Had an opportunity to go to the symphony last night, first show of the season. Had absolute nosebleed seats due to a strange price hike, hopefully only for the season debut and not a regular change, but they were alright. Different perspective looking down on the orchestra rather than up at it (I'm usually in the cheaper seats right in front, being hoi polloi), and actually the chairs they had in the upper rings were more comfortable. May have to consider being up here more often.
Berlioz - Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9
This first one also made the least impression on me. Listening to it again this morning I still find it "nice", but also like I'm... not sure. I can hear story-like parts in the tambourines being tumblers, or the general energy of revelers, but nothing somehow hooks me. I don't mean that I'm waiting for something to enjoy but that I'm lacking in some kind of understanding.
Berlioz Is a great, one of those you always listen to with pleasure because you never risk getting. bored.
YouTube comments are always a risk, especially since you can count on every comments section to be full of nothing but rapturous praise that says more about the lack of discernment in the writer than the music, but this one strikes me as having that right level of straightforward groundedness. As I listen to this song I'm not familiar enough with the music conventions to know that it's surprising; I feel a little jerked about at times when it suddenly changes, but without any deeper means of anticipation than, "It will continue on the same" (a rather basic extrapolation) these sudden tacks are not satisfying as they would be to somebody who knew more. So I'm going to leave this one on the back burner for now.
Gershwin - Concerto in F
I didn't like this piece particularly either, but unlike above I did feel like I walked out with something more understood.
First, I'm just not a big Gershwin fan. Not that I've listened to a lot of his, but the feeling I have is that he's very... the phrase I want to use is "above the clavicle" but that requires a bit of explaining.
When I analyze my own emotions one of the general senses I have is where they are experienced in my body, on a scale which descends from the back of my throat downward. At the top are just the little day-to-day feelings; the mild annoyance at people honking at each other, the enjoyment of a WoW dungeon that went well, etc. As I descend into the upper chest weightier feelings come into play, whether it be more genuine anger or well-being, or other more nuanced feelings like grandeur (more on that below). By the time I hit the abdomen it's the deeply-felt sensibilities, like the sadness that seems to trickle down an invisible "heart spine" or those feelings that pool deeply. They also seem to be moving "backward", felt toward the posterior rather than anterior. Then there's something a bit below that, and also somehow even more back, below the navel, that I'm going to pass over except to note that I don't think it's a mistake that it's where the root chakra was identified, or why the Greeks called the sacrum ('sacred' bone) the hieron osteon.
Anyway, back to the main topic, the point is that Gershwin never touches in me anything more than the surface, like a bunch of little breezes riffling the water. Which makes him very fun but also nothing that earns my fervor. Yet, what I really did get last night was how he used the piano.
While in concertos it's natural that the piano takes a somewhat leading place, in Gershwin it's like it was an... independent place. I had this distinct sense, especially during the first movement, that the piano was a person and the rest of the orchestra was the city. The piano would tinkle out its feelings, which were given an extension in the rest of the surroundings; he's leaving home energetically, and entering the bustling crowd the rest of it agrees. But then there would be times where the orchestra would "say" something and the piano would respond, like the helter-skelter of traffic starting off and resulting in a bit of quick-time panic in the poor pedestrian. Moreover, the piano isn't lost in the noise, a point that I find rather key. Urban industrialism is rarely romanticized, and part of that is the anomie it can produce, the sense that one is nothing but a speck in a flood of humans. But Gershwin's basic optimism prevents this; yeah, the orchestra is big and loud, but it isn't overwhelming. The individual still maintains his place in it. Combined with the fun inventiveness of how he could transmute what, in my experience, is rather grating city noise into pleasant notes without losing the essential "beat" of it, romanticizing the heavy beats of machinery, I have to give full credit to what he did accomplish. Now to go back and watch Fantasia 2000's rendition of Rhapsody in Blue again because it's so much fun.
Ravel - Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess)
My dad and I had an interesting conversation about this afterward. It was the encore piece from the pianist after the Gershwin, but both our distance and the way it was played had an effect.
First, the distance: we just could not get any of the more subtle texture of piano music from our seats. That's fine for Gershwin who is loud anyway, but for Ravel, who is conveying a kind of diaphanous flow (I had an image of translucent petals kind of folding down repeatedly) it was quite detrimental. It made the music feel less weighty than it ought to, with only the "pretty" tones reaching us while the subtle sadness did not.
Which is the second point, was that while I'm not familiar with the piece my dad is, and he noted that it was played with a more restrained approach. It's easy to interpret music about a dead girl in a way that is far too sentimental and sloppy, and so the counter-tendency is to not give into those impulses. Unfortunately, this may equally rob the piece of its poignancy, and that's what it seems like happened.
So as I listen to it on YouTube I can hear more of what it was meant to be, but through a combination of effects I don't think it was quite what it should have been last night.
Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 "From the New World"
This was the feature attraction, and it did deliver. It didn't feel like an hour at all, and, aided by previous familiarity, as I listened I had a real "chest sense" of what was going on.
The first movement is energetic, but more than that it is... it gives a distinct sense of opportunity. Perhaps it's because I've heard this kind of song in the background of pioneer movies (likely copied), but it conveys the energy and rush, the idea (even if fading in Dvorak's time) that there was a West to be won, and that one could go there to achieve it.
The second movement I'll forever associate with Shinsekai Yori as their "going home" song (hence the header image), and with that in mind I can't help but also be reminded of De Tocqueville's commentary on the centrality of domesticity in American life:
Agitated by the tumultuous passions that frequently disturb his dwelling, the European is called by the obedience which the legislative powers of the state exact. But when the American retires from the turmoil of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the image of order and of peace.
Yes, there's all this crazy energy in the first movement, of absolutely unquenchable acquisitiveness that drives the American attitude toward all things, but there is also this lovely serenade at the end where you really go home. In the middle of this massive, energetic symphony there is an island of peace.
Speaking of which, the third movement is back with a vengeance and it has... it's like danger without fear. Some months ago I shared this Remington painting, The Stampede:
It reminds me of that. There's undoubtedly danger; it's a stampede during a rain storm, after all. But the rider isn't terrified. He's got the knowledge, the skill, and just the guts to remain in command of himself with enough to spare for his half-panicked horse. It's that sense of overmastering that comes with the optimism and acquisitiveness, one that openly acknowledges the risks but does not shrink from them.
Which is almost what the last movement reminded me of... but not quite. I had the hardest time characterizing it, because it's dynamic, full of back and forths in a way that would convey something of struggle, of upward swings followed by downward spirals. It's less-straightforward than the type of heroism above which can simply plunge on in the same manner. It's met with many setbacks and problems, but as is characteristic of the whole tenor of the symphony, triumphant in the end.
What I finish this with is a kind of curious self-reflection. I don't think of myself as particularly American, and certainly not holding many traditional American views, but combined with other observations I've read/seen of what is the best form of our vital character, it did give me a bit of pride in what my whole culture is about. It's a moralizing culture, a religious one in fact, that likes uniting its values to material results. This can lead to crass consumerism, but it also believes deeply that the world is within one's grasp if you just conduct yourself accordingly. The optimism in a better future, for the individual and society, is almost deranged, setting no bounds on what cannot be accomplished without sufficient gumption. Dvorak's selection of themes, weaving in the native tunes but giving them a higher interpretation, seems to me to truly capture this strange mixture.
Anyway, so that was the night at the symphony. The number of "mehs" that started it out perhaps belie that I did enjoy it throughout, and that even if I wasn't touched by several pieces I still derived something from them.
No comments:
Post a Comment