Water/Wood

I could get used to this gig, you know? A few times a year, I open my inbox and find this magical invitation from Eddie Silva at the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, in which I get free tickets and free drinks. Sweet. My ordinary existence of jazz clubs and indie dives just got so much more swank. As I ponder which friend I’m going to ask to accompany me for the evening this time around, it occurs to me that I have become a fan of the SLSO. And I don’t mean that ironically, like only on Facebook (where I am a fan, actually—it helps me keep an eye on their upcoming events), but in real life as well.

Here’s where I experience a bit of a disconnect, though. I don’t know all that much about classical music—not nearly as much as I know about contemporary music, anyway—and so I always feel like I’m experiencing the music in a much different way. With punk rock, I know the whole history of it all, the albums, the personalities, the scenes and how they interconnect. I can do that with jazz, too, right? I mean, that whole scene has only been around for less than a hundred years now, and with a little effort you can acquaint yourself with both the music and the historical context. With classical music, I have none of that—no context and no ground to stand on. Now, I have discovered that this is, actually, a very good thing. It means that I can approach the music with a fresh perspective. With classical music, I can listen with a thirsty ear; with everything else, let’s just say that it's sometimes tough to check the hipster pretensions and jazz snobbery at the door.

The program for the evening was all modern composers, which is just fine by me--I love it when the SLSO takes a walk on the wild side. Works by Stravinsky and Bartok bookended two pieces by contemporary Chinese composers Tan Dun and Bright Sheng. The two middle pieces by the Chinese composers featured percussionist Colin Currie on marimba and on various esoteric percussion instruments including, well, two big bowls of water. I love watching drummers perform--they are so embodied, there's a entirely different physical quality about them. Add to this the novelty of watching someone slap, patter and splash around in bowls of water, while accompanied by full orchestra, and then manipulate sound by submerging cowbells, wooden bowls and small gongs while pounding them with open hands or mallets, well, you've got my total attention. I don't mean to diminish the Tan Dun piece by only commenting on the fantastical aspects of the performance; the various water sounds were integral to the composition. The organic sounds produced by the water and wood were grounding, while the overtones produced when Currie drew a violin bow over an oddly shaped metal percussion instrument added jarring harmonic contrast.

The Bright Sheng composition, Colors of Crimson, was for marimba, and once again I was drawn in by the earthy wooden tones, as well as the four mallets-in-just-two-hands technique that floors me every time I see it. While it was likely not intended, there was something about the rhythmic drive of this piece (and the actual tone of the marimba itself) that evoked the sounds of African Shona Mbira music that seeped into my consciousness so many years ago while listening to those fabulous Nonesuch Explorer albums.

The final piece was The Miraculous Mandarin Suite, by Bela Bartok, reworked from an earlier aborted ballet (the single performance of this ballet was so controversial that it was never played again). I've never seen the SLSO play so loudly or intensely. I walked out of the hall afterwards thinking that I had surely just seen the symphonic equivalent of a Led Zepplin stadium show in the 1970's. I turned to my friend and said, "They rocked the f*** out on the Bartok." I grinned and said, "And that's as articulate as I can get on that one." Later, as I ran into Eddie in the parking lot, on the way to Triumph for a post show drink, he said, "Wow, they really rocked the Bartok tonight, didn't they?" Glad someone else heard it that way, too.

Postscript: Colin Currie was wandering around backstage in between performances in a Joy Division t-shirt. How cool is that?

Check out other blogger's perspectives on this performance:
Chris at Confluence City
Julie at gatewaygroupies
Amy at A Chase After Wind
Tony at Tony Renner, Artist