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Although last night's performance by the Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM contained several interesting variations of works by Thomas Tallis, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst, the highlight of the "Kronos Cosmos" program was the New York premiere of Julia Wolfe's haunting and fascinating "My Beautiful Scream" written for the Kronos Quartet. Co-commissioned by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonie de Radio France and the Basel Sinfonietta, this 25-minute work premiered in February 2004 at the Festival Presence in Paris. The work begins with rather tranquil strings and quickly builds to a nearly violent crescendo. As the haunting cadences of the scream evolve musically in various directions, the timpani and amplified bass guitar add astounding and vibrant notes. Watching the orchestra closely was mesmerizing, for sudden and feverish—indeed tumultuous—phrases appeared as from nowhere. In a fascinating interview before the orchestra set forth, Wolfe described how she commenced work on "My Beautiful Scream" shortly after 9/11. As a resident of lower Manhattan close to Ground Zero, she mentioned how her otherwise "very beautiful" life took a turn, wherein she felt "this strange existence of living in beauty and having the sensation of a long drawn out internal scream." And yet her work could not be more different than other meditations on 9/11 such as John Adams' seminal On the Transmigration of Souls. Whereas Adams' piece musically evokes the thousands of lost souls ferried across the ocean of samsara—not least due to the human voices interspersed throughout—Wolfe's screams are entirely musical. While a post-concert discussion with Kronos and Wolfe further explicated some of the complicated technical aspects of composition and performance, it seems both performers and audience found the piece a tad overwhelming. Given that Holst's premiere was followed by Gustav Holst's all-too-familiar and overplayed "The Planets" with a new video projection by Hatch Productions, the questions focused more on the Holst piece. Having seen the first video projection of Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky with Prokofiev's riveting music quite a number of years ago, it was rather fascinating to learn that technology has upgraded the conductor-film relationship; maestro Stefan Asbury had no need to even observe the video while conducting as the Hatch production was computer-controlled to follow the orchestra. Rather fascinating, perhaps, but it seems even multimedia bores jaded Brooklynites: This was the first classical music performance I have ever attended where I saw not one but four audience members sending text messages throughout the performance. Perhaps they were so inspired by that portion of Holst focusing on Mercury, the winged messenger? En route back to Manhattan, I asked a member of the orchestra how he had enjoyed performing the Wolfe piece, and was rather disappointed with his answer that he preferred the Williams and Holst works. Given the three decades of virtuoso and exceedingly dynamic performances for which Kronos has become known—ranging from Caravan to the string quartets of Alfred Schnittke—Kronos' well-deserved place in the cosmos again became clear with Julia Wolfe's visionary and enthralling premiere of "My Beautiful Scream".
Tags:
bam, brooklyn philharmonic, gustav holst, julia wolfe, kronos quartet, ralph vaughan williams, Stefan Asbury
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Posted on 4/22/2007
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