Thomas Adès conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, 9 April 2011

A guest column by Charles Derry

The Philharmonic performed Adès' Polaris to the accompaniment of a video that was created by Tal Rosner, a collaborator (and boyfriend) of the composer. The video seemed good, but not great.  But it damaged the music, making the music seem "less than" rather than "more than."  With images, the music seemed an accompaniment, and less complex that it actually was.  When I looked away from the video, which I did a lot, the music seemed really great.  With the video, it was hard to hear the structure of the music.  Only at the end when the video became totally abstract did it seem to accompany the music, rather than vice-versa.  I hope that Adès drops the video in any future performances of Polaris , even though the video has an emotional personal connection for him.  Adès' music--in the world of new contemporary classic music--is superlative, whereas this video--in the world of video art--is just good.

The second part of the program consisted of Messiaen's Eclairs sur l'au-delà. Even though we were seated high in the Frank Gehry-designed concert hall, we were on the side, and the result was that we could hear the source of every sound and see the source as well, so there was a kind of virtual choreography as we watched the interplay of the orchestra--double bass from the far right, tympani from the back, etc, and I could see every single musician clearly. There were about 10 tympanists.  I could hear at every moment the specific source, as well as find the musician(s) who was(were) playing the music.  I have never had such a great visual experience of music as in this specific concert hall from these particular seats.  The sound, the texture, the clarity of the individual sounds, was extraordinary--shockingly good, in fact.  It was actually one of the few live experience hearing music where I thought the "live" situation made the music sound better than when listened to on a CD.

The last movement, lasting about 8 minutes, required the trianglist to vibrate the triangle continuously with his brush for the entire length, with virtually no cescendos or decrescendos. (A Tourette's nightmare for me).  It seemed also a feat of incredible virtuosity.  One could see the virtuosity everywhere, actually. I felt for the musicians, who were asked to learn extremely hard, and untypical music, for this single performance.  They were absolutely up to it, each and every one of them.

To my surprise, somewhat, this work is--except for its length and profundity--less like Turangalila than I had remembered (maybe because of the lack of onde martinot), but it was filled through and through with a multitude of sudden rests, caesuras, and then sudden attacks--hundreds, thousands.  It was like lightning suddenly illuminating something profound, and then the darkness of no sound, and then lightning again.  The audience seemed often to be holding its breath, as the conductor and all the musicians were constantly suspending, and then attacking.  And there was the sense, too, in other sections, of the music "breathing"--with ins and outs--particularly in the spectacular sections dedicated to "love music"--passionate, ecstatic....

Weirdly, to me, the 3rd to the last movement was conducted using a totally different method.  Instead of counting out the time, the conductor was holding up numbers with his fingers: 1, 3, 2, moving his fingers closer to the orchestra and then back, and using other signals that looked like American sign language.  It makes me think that that movement may be without a time signature and allows the conductor special leeway.  It's almost as if the conductor himself was talking to the birds in the orchestra with this new language.  I've never seen this method used... [See the break for additional information from L.A.Times music critic, Mark Swed.]

A very, very memorable evening

From: Mark.Swed@latimes.com
To: Charlesderry@aol.com
Sent: 4/13/2011 10:03:45 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: RE: A question about your MESSIAEN/ADES review....

 

Dear Charles,

 

Yes, I probably should have explained this, because others have also asked. 

 

You are close in thinking that Ades was talking to the birds.  In fact, Messiaen simply lets the the different birds independently tweet away as in nature.  The bird-song parts are written out but not co-ordinated, so what Ades was doing was cueing who comes in when.  This is a technique Lutoslawski and Ligeti and a few other composers used when they wanted different voices to go their own individual ways.  I'm not sure, but I don't think Messiaen attempted it in any other work.  He was on the ball up to the end. 

 

All best,

Mark