Unseen Rain
Nov. 4th, 2012 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueWent to the symphony yesterday to hear the American premiere of "Circle Map" by Kaija Saariaho, which I've been looking forward to for about six months and did contorted things with my schedule to be able to attend. Saariaho is one of those avant-garde sorts of people who combines a traditional orchestra with manipulated electronic sound, non-standard tuning, etc. (Sidebar: Apparently there are free John Cage performances going on all over Boston right now. Thank you, clever person who advertised this fact in the symphony program.)
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the piece at all, and it's hard for me to say whether the fault is the piece, me, the conductor, the ushers, or the patrons of the symphony. The trouble with a quiet non-melodic surround-sound tone poem with manipulated spoken-voice is that, if you're me, you cannot filter out the noise of the auditorium, which is at the same volume level, has similar tonal values, and comes from the same direction(s). The more I tried to pay attention to the piece, the more I actually heard the whispered conversation of the people sitting behind me, the whispered conversation of the people sitting 15 feet to the left of me, the whispered asides by the people directly in front of me, and the coughing, chair-shifting, and program-shuffling throughout the auditorium.
As a consequence, I heard maybe 1/6 of the piece, and spent the rest of it hating everyone and wishing I could sieve them into a fine red mist, thinking how much I would prefer to listen using very good headphones in a concrete bunker with a deadly electrical field around it. Thinking of John Cage and of the way that Saariaho similarly wants to draw audience attention to the acoustical properties of the space, I tried to convince myself that my attention to the audience was the point, but the text was Rumi, and I feel fairly confident that "Shut up everyone Shut up" wasn't the main emotional message of Rumi.
I don't know why everybody thought it was ok to talk. Maybe everyone is always talking and I just haven't heard it before. Maybe they were bored by the piece even though they bought tickets to the piece, and were just waiting to get to the Britten. (I get that. I like Britten, even though I often forget I like Britten, because the first thing I think of when I think of Britten is Billy Budd, and I would probably sacrifice the existence of Edgar Allen Poe if it meant I never had to hear about Melville. Similarly, I'm fine with losing Mary Shelley in exchange for not having Percy Shelley or Byron, although maybe Percy would have been OK without Byron, but who am I kidding. Look, really, there is a lot of literature I'd rather we politely agree not to mention. Foremost Billy Budd.) Maybe it is the conductor, who had no charisma, so that everybody was taken by surprise when the piece started, including the ushers. Or maybe it is just me and my stupid brain, because Ciro did not have the same problem.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the piece at all, and it's hard for me to say whether the fault is the piece, me, the conductor, the ushers, or the patrons of the symphony. The trouble with a quiet non-melodic surround-sound tone poem with manipulated spoken-voice is that, if you're me, you cannot filter out the noise of the auditorium, which is at the same volume level, has similar tonal values, and comes from the same direction(s). The more I tried to pay attention to the piece, the more I actually heard the whispered conversation of the people sitting behind me, the whispered conversation of the people sitting 15 feet to the left of me, the whispered asides by the people directly in front of me, and the coughing, chair-shifting, and program-shuffling throughout the auditorium.
As a consequence, I heard maybe 1/6 of the piece, and spent the rest of it hating everyone and wishing I could sieve them into a fine red mist, thinking how much I would prefer to listen using very good headphones in a concrete bunker with a deadly electrical field around it. Thinking of John Cage and of the way that Saariaho similarly wants to draw audience attention to the acoustical properties of the space, I tried to convince myself that my attention to the audience was the point, but the text was Rumi, and I feel fairly confident that "Shut up everyone Shut up" wasn't the main emotional message of Rumi.
I don't know why everybody thought it was ok to talk. Maybe everyone is always talking and I just haven't heard it before. Maybe they were bored by the piece even though they bought tickets to the piece, and were just waiting to get to the Britten. (I get that. I like Britten, even though I often forget I like Britten, because the first thing I think of when I think of Britten is Billy Budd, and I would probably sacrifice the existence of Edgar Allen Poe if it meant I never had to hear about Melville. Similarly, I'm fine with losing Mary Shelley in exchange for not having Percy Shelley or Byron, although maybe Percy would have been OK without Byron, but who am I kidding. Look, really, there is a lot of literature I'd rather we politely agree not to mention. Foremost Billy Budd.) Maybe it is the conductor, who had no charisma, so that everybody was taken by surprise when the piece started, including the ushers. Or maybe it is just me and my stupid brain, because Ciro did not have the same problem.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-05 12:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-05 02:15 am (UTC)In general I have found ushers and others lacking in enforcing a good listening environment. The happiest moment of my music-listening life was when András Schiff told off a woman who had been coughing in Row 3 and refused to continue until she had left the hall (coughing all the way). But that was fifteen years ago now. Schiff didn't take any strips off the program rustlers during his performance of Well-Tempered Clavier the other day.
Yes, indeed, people will talk through a piece they find boring. Most music since 1920, unless it is Bernstein or Gershwin, they will find boring. They will also text, read the program, etc., and make no effort to be quiet doing so. I personally prefer symphony to schedule the challenging piece after the intermission, to allow those people to leave, and frequently they do.
From your description, though, I'm suspecting that most live performances of this piece are going to disappoint, and it's one better listened to through headphones.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-05 04:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-05 04:43 am (UTC)re: sieves and red mists
Date: 2012-11-05 05:55 am (UTC)Re: sieves and red mists
Date: 2012-11-05 07:12 pm (UTC)