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

First hearings in the concert hall: Larsen's Parachute Dances

Libby Larsen is a great advocate of the "acoustic experience" that comes from a performance in the concert hall. At the same time, she celebrates the independence we now have from that four-wall access to music, which we have developed in the historical progress from radio, through phonograph, television, car stereo, and now via computer access.

Generally, I prefer the accessibility of iTunes and other online sources, since the programming is of my choice, usually free of interpretation by announcers and programmers. I recognize the trade-offs I make when I don the earbuds:

• The sonic range is limited by the device—by even the best headphones.
• Outside noise can affect the overall result—especialy with earbuds.
• Programming is still limited by the CDs and downloads that I've purchased—or taken as a loan from the public library—and by the limitations of the search algorithms installed in Amazon.com, iTunes' Ping, and other services related to what I purchase or listen to while online.

But I do indeed go to the concert hall when that is the only venue for a specific piece. Such was the case yesterday for a first hearing of Ms. Larsen's "Overture: Parachute Dances" as performed by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. (The DPO concert will be broadcast and webcast on WDPR on 2011.04.02 (2 April, 2011) at 10:00 a.m., Eastern time.) It was also the case earlier in the day for a new interpretation of John Adams' Nixon in China, as conducted by the composer in a worldwide broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera in HD.

Reporting a first hearing from the concert hall has its disadvantages.

• The performance and music must last in the memory and surpass the memories of other music heard in the same concert. The memory is truly dependent on the attitudes that inform the programmer, since often better memory occurs with either a fresh mind or with the latest impressions. Thus, the first and last pieces in a program have special prominence.
• Generally a concert listener is less aware of how long a new piece is. This lack of time sense means the listener can't use time to understand the piece and make it coherent  through gauging the present moment in comparison to the beginning and end. Thus, the logical unifying of sound through motif, simultaneity, similarity, and contrast becomes subservient to the moment and to what awareness the listener can muster to retain each moment that occurred before.
• The listening location in the hall affects aspects of the balance between each performer. Although the better halls tend to produce a good blend of all the instruments for most seats, especially so for those in the middle of the orchestra and fronts of the balconies, the experience of each listener is different.
• Each performance suffers from—and some would say benefits from—the John Cage effect, where the whole experience consists of all the sounds in the venue, including the music made, the rustle of pages turned by the performers, and the coughs and crackling of candy wrappers from the seat occupants next to you.
• Finally, the perception of a performance is informed by the audience as a whole. Tepid or enthusiastic applause builds and supports an overall consensus of the effect of a piece.

With all that in mind, and after a half day's settling in, I found the new work by Larsen exciting and enticing enough for acquiring a CD of the work.

The memory of "Overture: Parachute Dances" surpasses the hearings of the two later, larger parts of the program, Mozart's Symphony #39 and Strauss' "Ein Heldenleben." Though the length, breadth, and depth of Heldenleben might work against the memory of a lesser piece, Parachute Dancing holds its own indeed. The textures include polyphonic motif treatment—jumping from violins to cellos to brass and woodwinds, subtle and sometimes surprising utterances from a large percussion section—including superb moments for xylophone, and expanded timbres from the strings to include pizzicati and snapping the strings to the fingerboard. The piece lasts 6 minutes, give or take a bit, and every moment hangs on what has come before and informs later moments as they build toward culmination. I highly recommend buying one of the recorded performances of Parachute Dances, which is packaged as one of four works by Larsen or one of seven pieces by different composers.


For thoughts on Nixon in China,