Sinfonietta Insta-review
So, I just got home from the London Sinfonietta concert on the South Bank, and man was it good. Wait, actually that's not true. Actually the Michael Gordon/Bill Morrison collaboration Gotham was so, so good that it made up for an uninspiring and in fact someone dispiriting first half. I was warned in advance that the London Sinfonietta players think that they are, in a sense, too good for anything that seems minimalist -- and their reading of Reich's City Life confirmed this rumor. There is only one word for how they played the opening section—sloppy. It's not easy music; maybe it was just under-rehearsed. But there was no bite, no attack, and the interlocking entries are so exposed that the timidity was glaringly obvious. This despite the fact that they were one of the commissioning ensembles! (I exempt the percussionists from this accusation, by the way.) The new-ish piece by Mark Anthony Turnage was... well, it was good. It was fine. It was extremely well orchestrated. It was a kind of music that I used to like—the Young British Good-Orchestration School. Now, I'm sorry, it bores me. The piece was called Crying Out Loud—so, um, why did the whole thing seem so affectless? So lacking in either rigorous form or compelling content?
Gotham, however, was a different story. Man. Man oh man. Jesus. It was... I'm sorry to say it, but it was transcendent. One movement based entirely on scales, eternally climbing and falling in different temporal levels. Another movement based on angry repeated chords, and glissandi borrowed from Decasia. A last movement which begins with frantic figuration, which led me to fully expect the material to move in a direction toward frantic unison writing for the whole ensemble. Rather, the filigree multiplied itself, until the counterpoint was so rapid, and so dense, that it crossed an invisible line and ceased being heard as counterpoint at all, just one teeming mass of sound. The movement reached its punch-line when the material—which once seemed to move, but had finally achieved stasis—was itself manipulated as a now unitary object, turned on and off like a light switch. The whole work was so assured, so visceral, so clear in its small-scale gestures and large scale forms.
I should mention that I was blown away despite the fact that the film portion of the work was completely fucked up or invisible for most of the first movement, and we were seated directly in front of a speaker that had blown out and was making hideous crackling noises. If the piece had been anything less than enthralling, I would have been irritated beyond belief.
I should quickly mention my date for the evening, a fascinating graduate student in communications and media studies, who is also on the same fellowship as me. Let's call her J—. She grew up in rural Wisconsin, and is now writing a dissertation at McGill on information excess and digital waste. We've been meaning to hang out ever since meeting each other at that reception four months ago.
The best moment of the entire evening was toward the start, when we were having a glass of wine before the show began. "How's your work going?" I asked. "I've never been more unproductive in my life," she replied. I am not alone! This was validating, if not exactly comforting....
Tomorrow: Schiller! Derek Jacobi! Absolutely no Canzone del velo. Or is that Chanson de voile? Either way, it won't be there. Tant pis.
Gotham, however, was a different story. Man. Man oh man. Jesus. It was... I'm sorry to say it, but it was transcendent. One movement based entirely on scales, eternally climbing and falling in different temporal levels. Another movement based on angry repeated chords, and glissandi borrowed from Decasia. A last movement which begins with frantic figuration, which led me to fully expect the material to move in a direction toward frantic unison writing for the whole ensemble. Rather, the filigree multiplied itself, until the counterpoint was so rapid, and so dense, that it crossed an invisible line and ceased being heard as counterpoint at all, just one teeming mass of sound. The movement reached its punch-line when the material—which once seemed to move, but had finally achieved stasis—was itself manipulated as a now unitary object, turned on and off like a light switch. The whole work was so assured, so visceral, so clear in its small-scale gestures and large scale forms.
I should mention that I was blown away despite the fact that the film portion of the work was completely fucked up or invisible for most of the first movement, and we were seated directly in front of a speaker that had blown out and was making hideous crackling noises. If the piece had been anything less than enthralling, I would have been irritated beyond belief.
I should quickly mention my date for the evening, a fascinating graduate student in communications and media studies, who is also on the same fellowship as me. Let's call her J—. She grew up in rural Wisconsin, and is now writing a dissertation at McGill on information excess and digital waste. We've been meaning to hang out ever since meeting each other at that reception four months ago.
The best moment of the entire evening was toward the start, when we were having a glass of wine before the show began. "How's your work going?" I asked. "I've never been more unproductive in my life," she replied. I am not alone! This was validating, if not exactly comforting....
Tomorrow: Schiller! Derek Jacobi! Absolutely no Canzone del velo. Or is that Chanson de voile? Either way, it won't be there. Tant pis.
posted by Grrg at 12:38 AM
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