this past saturday night i attended what was the first of the five concerts (that i'm going to) in the minimalist jukebox festival taking place here in los angeles. i had mixed feelings for the evening, mostly because the first night featured steve reich. its not that i don't like his music, but that i like it a great deal.
variations for winds, strings and keyboards, and
three movements for orchestra were the first two minimalist pieces that was introduced to. having to wait almost 20 years to hear them live is pretty bittersweet and sums up my feelings about much of this festival.
since i'm not a critic i'm not going try and organize my thoughts into a complete narrative and instead share them as they come:
flipping through my program i found it curious that their fearless leader esa-pekka salonen declined to conduct anything in this festival. i know he needs to travel and guest conduct to promote himself, but is conducting beethoven's 5th one more time that important?update: its been pointed out to me that essa pekka was premiering a new opera by kaaja sarajaho in paris this week.
overall the performance was transcendent. the tempos of both the
variations and
three movements were a bit on the slow side for my taste, but the effect in the variations was very similar to watching the sun come up. reich is minimalist with a capital M, giving each section of the orchestra only one job to do. the strings and brass are the sustain, the woodwinds and keyboards are the ostinato machine.
the hall is still not very good match for any amplified music (reich seems to come off the worst), but the amplified keyboards in the first half were the most successful blend that i had heard.
the crowd was pretty light with many of the subscription seats empty and i really despise having to sit in the dark during concerts.
the amplification became most disconcerting during
tehillim (although better than the premier performance of
you are) the vocalists were amplified through the house and made the orchestra seem weak and feeble. its like listening to your headphones only with only the treble. after a while i got used to it, but the hand percussion(clapping and shakers) couldn't compete. i would have changed all of the clapping to claves to get a better ictus and tighten up the ensemble on stage.
i think the best solution is to keep all amplification limited to amps or a small pa on the stage. then the sounds at least match and blend with the ensemble. this worked much better with the keyboard and amp grant gershon used to accompany meredith monk and the master chorale on sunday night.
synergy vocals gave a fine performance, especially once the soprano (amy haworth?) voice warmed up, but the opening and closing syncopation counterpoint sounded pretty muddy.
their outfits didn't quite match the evening, when they came out in spangled tops the first thing i thought was
swingle singers. once i read their bio, i understood that is were their founder is from.
the final result? i was under whelmed, but i cannot really fault the performers. if this music hadn't been a part of my dna i would have probably been thrilled. the memory is usually better than the moment.
sunday night was an infinitely better. it started off with grant gershon's customary introduction to the evenings music. his descriptions are clear and simple to the point that even my mother would be interested in attending the concert. the mood was more upbeat than saturday, the crowd almost full and the house lights were on just enough to read the program.
both part's works
the beatitudes and
by the waters of bablyon we sat and wept accent all the best elements of disney hall. even though i'm basically agnostic, the organ and chorus of
the beatitudes probably point to some kind of intelligent design.
i didn't know what to expect of the meredith monk pieces that followed. i hadn't seen her perform live before (although i had the chance) and most opinions were that she was a minor minimalist, probably a few rungs below reich, glass and riley. i had listened to some of her music in school and more recently from
ubuweb , but you have to see it live to get it.
it was the most human musical performance i have attended, but let me digress a little.
overall i enjoy disney hall for its architecture and great acoustics for "classical" music performances. it is a cathedral of and for music that most of the time overwhelms the performers who cannot quite rise above the building they are performing in. sometimes it even has that tomblike quality of what it must have felt like being buried alive with the pharaoh in the pyramids. "hey this sucks being buried alive, but the architecture is grand"
so with all that being said, meredith's monks music was the first performance to surpass the architecture (that i have seen). she adapted her movement and music to fit the master chorale vocalists and it came off very well. i usually hate any movement with vocals. peter sellars staging and movement in john adams
el nino was not the worst, but was very similar to the choreography you can see with any high school colorguard/flag team in competition. monk's movement brought out inherent repetitions and patterns and destroyed the high art concept of ensemble. there wasn't an orchestra or chorus on the stage, only people expressing themselves through movement and voice. i just kick myself for not seeing her live earlier. mea culpa!
after the incredible first half, i knew the second half was the compromise of the evening. i'm sure not many people would consider michael torke a minimalist in any sense, only that his music is rhythmic and toe-tapping. my wife started singing along to magnificent seven during his copeland-esque introduction to
the book of proverbs. in terms of orchestration, a maximalist would be a better description (but not a totalist in the definition of kyle gann). my main gripes with torke's work was the orchestrational blinders he must use while composing. did he want to write an orchestra piece or a sax quartet with string accompaniment? the filigree transitions either are very poorly written or show a lack of interest in the actual performance of the work. it looked like the audience was confused also, there were probably 10-15 walkouts during the piece and yet it received the largest applause and standing ovation with two curtain calls.
although my wife was pretty upset after the second half (this is the first concert she ever left burning mad, mostly because of the second half music was not anywhere as good at what preceded it), i'm not sure why anybody would walkout during the torke, especially after the sitting through the part or monk? maybe they are the same people who leave the dodger games after the 7th inning to beat traffic?
next: tonight i'm off to see my guitarist dave kurutz perform the
glenn branca
