David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. First Tier Center (Seat CC1, $66.25.)
Program
Elegy, from August 4, 1964 (2008) by Stucky
(1949-2016).
Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra, with Harp and
Piano (1947-48) by Copland (1900-90).
Fire in my mouth
(2018) by Wolfe (b. 1958).
Other artists
The Crossing
Young People’s Chorus of New York City
This was not on our original list of subscription concerts. I didn’t find the program, by modern American
composers, particularly exciting. A
couple of weeks ago I got an email offering discounted tickets at $59 each, so
I bit.
Steven Stucky died a couple years ago from brain
tumor. He got his Ph. D. from Cornell about
the same time I did, and remained there for 34 more years on the faculty.
Stucky was not quite 15 on August 4, 1964, and the
fateful events he was trying to capture with the oratorio were Kennedy’s assassination
a few months prior, and the discovery of the bodies of three murdered civil
rights workers, with the backdrop of Vietnam war. The work was commissioned by the Dallas
Symphony during van Zweden’s tenure. Elegy is an (authorized) stand-alone excerpt
that lasts about 7 minutes.
The Playbill the piece as “That musical cell exhales
grief – a descending combination of notes that permeates this doleful Elegy.”
What I heard wasn’t particularly sad, and what’s most prominent about
the piece was the reuse of this theme (not even sure if it was the “descending
combination”.) As with much modern
music, the effect was like the ripple in my mind caused by a thrown pebble,
disappearing after a short while.
Copland’s clarinet concerto consists of two movements:
Slowly and expressively, and Rather fast; the piece lasts about 16 minutes. Simple enough. It supposedly had so many jazz elements in the
second movement that Koussevitzky – a usual champion of Copland’s music – would
not perform it unless Copland removed that movement and recast the first as a
piece for string orchestra. Copland
first agreed, then changed his mind as he thought this would undercut the
integrity of the concerto. (Interesting
contrast with Stucky thinking a seven-minute extract could stand on its
own.) Unfortunately all this
back-and-forth was more interesting than the piece itself, a problem possibly exacerbated
by the relatively poor acoustics at our seats; the clarinet sounded weak. The only part that was close to being
interesting was the last few minutes.
The piece was written with Benny Goodman in mind, and for
its New York Philharmonic premiere Goodman was the clarinetist and Copland was
the conductor.
Anthony McGill at the end of the Clarinet Concerto.
Julia Wolfe’s piece Fire
in my mouth was written in commemoration of the fire at a garment factory
in New York on March 25, 1911 that killed 146 workers. It was jointly commissioned by New York
Philharmonic. The singing is done by a
women’s choir and a girls’ choir. The
Crossing is a professional chamber choir, this was first encounter with the
ensemble. We had heard the YPC of NYC a
couple of times before, with Mostly Mozart.
Per the Playbill, the libretto draws on “oral history interviews,
and on folk and protest songs.”
Characterized as an oratorio, the hour-length program consists of four
parts (i) immigration; (ii) factory; (iii) protest; and (iv) fire. The factory workers in question were mostly
Italian and Jewish immigrants. The term “Fire
in my mouth” is a quote from an activist who was pointing out the atrocious
conditions faced by these factory workers.
I couldn’t tell if this activist had any direct involvement with people
who perished in this fire.
I didn’t expect – and didn’t get – any elaborate staging
for the piece. There was a rather large
screen with images projected on them, probably vintage footage from that era. The piece started with five ladies describing
how they came to America, then joined by all the factory workers. The girls choir members then marched down the
center aisles during the third movement.
At the end the Crossings members were at the front of the stage, the YPC
members in the back. I assume there is a
monitor hung on the war for the girls to see the direction (I couldn’t tell on
account of where I was seated), although van Zweden would turn around and
direct them every now and then.
After listening to the first three parts I came away with
the impression that Wolfe writes music in only one way. I have no idea what “post-minimalist” means (does
it mean more, less, or simply different?), but would just characterize it as dull. Things did come to life a bit in Part 4 where
people were dying. The women’s choir is
listed as “amplified,” we brought along the wrong binoculars, so couldn’t find
out if the singers were wearing Broadway-style wireless microphones; and wonder
why amplification was necessary.
The principals were called out by the audience's applause many times. Here Wolfe was walking towards van Zweden. In the left were (probably) the directors of the choral ensembles.
Given the social justice nature of the first and third pieces
in the program, one wonders how the Copland piece belongs. In the Wolfe piece I felt some facts were
distorted so the main point would not get distracted. The Immigration story started with the five
women declaring they didn’t have passports; I am sure the immigration process
was different then, and Ellis Island and Angel Island (or their predecessors)
were where people (with or without passports) first processed. The use of all-women voices would give the
impression, intended or not, that only women suffered in the hands of their
employers. But when the victims’ names
were projected onto the screen at the end, there were a few Jacobs and Abrahams
in the list. One wonders what other distortions are in the program, and would
it be so bad to have a few voices to represent male victims?
That I didn’t have high expectations in the program is
evidenced by my no including it in my original CYO subscription. I managed to get somewhat excited by the prospect
of a new experience, but was ultimately disappointed. Here is the New York Times review, mostly
devoted to Wolfe’s work.
Today was warmer, and we just had takeout food inside our
SUV.
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