We went with David to hear a program by the Juilliard Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky. The Juilliard Orchestra is an excellent ensemble, and even more so because it plays in Alice Tully Hall, which is much smaller than Geffen Hall or Carnegie Hall and has a very appealing acoustic for orchestral details. The concert began with Salonen's "Nyx", a fairly recent orchestral work of his. I had the same reaction I have had to previous works of his; appealing sounds and rhythms, but very unmemorable melodic ideas, with the lack of a compelling dramatic shape on first hearing. Or, to put it another way, his music lacks (to my ears) a kind of danger or idiosyncratic quality which puts you a bit on the edge of your seat. The next piece was a performance of Bartok's Viola Concerto, which is certainly a problematic enterprise, as it was constructed out of fragments that Bartok left behind when he died. I didn't hear a whole lot that sounded like Bartok to me, but the young soloist, Matthew Cohen, was excellent. But the reason we went to the concert was the piece on the second half, John Adams's "Dr. Atomic Symphony". Adams composed the work using material from his great opera "Dr. Atomic", developing ideas which he was not able to develop within the constraints of theatrical time. It was a great piece, and the orchestra did a fabulous job of performing it. Adams's music has exactly that character which I miss in Salonen's work. Though you certainly hear things that echo other composers, somehow it all blends together to make something that is uniquely Adams. There were wonderful clashing orchestral sounds, beautiful solo lines, and many moments of rhythmic chaos. The piece has a clear dramatic focus, and was in no way a potpourri of themes from the opera. A great pleasure.
Two nights later, for something completely different, we went to hear (again with David and our friends Krin and Paula) the Vijay Iyer Trio at Columbia's Miller Theater. Iyer has been awarded every possible jazz award, a MacArthur grant, and is now teaching at Harvard. Nonetheless, I was considerably disappointed in both his piano playing and his compositions. In fact, I don't really get what all the fuss is about. My problem is simply with his harmonic language; virtually everything is modal, and is chord progressions are extremely predictable. Dissonances are avoided, and his overall harmonic world is constrained to a mild-mannered sort of Debussyian style. He does work in elements from Monk and Ellington tunes (and a Michael Jackson tune, though I have to be told that, because I am clueless), and they kind of stick out. In fact, I would have to say that Ellington is far more adventurous as a pianist than Iyer. What I do like, though, are the rhythmic ideas that he and his ensemble develop (Stephan Crump on bass and Tyshawn Storey on drums). There are lots of intriguingly complex polyrhythmic ideas going on, and together they develop some wonderfully idiosyncratic grooves. Story is a talented and exciting drummer, but unfortunately he tends to overwhelm the relatively reticent Iyer when he plays loudly. The ensemble also had wonderful sense of dynamics, going from very loud to very soft, though eventually the pattern of slowly getting louder, playing loudly, then getting softer enventually became a cliche. But overall, I was disappointed.
Though, obviously, I am out of the mainstream opinion here, and maybe I just fail to understand what's going on.
And then, three nights later, for something really, really different, we went to hear Rossini's last opera, "William Tell", at the Metropolitan Opera. I'm not in the habit of going to Rossini operas, and especially five hour ones, but you never know until you try.
William Tell is Rossini's last opera, and was his attempt to write a "grand opera" in the French style. My resident musicologist tells me that the style had fairly specific requirements; there must be ballet music, etc. and things were done for more for effect than for dramatic integrity. And that was the case; there were some stunning musical moments, as well as long sections where things were repeated endlessly and the drama lagged. The title role was sung magnificently by Gerald Finley, and yes, he gets to shoot the apple on top of his son's head. The chorus plays a big role in the drama, and they were magnificent. And the orchestra, as always, was superb; their knockout version of the famous overture got an ovation from the audience. (Was it for the performance, or for the heroic "Lone Ranger" theme?) And yes, there was a new production, which had some very good moments as well as some peculiarly inappropriate moments. But after the horrors of the previous week's production of Tristan, I was happy to see a production which allowed the singers to stand on the stage and sing their parts. (Is it time to bring back "park and bark"?)
A few days later, we went to an all Steve Reich concert at Juilliard, performed by the student ensemble Axiom. (Reich was a Juilliard student once upon a time.)
There are many things I like about Reich's music, especially the focus on rhythm and harmony, and on musical patterns that are perceptible. His early work, in which he basically threw out all conventional notions of music and rebuilt it from scratch, so to speak, was revolutionary. It certainly paved the way for a retreat from the excessive complexity that characterized some of the music at that time. (Though the conventional wisdom these days that somehow serialism was the ruling aesthetic at that time is largely overstated.) He also threw out the conventional notion of music as intensely expressive. (I can remember sitting countless pieces at that time that were expressing some kind of generic angst; it became extremely tiresome.) But, at the same time, I have a lot of problems listening to music that is extremely repetitive. I do not get into any trance-like states, and I become desperate for a break in something. (A composition teacher of mine, Henry Brant, once suggested that it would be a good idea to go through a score you had written and randomly erase notes to make it more interesting. Crude, but he had a point.) Just as a short story writer doesn't have to tell you everything that happens, we can imply rhythms without pounding them out incessantly.
At the concert, we heard an early work, Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ, which was largely static harmonically and rhythmically, but had wonderfully intricate waving of patterns of short melodic ideas. It sounded very Balinese gamelan influenced. The next piece, City Life, is a major work for large ensemble from 1995. In it, Reich juxtaposes prerecorded samples of city sounds, very much of the period, including car alarms, shouts of protest, etc. The juxtaposition doesn't work for me; the very literal meaning of the recorded sounds jars with the more subtle, variable meanings of the purely musical elements. The music is quite expressive, though, and occasionally evokes the musical sound of Copland or Stravinsky. By the last piece, the Double Sextet, the constantly repeating rhythmic patterns with the two pianos and percussion had began to annoy me; but, at the same time, I found the complex and intricate ideas that the rest of the ensemble were playing were very interesting, and at times quite dissonant. I longed to be able to hear them more clearly without the motor rhythms.
The performances by the Juilliard students and conductor Jeffrey Milarsky were excellent, and I am certainly grateful for the chance to be able to hear all this music performed live. Reich himself was there to take a bow to a warm ovation from the audience. It's hard to believe he is eighty years old!
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