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Brisk is always better than lugubrious
Painting and music combined to mixed effect in the Symphony's partnership with the Museum of Art
Johannes Debus
Video:
CYSO's Encore Chamber Orchestra performing music by Adam Schoenberg
Saturday night’s San Diego Symphony concert was an okay attempt at combining music and art. It was a pretty idea but the execution of the concert was pretty stale. I assume the pre-concert lecture got into the relationship between the art and the music a little but the concert itself provided zero context.
There were screens to either side of the stage with a projection of the painting on them which corresponded to the piece of music being played. That's getting close to pedestrian and shows a lack of passion on behalf of the San Diego Museum of Art and the Symphony.
I could have done a similar concert at home with a few PowerPoint slides and Spotify. I wouldn't have had the live orchestra but the slides would have been just as effective.
If we step over the shockingly low bar set for the art, we get to a fantastic concert of music. For starters, Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead was — how shall I put this? Freaking awesome comes to mind. Yes, let’s go with that.
Guest conductor Johannes Debus, of the Canadian Opera Center, pulled a monster performance out of what I am guessing were limited rehearsals because of Friday night's E.T.-related performance and the fact that this was a one-time concert format.
Rachmaninoff’s music is based on Arnold Böcklin's Isle of the Dead, though it’s not a one-to-one correlation. As is the case with almost all the music in this concert, the composition is a response to the painting instead of a representation of the painting in musical form.
Adam Schoenberg’s 2006 composition, Finding Rothko, is based on four paintings by Mark Rothko. By and large, Schoenberg’s piece was interested in being good music instead of experimenting with sound effects the orchestra can make.
I do think the music would have been better on its own without the paintings. Again, this was Schoenberg's response to the paintings. With the paintings present it became tempting to compare my own response to Schoenberg's. I'm not suggesting I disagreed but that I was tempted to shift my attention away from the music. I'll admit that is a personal flaw and shouldn't be considered a valid criticism.
Respighi's three pieces of music based on art by Botticelli, including the famous Birth of Venus, started the second half of the concert. These pieces were written for chamber orchestra and are smaller in scope than the large-scale, three-ringed Roman circuses we usually associate with Respighi.
La Mer by Debussy was the headliner for the concert even though it was not based upon any of the Monet paintings which accompanied it on the screens.
The performance was tight — almost too tight. In fact, it bordered on being constrained. I know, I know, last week I complained that the Tchaikovsky wasn’t tight enough, and now the Debussy is too tight? Go ahead and say it, it's warranted: “Make up your mind a-hole.”
La Mer is a piece of music that can float away if it isn’t controlled. But then again, if it’s too controlled then it starts to suffocate. There is no perfect performance of La Mer.
Maestro Debus kept the tempos moving along, which is so very important in live music, but some of the magic in the transitions was lost in the momentum. Some of Debussy’s mist was whisked aside by the breeze of the tempo.Through it all, this performance was a great experience of Debussy’s thoughts and feelings about the sea. The brisk is always — always — better than the lugubrious.
There is something about the ocean which always makes us feel good. No one has ever been to the beach or the cliffs and not felt at least a little bit better. The same can be said of Debussy’s La Mer.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Brisk is always better than lugubrious
Painting and music combined to mixed effect in the Symphony's partnership with the Museum of Art
Brisk is always better than lugubrious
Painting and music combined to mixed effect in the Symphony's partnership with the Museum of Art
Johannes Debus
Video:
CYSO's Encore Chamber Orchestra performing music by Adam Schoenberg
Saturday night’s San Diego Symphony concert was an okay attempt at combining music and art. It was a pretty idea but the execution of the concert was pretty stale. I assume the pre-concert lecture got into the relationship between the art and the music a little but the concert itself provided zero context.
There were screens to either side of the stage with a projection of the painting on them which corresponded to the piece of music being played. That's getting close to pedestrian and shows a lack of passion on behalf of the San Diego Museum of Art and the Symphony.
I could have done a similar concert at home with a few PowerPoint slides and Spotify. I wouldn't have had the live orchestra but the slides would have been just as effective.
If we step over the shockingly low bar set for the art, we get to a fantastic concert of music. For starters, Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead was — how shall I put this? Freaking awesome comes to mind. Yes, let’s go with that.
Guest conductor Johannes Debus, of the Canadian Opera Center, pulled a monster performance out of what I am guessing were limited rehearsals because of Friday night's E.T.-related performance and the fact that this was a one-time concert format.
Rachmaninoff’s music is based on Arnold Böcklin's Isle of the Dead, though it’s not a one-to-one correlation. As is the case with almost all the music in this concert, the composition is a response to the painting instead of a representation of the painting in musical form.
Adam Schoenberg’s 2006 composition, Finding Rothko, is based on four paintings by Mark Rothko. By and large, Schoenberg’s piece was interested in being good music instead of experimenting with sound effects the orchestra can make.
I do think the music would have been better on its own without the paintings. Again, this was Schoenberg's response to the paintings. With the paintings present it became tempting to compare my own response to Schoenberg's. I'm not suggesting I disagreed but that I was tempted to shift my attention away from the music. I'll admit that is a personal flaw and shouldn't be considered a valid criticism.
Respighi's three pieces of music based on art by Botticelli, including the famous Birth of Venus, started the second half of the concert. These pieces were written for chamber orchestra and are smaller in scope than the large-scale, three-ringed Roman circuses we usually associate with Respighi.
La Mer by Debussy was the headliner for the concert even though it was not based upon any of the Monet paintings which accompanied it on the screens.
The performance was tight — almost too tight. In fact, it bordered on being constrained. I know, I know, last week I complained that the Tchaikovsky wasn’t tight enough, and now the Debussy is too tight? Go ahead and say it, it's warranted: “Make up your mind a-hole.”
La Mer is a piece of music that can float away if it isn’t controlled. But then again, if it’s too controlled then it starts to suffocate. There is no perfect performance of La Mer.
Maestro Debus kept the tempos moving along, which is so very important in live music, but some of the magic in the transitions was lost in the momentum. Some of Debussy’s mist was whisked aside by the breeze of the tempo.Through it all, this performance was a great experience of Debussy’s thoughts and feelings about the sea. The brisk is always — always — better than the lugubrious.
There is something about the ocean which always makes us feel good. No one has ever been to the beach or the cliffs and not felt at least a little bit better. The same can be said of Debussy’s La Mer.
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