by Doctor Science
Wednesday evening we did something I haven't done for decades: listened to world-class live music with no electronic component, not even microphones. Music was in the air, and only in the air.
YouTube link.
The Hamburg Symphony Orchestra is touring the US, and the Sprogs and I went to see them at the NJ State Theatre. We only thought to go because one of our closest friends has a brother-in-law in the orchestra, so there was a group expedition.
The program: Vaughan Williams, The Wasps Overture
on YouTube
This was Sprog the Younger's favorite, she said the opening sequence made her smile and smile. There's a quality to it I found too ... programmatic, maybe? It sounds too much like movie music of the 50s, somehow.
Brahms Violin Concerto D major
on YouTube.
One of my favorite works in the classical canon. I was humming along, dancing in my chair from time to time -- the Sprogs found it intensely embarrassing to be seated near me. I can't help it! I used to play the violin -- though in no way, shape or form like *this*. Neither Sprog cared for it, really, because they find the violin too screechy, even when played brilliantly. They want more viola and cello concerti, durn it.
Dvorak Symphony #7
on YouTube.
And this one was Sprog the Elder's favorite. It almost *is* a viola/cello concerto, or at least they get the lead position in the orchestral blend, ahead of the usual violins. And there's lots of tympani, too, which gives it a tonal balance and rhythm that's closer to popular music than is the case for most of the classical canon.
I've put up YouTube links for the works in the program, but what really struck me, as I said, was how *different* music sounds in the air, instead of recorded/electronic/amplified. I've heard live, unamplified music in recent years, but only high school performances. To hear accurate, forceful music filling up a space with great acoustics is a very different experience. It's like the difference between artificial vanilla and natural, or between Two-Buck-Chuck and a high-end Pinot Noir. The live, unamplified performance has all these extra harmonics, or something, so the music sounds and feels more *alive*.
Maybe we can try going to live performances more often -- there are several colleges in the area, at which free or lower-cost concerts should be findable. What I'd really like to hear is something I don't know exists: instrumental music that has the complexity and structure of Classical, but also has rhythm. And maybe not too "screechy", for the Futures' sakes.
The other things that really struck me about the concert have to do with the personnel. I had heard about studies showing that blind auditions have led to more women in top-flight orchestras, but I hadn't realized how great the transformation has been. The Hamburg Orchestra violin sections, for instance, are now about 75% female -- even though German and Austrian orchestras are notoriously conservative. Not uniformly, it seems.
The other very striking thing about the personnel is that Jeffrey Tate, the conductor, has a fairly severe hunchback -- he was born with spina bifida. He has to sit to conduct, and (possibly because of that, or it might just be his thing) his arm gestures are exceptionally fluid and graceful. He has what a ballet dancer would call "wonderful porte de bras".
When Sprog the Elder was about 12 or 14, about the time she read The Daughter of Time, she asked me if "hunchback" was a real thing, or just some out-dated superstition, because she couldn't tell from the descriptions what it actually *was*. After the concert, I told her that Tate has a hunchback, and she said
He was not nearly as monstrous or twisted as I was led to believe by people flipping out on paper at the idea of a hunchback. I thought he was just, like, old ... I just assume that all old people look kind of weird.Humph. I'd tell her to get off my lawn, except I'll probably need her to shovel snow later today ...
To hear accurate, forceful music filling up a space with great acoustics is a very different experience.
Amen sistah!
instrumental music that has the complexity and structure of Classical, but also has rhythm.
I'm tempted to suggest jazz, but depending on what you are looking for when you say "(the) structure of Classical" it may not suit.
You might like some of the stuff written by / inspired by the late 20th C minimalists - Reich especially, if the combination of rhythm plus structure as a vehicle for meaning are what are of interest.
Big fun.
Posted by: russell | January 21, 2012 at 10:16 AM
One of the things that I've been geeking out over in my music lately has to do with the ambient soundspace. I find that, all other musical things being equal, I've really grown to appreciate music, recorded or live, that takes place within a three-dimensional space and is not just two squished channels. Not that I'm listening to 5.1 stereo or a high end quadrophonic system. The mind is really good at picking up nuances of echo delay and frequency that give depth to a good stereo recording. And with the increasing push in pop music towards a compressed, mid-heavy signal that cuts through noise to get the listener's attention I've really started to appreciate music that is patient and confident enough to draw the listener into its own space.
(Of course with some genres of metal there's an aesthetic of lo-fi compression. And while I can appreciate the history and identity preserved in that hollow flatness, it's a cerebral appreciation. I feel the appreciation for a more open, warm recording.)
I think that part of the magic you describe in unamplified live music has less to do with electricity and more to do with how the composite sound emanating from many instruments playing in a spread out space produces a different ambience than those same instruments projecting from a much more compact PA system. I'm sure there's more to it than this, but it's one of the things that I really notice when I'm at a venue. Good sound systems do a better job of filling the space with sound rather than just increasing the volume of the sound so that it carries.
Posted by: nous | January 21, 2012 at 04:40 PM
There was a period of several years when I had season tickets to the SF Symphony. It got to the point where I could no longer listen to recordings, I had become so used to listening to music live in Symphony Hall. I vividly recall one performance when the concertmaster was playing a different violin and I could tell it was a different instrument than his usual. It really blew me away.
I love live music, of all sorts. There is a jazz venue in my hometown that has amazing acoustics (it was designed that way)- amplification isn't really necessary and pretty much every seat in the house is a good one. It's where I learned to really love jazz.
Posted by: bluefoot | January 21, 2012 at 08:52 PM
Yes, there is something magical about live music. Not only the sound, also the connection between the audience and the performers. This is more vivid in intimate venues (Piedmont Piano in Oakland springs to mind) but even at the SF symphony sometimes you can feel the connection. Or, at least, I imagine so.
Posted by: ral | January 22, 2012 at 11:16 PM