Musings on Music

When I restarted this blog, my initial plan was to write about a musical experience.  Something else needed to be said first, however.  Actually I've been struggling with whether or not my musings on music and live concerts was worth reading anyway, and a pause before leaping was a good thing. In the end, I've decided that my need to write trumps whether or not anyone else reads, cares, or agrees. It is worth writing if only because that is the only way I know how to make sense of my own peripatetic thoughts.

I wrote the above paragraph 10 days ago and my thoughts are still circling.  I am not sure that I ever really wanted to write about the music itself or my reactions to the music.  In that sense, time is a gift, and the fact that these things still hold a strong place in my thoughts is relevant.  So, let's get started.

In late May there were two performances, memories of which are still dancing around in my head, nearly a month after the fact.

The first was the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's May concert which included Dvorak's New World Symphony and a new commission by Derrick Skye titled "Between Suns: A concerto for African Drums and Orchestra".  I really did not know what to expect, but I was excited about the prospects going in. The truly fabulous concert was far greater than my hopes.  Derrick Skye was unfamiliar to me, but I have since listened to some of his music on YouTube and seriously hope that a recording will be made of this piece.   Between Suns is a true concerto, a true melding of the two genres of music, not just a symphonic work with occasional drum cadenzas.  The music felt comfortable spanning both idioms, tethered to neither really, although I have friends who felt it strayed perhaps a bit too far outside of the Western Classical tradition.  I disagree.  

Yes, the music pushes at the boundaries and constraints of the western classical tradition but it comes nowhere close to abandoning it.  At least not from my understanding.  But I tend to think we can all, myself included, sometimes get lost in our own assumptions and biases.  And I have long been attracted to music, art, ideas, that push at boundaries and make me think in new ways.

In Between Suns I heard passages reminiscent of Copeland, and even Beethoven in the second movement. The Beethoven reference, as I learned later, was intentional, since Beethoven used this same rhythm, which is an ancient drumming rhythm which crosses cultural boundaries and is thousands of years old.  Beethoven himself was tapping into something ancient in human experience, blurring categories.  Other parts of the work reminded me of medieval polyphony and I was charmed, intellectually challenged, and moved by complex poly-rhythmic passages and remarkable shifts and changes in the music. It was not just in the drumming and the skill of the drummers that thrilled me, but the musicians in the orchestra as well with the complex and nuanced ways the musicians played together, pushing outside normal parameters.  Some of those passages, some of those moods, still haunt me today.  This is not just a month-old memory however, as the concert was rebroadcast on a local radio station a week ago, and will be rebroadcast again in September.  But I dearly hope that this is a piece that will be recorded, and that I will be able to hear again, to experience it and understand it more fully.

As mentioned previously that concert closed with Dvorak's Symphony #9, "From the New World" and it was a warm and wonderfully engaging performance.  It was the perfect way to close out this concert, urgent and exciting where it needed to be, calm and uplifting in other moments. It was as nice a performance as I could ever hope to attend, the perfect melding of art, musicianship, and the energy present in the concert hall.  There was a moment, very brief, where one trumpet was just barely off, a quarter breathe perhaps, and it sounded like the trumpets were fighting, but the whole thing couldn't have lasted more than a second or two, and I was once again lost in the music. I've tried to let my critical brain rest when I attend concerts, but this captured my attention.  I decided it was fitting in some way, that even the stress of that brief discordance celebrated the experience of live music, of disparate perspectives and voices coming together, not always in perfect harmony, but working toward it.  I relaxed and happily just enjoyed the moment, the melding of old and new, a constantly evolving understanding of "New World".  

The second performance that has stuck in my head was Knoxville Opera's performance of "Stuck Elevator", and opera based on an event that actually happened in 2005, when a food delivery man from the Bronx was stuck in an elevator for 81 hours.  As is true of all good stories, and all good operas,  the actual events merely served  as a stepping stone to a greater story.  The opera is short, 81 minutes for an 81 hour ordeal, and it beautifully and emotionally explores suffering, love, loss, the struggles of families and peoples to survive, to emigrate, to seek betterment for their families, to navigate pain and loss.  I felt the experience was almost too short, but I know others who felt it too long.  Some of the passages and scenes were complex, challenging for the audience, even risqué in places, blurring musical constructs and styles in ways that were beautifully handled by the fabulous cast. It was an opera that pushed the assumption of the audience, questioning our very ideas of the nature of opera, of musical theatre, even of our expectations and biases in life.  Part comedy, part tragedy, part fever dream, the quiet ending was almost shocking in its simplicity. After this emotion-laden drama, the door opens and our protagonist, Guang, simply slipping away into the night, lost to history.  But not to my dreams.

I suppose, since so much time has passed,  I cannot write without also mentioning the musical event that occurred between that weekend of fascinating new works and the actual appearance of these words on a computer screen (page?).  I went to New York to see "The Queen of Spades" by Peter Illych Tchaikovsky at the Met.  I had a wonderful evening, enjoying the opera very much, with no regrets, even though I felt the performance was flawed.  The music was lushly bewitching and perfectly set the scene as the opera played out through what seemed like a series of disconnected stories.  I thought the female voices were outstanding although the men got the "best" songs, not that the men were shabby either.  In fact the singing and the music all made me happy.  That disconnect was still present however.  There seemed little chemistry between the male and female leads, and although I could enjoy the music in a very intellectual and abstract way, emotionally the performance did not bridge the lack of continuity. It is true that my mind tends to  wander at some point during most performances. Perhaps wandered slightly more than usual here.  I could only imagine how much fun Tchaikovsky (and his librettist) must have had playing with the music for this piece which also seems to mock human frailties and the subjects of so many operas.  The idea tickled my fancy, although I cannot say it will resonate in my mind as deeply as the two previous performances, but it was still a fabulous evening, and I am glad I went.

But now the summer season is upon us, and in my life that usually means less music.  Much as I love concerts I am happy to rest.