2024.3.10 Symphony

Went to the symphony again today.  This week's theme was, you might say, modern "cinemagraphic-operatic" music.  Danny Elfman, of Hollywood fame, had composed a piece with percussionist Colin Currie simply called, Percussion Concerto.  It debuted in 2022 and we had the fortune of having Currie himself here to perform it.  The other two pieces, Theme and Variations, Op. 42 by Korngold (1953) and The Firebird Suite by Stravinsky (1910, though we listened to the 1945 revision) were both by composers who had influenced Elfman.  So that was the theme of the day. 

Theme and Variations, Op. 42 was nice, but I have a hard time saying more than that.  When I listened to it at home before going I had the feeling it was from a classic film, which when I got to the symphony and read their little info booklet I discovered I was pretty close to right: Korngold did most of his composing for films and opera.  That in itself doesn't mean anything, but it makes it more difficult for me to assess because it feels familiar.  It reminds me of the effect Constable has on me:

Constable is one of Britain's great painters, and the British in particular seem to love him.  I suspect it has much to do with the attitude he approaches his topic, where he renders not just the landscape but the attitude they have toward it as well.  But he does little for me, and part of the reason is that he has since been copied to death.  When I see his paintings the first thing I'm reminded of are the kitschy little decorative paintings old ladies have, the ones that make good postcards because they are so blandly "nice" and inoffensive.

So none of this is a count against Constable, of course, but rather against my ability to appreciate him.  Lack of personal experience with the source of his inspiration and subsequent dull imitation are not a good combination of associations to bring to art, and that's basically what happened to me with Korngold.  Not being musically literate enough to appreciate the eight variations he squeezed out of this single theme, like a Haruhi arc, all I could do was find the general listening experience pleasant... but dogged by my own associations with insipidness.  

Next up was the Percussion Concerto and that went... fast.  It was 38 minutes but felt like ten; not sure what that says about the piece, except that its emphasis on percussion really pulls you along.  Currie had to pull out all the stops, too; this thing was written for a virtuoso percussionist, and he was literally having to run between two different setups to access all the different cymbals, drums, xylophones, marimbas, and whatever else the piece called for.  Between high variation and the way percussion just hits, it has a kind of insistent energy that never gets dull.  Which I realized part way through I had made a mistake: I usually listen with eyes closed, but Currie running around, managing to keep drumming while leaning over to flip a page on another instrument's stand was part of the show.  It was more like a rock concert in that way.

The only other thing that I can say I noticed was that I don't think Currie was quite in time with the rest of the orchestra.  Not that they were dramatically off, but by the nature of percussion, where so many of the instruments have a sharp sound that is clearly punctuated by the impact, it makes discrepancies of timing obvious.  And since there were two other percussionists along with Currie (although playing more traditional setups in the back, without the running about) there were a lot of notes that, if they were just milliseconds apart, you could tell.  Which isn't a criticism, necessarily, given how well it was generally pulled off, but it felt to me like it was the sort of piece that an orchestra could practice for a very long time to get just right.

Finally, there was the Firebird Suite which... I honestly have little to say.  You read the story it accompanies, you can hear it in the music, with the thundering drums for ogre footsteps, flighty strings and woodwinds for the firebird, and the brass proclaiming Ivan's victory over the monster.  It made it easy listening, being so story-laden, but I feel like I have a difficult time digging deeper for more when it seems as though I have an easy explanation for why the music was the way it was.  That's perhaps a strange statement, but being so inexperienced in this area I'm always asking myself what the patterns are, what they mean, what musical ideas even are, etc.  It makes me feel like I'm just at the start of a wide world, enthusiastically wondering what the landscape holds and so effacing any shame I might have over my ignorance.  But having finished the Firebird Suite I feel like I have the answers in this case; I'm sure I don't have the finer points, but the gist seems well within my grasp and so I'm sort of... satisfied with it.  It's like what I once wrote in an essay:

There is a highly-intelligent and well-meaning desire to acquire a rational interpretation for things, and that having assembled it as one assembles a model airplane it can be placed neatly on the shelf for display.  It is, however, done with.  Something one has achieved not something one any longer contemplates.

That's somehow what it feels like, and though again to emphasize I would in no way say I have mastered the piece, I don't anticipate any significant revelations either.  Perhaps I'll be proven wrong, but in the meantime that's where it stands.