My husband surprised me with one ticket to hear the New York Philharmonic orchestra in Danville on Thursday night. I was so excited! Orchestras of this caliber were only ever accessible to me on cd back in South Africa. As a student, we would talk about what American orchestras we would hear first if any of us were given the opportunity. Over the past 2 years, I have experience more than I could ever have imagined.
So after 6 weeks of listening solely to American 20th century music, I was finally going to soothe my ears with the music of Berlioz, Schumann, and Mussorsky, or so I thought. As the orchestra walked on stage I felt a sense of relief in the tradition of this incredible medium and as the overture began, I was amazed at the depth in the simple unison passages of the various sections. It was then that I realized I was listening differently than I ever had before.
Perhaps the instrumental innovations of Partch made me appreciate the nine double basses on stage. The seemingly random sounds of Cage and Christian Wolff helped me to appreciate the simplicity of Schumann. And I began to think about all the discussions we had in class. Having read a lot about minimalism on my own the past weeks and the impact of the well-known and not so well-known composers thereon, I had to ask myself why they would abandon their traditions. I think you were defiantly right Evan, in saying that many of the composers of the time were “seeking for meaning and questioning everything about existence”. Their music defiantly seems to be rationalizable that way.
After interval, Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ (an orchestral excerpt I know frontwards and backwards in my tuba studies over the past 10 years). This magnificent work was surely going to help me put all this ‘American Innovator thought’ out of my head so that I could just enjoy the performance…there I go thinking again! I was completely and utterly disappointed. Not by the New York Philharmonic orchestras performance itself, but by the music. It was predictable, every chord, every sound, even the cheap climax at the end of ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’. My only explanation is that the listening I have done recently has demanded more from my ears than I had previously anticipated and that the familiar sounds of the classical and romantic composers were now almost disappointing. I’m sure that will change again with time, as I believe music is evolutionary within every individual. But until then, I am less inclined to allow my ears to get too comfortable again with “traditional sounds”.
At the end, the little old lady sitting next to me asked me ‘what did you think of the performance?’. I instinctly but politely answered ‘from what perspective would you like?’. I didn’t elaborate to her but I was consumed by the ideas we’ve thrown around the room and the blog about various composer’s views. If ‘noise can connect us to the present moment’ as Dr. Brunner said, then I was defiantly not connected. I could not escape the batter in my head thinking whether from Cage’s perspective, the coughing and shuffling around me during the performance all added to my experience.
I did not give a standing ovation (although I rarely do as I sincerely believe that these are reserved for exceptional performances, and not simply something one ‘does’). But I clapped in sincere appreciation and left feeling disappointed. Perhaps in that brief moment I experienced just a little of what some of the innovative composers we have been studying, felt. The need for something more, something different. Or perhaps I’m giving myself way too much credit.
I do know this for sure, I am more excited about experiencing 4’33 live (Brad, the onus is on you to pull through with this one). LaMonte Young is giving a performance of his Raga Sundara in the Dream House (a continuous electronic sound environment in luminous fields of colored light) at the Guggenheim in New York next week, I would give my front teeth to see that! And in studying LaMonte Young (whom I will try to share with you on Tuesday) it has allowed me to experience music on a completely different plain.
If you get a chance, listen to LaMonte Young’s Drift Study 31 1 69 http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/aspen/mp3/drift.mp3. Is this really music? I’ll try to shed some light on it on Tuesday…oh the pressure!!!
Did this blog make any sense? It did in my head. Sound familiar?
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Nicola,
ReplyDeleteI am fascinated by your self-evaluating account of your musical growth. For a lot of musicians, the pill of percussion music is a hard one to swallow. For many musicians, music of the 20th Century, especially after the 40s, is a hard pill to swallow, no matter what continent you're talking about. But, what is interesting to me are the effects you discern when you do swallow the pill. Because we percussionists (at least the scholarly and aesthetically aware variety the congregates in an upstairs room of the library twice a week), never got to swallow that pill. It was never an option for us as we studied the history and repertoire or our instruments. The history and repertoire of our instrument IS the history and rep of 20th century music, outside of the percussion parts in the standard orchestral rep. Every composer we have or will talk about this semester made some impactful innovation or contribution to the world that percussionists live in every day. We simply don't know any better!
I think the concept of listening with new ears is amazing as a point of conversation. Since our rep is so young and the variables of performance so wide (a piano in china usually sounds the same as a piano here, but how many different drums are there in the world...)that new ears is a skill we have to use almost every time we listen to a new piece of music.
Welcome to the club. Here are your new ears. Use them unscrupulously and with reckless abandon. To increase useful lifetime, use earplugs when appropriate.