Deerhunter @ Neumos
Thursday evening’s Seattle Symphony concert marked the start of a series of signature events highlighting this season’s focus on émigré composers. With the exception of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, two of the composers tasked to write a movement for the Genesis Suite, the composers featured have mostly been forgotten. Luckily, Schwarz has proven to be a vigorous advocate for composers and music too easily overlooked by both conductors and orchestras.
Martinu and Korngold filled the first half, while the Genesis Suite and its seven composers filled the second. The Genesis Suite is one of those pieces of music that will likely be remembered as an exotic work notable for its creation and recent recreation with the help of the Milken Archive. Devised by violinist and composer Nathan Shilkret, the work attempts to connect the “high-brow” concert experience with “low-brow” satisfaction. The work was performed only once before Thursday’s performance. The complete score was nearly lost in the 1960’s when the Shilkret home burned down. Sleuthing and re-orchestration from Patrick Russ helped put the piece back together again.
Divided into seven different sections, each movement was composed by a different Twentieth Century composer. Except for Schoenberg and Stravinsky the work’s other composers: Darius Milhaud, Ernst Toch, Nathanial Shilkret, Alexandre Tansman, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco have fallen into obscurity.
Joint efforts like the suite aren’t unheard of. Les Six, the circle of six French composers made up of among others Poulenc, Honneger and Milhaud collectively composed at least two pieces of music including a set of piano pieces Album des Six and a ballet based on Cocteau’s work Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel.
Unlike Les Six though, the Hollywood seven who composed music for Shilkret’s epic composed in a vacuum and at least Schoenberg and Stravinsky genuinely disliked one another. The story goes, during rehearsals for the premiere of the Genesis Suite, Stravinsky and Schoenberg so disliked one another they stood at opposite ends of the hall. It seems fitting then for Schoenberg’s 12 tone Prelude to open the work and Stravinsky’s Babel to bring the piece to an end.
The Suite doesn’t rest on its music alone. Shilkret also imposed spoken parts for narrator drawn from the Bible. The effect is a piece of music that patches together different compositional styles, connected by a common story, but also closely aligned with works like Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No.3 Kaddish which employs plenty of fist shaking dramatic moments for its narrator.
Making a coherent whole of the Shilkret’s epic is a daunting enough challenge, but Schwarz added one more layer of complexity. Building on last year’s successful collaboration with artist Dale Chihuly, the glass artist was recruited to provide visuals for the Genesis Suite.
I am not sure any orchestra could have perfectly pulled off all the elements of Thursday’s performance of the Suite. Likewise, I don’t think even the most sophisticated and committed audience member could juggle the works narrative arc, evocative music, and Chihuly’s ever changing, vividly colored projections. Nevertheless, take away the biggest problems of the night, the uncertain narration from Patty Duke and F. Murray Abraham (Patty Duke seemed to stumble through her lines especially in Ernst Toch’s The Rainbow) and the sharp amplification and the audience was still left with a piece of music and a performance that was interesting and perpetually stimulating with music, dramatic narration and visuals.
Chihuly’s visual projections, drawn from his voluminous body of colorful paintings, were projected on metal cylinders suspended over the stage. Watching the colors merge, drift and grow reminded me of watching the abstract moments in Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. Chihuly says:
“I invited Peter [West] to use his film and editing expertise to see if I could come up with some interesting abstractions that would change with the nuances of the musical score. Maestro Schwarz, Peter and I followed the color of the music in creating moving fields of pattern that Peter made by exploring the surface of a number of my paintings.”
For instance, dark red and other foreboding colors dripped overhead during Milhaud’s study of the fratricidal Cain and Abel story. Duke and Abraham’s narration, for all intents and purposes, added spoken context to the unfolding abstractions overhead. With all that was going on, the music ran the risk of falling into the background. Not so. If anything, the music’s credibility was enhanced by Chihuly’s imagery.
It is probably wishful thinking, but maybe the success of the Genesis Suite will persuade Schwarz and the orchestra to perform Bernstein’s Mass. What a way to commemorate the twenty year anniversary of the composer/conductor’s death in 2010. The Mass, like the Suite is an oddity. Electronic instruments, dancers, actors, singers and an orchestra constitute a piece the New York Times describes as “like a cornucopia of genius poured out with no restraint.”
Before intermission, Bohuslav Martinu’s Symphony No.3 and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto were performed in convincing fashion.
The first movement of Martinu’s symphony is an unforgiving march through the pallor that hung over Europe in 1944. The second and third movements vacillate between moments of funeral grimness and restless unease. The first movement’s agitation grows with each passing moment and this feeling is augmented by ominous, percussive thuds. The orchestra’s handling of the symphony’s rhythmic drive is a hopeful for the orchestra’s upcoming performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.6. Dubbed the “Tragic” symphony, all four movements, but especially the first, drives forward with a white-knuckle intensity likely to make most listeners sweat.
Because of Thursday’s performance, I am sure more than one person in the audience wants to hear more music by the prolific and uneven Czech composer. Martinu’s music deserves more time on the concert stage. Last year Schwarz gave Seattle a taste with Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras.
Composed six years after Samuel Barber completed his, Korngold’s Violin Concerto is similar in the use of broad, thematic material for the first two movements and a demanding, virtuosic finale. In contrast, however, Korngold’s music is far more cinematic. This shouldn’t be surprising. When Korngold settled in Hollywood in the 1930’s, he found immediate success composing scores for movies like the Seahawk. And, in fact, the lush thematic material used through out the piece is borrowed from the composer’s film scores.
Stefan Jackiw has become a familiar face to Seattle audiences. Not only has the violinist performed with the Seattle Symphony, but he is also a fixture at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival that happens each summer at the Lakeside School. Jackiw’s manifest talent was on full display Thursday. His sound was warm. He caressed the ample solo parts but attacked the third movement.
Thursday’s concert will be repeated again on Saturday evening. The novelty of the event should draw the curious out. How often can audiences hear Martinu, Korngold, and the collection of composers represented in the Genesis Suite? The romp through the music of some of America’s under appreciated emigre composers was enjoyable from start to finish. The Genesis Suite’s film roots give the music a complimentary and textured feel. Like good film music, the suite works best as a piece when considered with the other elements of the performance. F. Murray Abraham’s stentorian narration, Chihuly’s always interesting visuals, and a reliable performance from the Seattle Symphony will give even the most attention addled member of the audience something to grab on to.
The Seattle Symphony continues its Coming to America festival featuring music of émigré composers June 5 and 7 with performances of Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra and a staged performance of Kurt Weill’s The Little Mahagonny.