dal niente is back in town and better than ever. The ensemble was invited to Darmstadt this summer where they won the Stipiendienpreise, which roughly translates to "most badass ensemble prize".
Wednesday night, they were at the Mayne Stage, giving me my second opportunity to scope out the venue in as many weeks. I approve. Having seen post-Classical experimental Art Music in bars before, I knew it could fail. I was skeptical Wednesday when I didn't see a massive amount of microphones to combat the sound-dampening fixtures. But there was no need; the sound throughout the evening was ample, not D.O.A.--a neutral space with little added resonance or reverb.The evening was broken up into two sets, the first skewing more American, the second more Euro. Musically, the ensemble was fantastic in every piece, though the expressive quality was often hampered by the head-down effort at precision. [Not that most of the pieces required much expression.]
The standout loser of the evening was Nico Muhly (MYU-lee), whose piece How About Now was rescued from the trash bin of history and given a second chance. Muhly wrote the piece in 2006, when he was a fresh 25 years old; he may be a boy wonder now, but this piece sounded young, like he had just discovered Steve Reich, like he had sketched out a couple Reich-esque ideas, ate them for lunch, and then threw them up on the page. The ideas weren't terrible, but the whole was flimsy. His work often verges on falling apart, but this one never got put together. It alluded that it had somewhere to go but then never fulfilled its promise; its fits and starts made it both too unpredictable and predictable at the same time. No one should ever program this. Ever. [...but I'm sure if we heard him talk about it, we'd find him charming and endearing and therefore über-talented.]
It's easier to harshly criticize than to mete out praise--especially when tired. Muhly's piece was the only one that made me angry; now that I've gotten that out of the way, I can be more delicate. It helps to have slept a couple nights.
It's easier to harshly criticize than to mete out praise--especially when tired. Muhly's piece was the only one that made me angry; now that I've gotten that out of the way, I can be more delicate. It helps to have slept a couple nights.
The stand-out winner from the evening was Shanna Gutierrez in her performance of Michel van der Aa's Rekindle (apparently not a reference to the Amazon product). The piece was above average (7.0 / 10), with interesting sound design, sophisticated integration of live flute with prerecorded track, and a good sense of motion and flow. And, while I generally am not impressed by show pieces, this piece had a virtuosic component (that never overtook the focus), which Gutierrez served up with grace and intensity. The piece was successful for long stretches, inducing a mesmerization only periodically interrupted. At the end, Gutierrez gave a smile and a little laugh, as if she felt both triumphant and relieved--an apt mixture of feelings.
[Interesting aside: Ms. Gutierrez first "met" Mr. van der Aa through Twitter, through which she both learned about the world première of Rekindle and inquired about performing the US première. Technology rocks.]
Nearly a week after the concert, I have some lasting impressions about the other pieces:At 2.5 hours (including intermission), the concert was just a bit much. Listening to new music (anything unfamiliar) taxes mental muscles like speaking in a foreign language. After 5 difficult and thorny pieces on the first half, the singular beer I had at intermission, and a long day, I was sapped for the second half. In hindsight, a lot of the pieces sort of run together.
That being said, here are some further recollections.Set 1:
The Cheung, Brown, and Balter pieces all fit well together, the van der Aa being the exception that proves the rule, and the Muhly being somewhat out of left field.
- Centripedalocity by Anthony Cheung
Once, in grad school, I titled an orchestra piece "Pyroxialisticalityness". Cheung's title strikes me as similarly ridiculous. And the music sounds how the title looks: filled to the brim, tamped down, and filled again--a sort of minimalist maximalism. I have had the scene from Amadeus in my mind with Cheung as the young Mozart and me as the doddering Emperor: "too many notes". Perhaps history will judge me like it did the Emperor and in 200 years, but perhaps the Emperor has no clothes. (4.6 / 10)
- Growth by Marcos Balter
If Cheung's piece was maximalist minimalism, then Balter's piece was maximalist minimalism: repetitive but not trance-inducing, a quizzical mix of movement and stasis. Like the title suggests, the piece proceeded logically and organically with well-timed interruptions--just like life should be. A good piece I wish I could remember more: (7.2 / 10)
- Uneasy by Eliza Brown
Ms. Brown is a doctoral candidate at Northwestern, and, though her music exhibits a high degree of polish and craft, it uses a rather generic academic language that makes it difficult to distinguish from the other pieces. Most memorably, the piece explored the very high and low registers of the ensemble, resulting a unique and beautiful sonority. (4.2 / 10)
Set 2:
The second half was a slow blur of scrapes, grunts, and squeaks, wonderfully organized and orchestrated. Along with the halftime Half Acre, it induced a sort of meditative daze, an subtle reverie of abstraction.
There's another dal niente concert next week. Stay tuned for details.
[addendum: How many of these composers are/were affiliated with Northwestern? Yet again, I joined all the wrong secret societies...]
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