The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an institution. And it always makes me happy when institutions get it right. Which they can only do when pressured by smaller, more nimble and agile organizations. And so the work by ensembles like eighth blackbird, Fulcrum Point, and dal niente has finally had a positive effect on the CSO, Chicago's most venerable Classical music institution, which presented its new music series, MusicNOW, on Monday at the Harris.
Unless you've been under Iraq, you've heard about Maestro Muti's coming and subsequent early withdrawal, but receiving a lot less press and fevered googling is the MusicNOW series which, quietly, unassumingly, and flawlessly opened Monday night at the Harris.
Nevertheless, the Harris was packed with more people than I've ever seen at a new music concert--all the usual suspects and many more.
The evening opened with Mason Bates and Anna Clyne, the composers in residence at the CSO, introducing the evening with their respective West coast and British mannerisms--Bates appropriately tan, Clyne predictably not.
Li Po
As a continuing celebration of Mexico's independence, the program included pieces by 2 Mexican composers, of which Li Po by Enrico Chapela opened the concert. Chapela based the music on a Mexican poem about the Chinese poet Li Po and so included projections of the poem--in hand-made caligraphy--onto a screen behind the performers. The piece for chamber symphony and tape fused the two media symbiotically, which, like a happy marriage, were sometimes independent, sometimes joined at the hip. About 50% of the sounds on the tape part sounded rich and lush, electronic but acoustic, on the Harris's sound system; the other 50% sounded cheaper and more digital. The form of the piece, based on the structure of the poem, was indecipherable, for the poem itself was enigmatic and was in Spanish with no subtitles. Even if I spoke flawless Spanish, each verse of the poem flashed on the screen for a mere 5 or 10 seconds, not long enough to engage the imagery. And even if I had more time, the music drew most of my attention with its polyrhythmic activity and spatialized tape part. Overall, a good piece--not amazing. It didn't piss me off or insult me (except for the "seagulls" in the violins) and had plenty going on to keep me from getting bored. (6.5 / 10)
Vision Mantra
After the Chapela was a piece for string trio, Vision Mantra, by local composer Marcos Balter--local in that he lives in Chicago and teaches at Columbia College. The piece was repetitive, rhythmic, and slow to change: minimalist. But it was minimalist in a different way. Instead of trance-inducingly constant, it was broken up into short phrases, each of which being either a perfect copy or a slight modification. The pauses between each phrase allowed the audience to clearly hear each phrase with no distractive connective tissue. But after awhile, it got old. Instead of inducing a meditative calm with a heightened sensitivity to subtle changes, I started to get irritated by the regularity: each phrase was the same perceptual length.
It was during this piece that my attention was drawn to the amplification: each piece was amplified, and while for the pieces involving a tape part, this was absolutely necessary (and perfectly mixed), for the acoustic pieces it was less necessary. In this piece, the amplification caused the grating of the bow on the strings to be more prominent than if it were unamplified. And thus the subtle beauty of the piece was further disturbed.
Within the whole of the concert, the piece acted as a nice sorbet to the electronic-laden pieces around it. But on its own, it was a one-timer: (4.5 / 10)
steelworks
The Wednesday of the 5-piece concert was Anna Clyne's steelworks, which was the popular favorite. The piece was about the steel industry and was accompanied by a video by Luke DuBois. There were only three performers, but with the tape part and video, it was an all-encompassing experience. The trick, Clyne was clever enough to realize, was to keep the components simple to let the complexity build up. Her writing for each member of the trio--percussion (mostly marimba and bass drum), bass clarinet, and flute--was fairly simple with only brief moments of "look-at-me" attention-grabbing--tasteful and subdued. And the tape part cradled the instruments nicely, turning a mere trio into something that felt more chamber symphony. Clyne seems to succeed in the big picture even when working with somewhat mundane details. Worth another listen/viewing. (7.5 / 10)
Bhairav
After Anna Clyne's work filled our every mental orifice, it was a welcome break to have Ana Lara's Bhairav, a completely innocuous piece for string quartet that, much like Balter's string trio, functioned very well as a sort of aural sorbet. The first third of the piece used shimmering tremolos in the upper strings to accompany a very run-of-the-mill, elegiac chant in the cello. The tune moved up through the viola and then to each of the violins. This took all too long, proceeding slowly and predictably. Suddenly, and with no apparent reason, the second half took off with a driving rhythmic homage to either Shostakovich or Bartòk. Those with less experienced ears could call it a favorite; those with jaded and overtrained ears could hear the thieving and called it "embarrassing." And, there were no program notes, no explanation before the piece, so the meaning of the piece, something that might have distracted us from its simplicity, remained an enigma. I was content to hear it once--but just once--but kept wishing I were hearing one of Schnittke's string quartets. [Apparently, I missed a sixth of the piece somewhere: lost to the ether.] (3.5 / 10)
Digital Looms
My first reaction to Mason Bates' closing piece was against the title: using "digital" in a title sounds cheesy. And since the piece was for pipe organ (yes, like the one in the church, not a B3) it had an uphill battle to prove that it wasn't straight out of the Mars Cheese Castle. As soon as it started, though, my fears were allayed; the opening movement had nothing schmaltzy about it, instead playing it cool, like a DJ spinning at a cool underground-loft-art-gallery. This progressed and flowed into the second movement, Fanfare with Breaks, which was like spastic, Keith Emerson-esque, organ dogfighting against Amen breaking all over the place. Not quite cheesy but it had its moments. After the third movement, things get a little fuzzy for me (it's also been a couple days). I remember the 4th movement, Geraldine's Parlour, because of the vibrato, self-consciously feeding the audience one big cheese ball.
I felt engaged while watching it, but now I'm not so sure of its merits. If there's one thing that Bates is good at, it's the moments; if there's one thing he's still working on, it's tying it all together. Each moment is beautiful, interesting or some quizzical combination, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts--just the opposite of Anna Clyne's piece.
Also, judging by Bates' music that I've heard so far, and this piece in particular, I find that his stylistic palate for each piece is too glutinous. He presents enough styles for an entire concert, so when his work comes at the end of the concert, it feels like stylistic overload. Now that we can do anything, do we throw everything into each piece? I say: "Say no to say yes." Save some styles for future work and develop the ideas you have further.
That being said, I would hear his piece once or twice more. Not destined to be a classic, it's both attention-grabbing and holding--a journey through a land of many cultures . (6.75 / 10)
It looks like Bates' and Clyne's music got my highest marks, which brings up a good question: did Mason and Anna choose the other pieces to make their own look good or was it pure accident?
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