesting echo effects. The striking thing here was that until I looked around, I was unaware that the orchestra was not playing in this piece..the composer so effectively melds live and electronic effects (and the technology is now good enough to do so) that the two really blend together. The surround-sound setup of the concert was wonderful, as the electronic effects move in circles during the pieces.
My favorite piece was D'OM LE VRAI SENS (2010) for clarinet soloist, electronics, and orchestra. This was the most successful mix of space (the soloist wandered around again), lighting, theatrics (the in-motion clarinetist often did some basic physical acting, e.g. elevating his off arm as he played with one hand) and intertwined electronic and orchestral music. The piece is based on the six famous Paris tapestries "The Lady and the Unicorn", which portray the five senses and a mysterious sixth one. Saariaho here writes one movement for each, with appropriate staging backdrops (pretty new age here), and interprets the mysterious sixth sense as love, or desire, or something. This could get silly with lesser artists involved, but the conductor, orchestra, soloist, and stage designer worked hard to create a serious gesamptkunstwerk (art that unifies music, art, stage, etc.). I think that having a soloist involved helped add variety, moderating the sometimes-monochrome narcotic spells the composer sometimes falls into.
The whole thing was impressive and well packaged. Remarkably, the program notes were helpful and even written in an understandable version of English, uncluttered by post-modern and obtusely spiritual verbiage that often accompanies new music concerts. Overall this was a fascinating and well-executed evening that brought a talented modern composer into full public view in the USA. I applaud the NY Philharmonic and the Armory for devoting major resources to such a project, and enjoyed seeing one direction classical music might move in the future.
Turangalila, composed in 1946, was an early piece to use electronic instruments for added color, here the Ondes Martenot, later famous from 1950's B movie science fiction movies, esp. when Martians attack. Messiaen uses it not just for eeriness or shock value, but subtly integrates it into the orchestral texture. In the 1960's-70's electronic music mostly went its own way, with composers and concerts uniquely devoted to it, losing the chance for integration into traditional instrumental music. Some of this may have been due to the less advanced sound and computing technology available then (think of the old keyboards and synthesizers). But this is changing. A Thursday concert at the Armory featured music by composer Kaija Saariaho, one of a group of very talented contemporary Finnish composers (including famed conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen) writing interesting and individual music these days. Saariaho freely mixes electronic and conventional orchestral timbres to excellent atmospheric effect. I was persuaded that this integration may be a fertile basis for the evolution of classical music.
Like Messiaen, Saariaho relies a great deal on creating atmospheric, unique, evolving sonic color. At best, this music radiates, and mixes rhythmic pulsation with shimmering effects. At worst, her fixation with color creates stasis. The influences I hear are Ligeti (think the Kubrick 2001 ending act), Scelsi, and the less exuberant side of Messiaen (both composers really like the xylophone!). You can get a sense of her music here. The Armory concert, featuring the NY Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, was a major, US exposure for this composer, who is well known in Europe, but less so here. Her opera L'Amour de Loin will also get its US debut at the ultra-conservative Metropolitan Opera later this fall. In the Thursday concert the 100 piece orchestra with a percussion battery of 7 was set in the dark, capacious (read aircraft hanger-like) Armory space surrounded by lighting designs and medieval-new age-lava lamp video backdrops (intermittently effective). The featured piece Circle Map (2012), inspired by Islamic poetry, only held my interest intermittently (that stasis thing reared its head). The ambiance was enhanced by the Persian carpets arrayed around the orchestra, with many patrons seated crosslegged immediately in front of the players and conductor, looking at their legs (the rest of us were in elevated bleachers). At one point, a number of the violins appeared to be exiting the stage like the end of the Haydn Farewell Symphony, but there was no joke here...the wandering players intermixed with the seated floor patrons and continued playing. I am not sure if this was primarily a musical (surround sound) or spiritual device, or both. Lonh for soprano and electronics (1996) was striking, using the space to good effect as the soprano wandered around the orchestra and audience in circles as she sang, accompanied by an in-motion electronic score that featured a different soprano (Dawn Upshaw) singing, creating interesting echo effects. The striking thing here was that until I looked around, I was unaware that the orchestra was not playing in this piece..the composer so effectively melds live and electronic effects (and the technology is now good enough to do so) that the two really blend together. The surround-sound setup of the concert was wonderful, as the electronic effects move in circles during the pieces.
My favorite piece was D'OM LE VRAI SENS (2010) for clarinet soloist, electronics, and orchestra. This was the most successful mix of space (the soloist wandered around again), lighting, theatrics (the in-motion clarinetist often did some basic physical acting, e.g. elevating his off arm as he played with one hand) and intertwined electronic and orchestral music. The piece is based on the six famous Paris tapestries "The Lady and the Unicorn", which portray the five senses and a mysterious sixth one. Saariaho here writes one movement for each, with appropriate staging backdrops (pretty new age here), and interprets the mysterious sixth sense as love, or desire, or something. This could get silly with lesser artists involved, but the conductor, orchestra, soloist, and stage designer worked hard to create a serious gesamptkunstwerk (art that unifies music, art, stage, etc.). I think that having a soloist involved helped add variety, moderating the sometimes-monochrome narcotic spells the composer sometimes falls into.
The whole thing was impressive and well packaged. Remarkably, the program notes were helpful and even written in an understandable version of English, uncluttered by post-modern and obtusely spiritual verbiage that often accompanies new music concerts. Overall this was a fascinating and well-executed evening that brought a talented modern composer into full public view in the USA. I applaud the NY Philharmonic and the Armory for devoting major resources to such a project, and enjoyed seeing one direction classical music might move in the future.
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