Since returning to David Geffen Hall this season, the New York Philharmonic has sought to give some of its premieres even more multimedia appeal, taking advantage of its newly renovated, technically proficient space. rice field.
Etienne Charles’ “San Juan Hill” opened its season in October and dealt directly with the displacement of the economically vulnerable in the city block that became Lincoln Center in the mid-century. . His March program, March to Liberation, featuring music by black composers, was accompanied by a video of his art.
In both cases, I felt that multimedia, no matter how delicately presented, undermined my musical experience. During “San Juan Hill”, Philharmonic music director Jaap van Zweden was building a real relationship and momentum with Charles’ group, Creole Soul. But then there is a pause due to the new insertion of a long video commentary. And Courtney Bryan’s new work during March to Liberation was so moving that I found myself closing my eyes to avoid having my experience filtered so strongly through the lens of another artist. I also noticed.
On Thursday, I felt compelled to close my eyes again when I saw another lively premiere showcasing Geffen Hall’s multimedia prowess, with Van Zweden leading the Philharmonic Orchestra. It happened during the imaginative second movement of Julia Woolf’s “unEarth.” It’s the latest in her recent series of oratorio-style protests, and served as the start of a two-week green show.
In its second movement, Pulitzer Prize winner and founder of the influential group Bang on a Can assembles a powerful mix of varied sonorities. Percussion that inherited the tradition of gamelan. Punchy orchestral writing. Her regular collaborator Mark Stewart plays a thumping electric guitar line that’s evocative but not too rock-inspired.
This mix of sounds was a welcome change after the majestic choral pieces of the first movement, which brought together the talents of New York City’s youth choir and Crossing’s male singers. Stewart’s guitar compositions recalled the powerful enthusiasm heard in the “Breaker Boys” movement in Woolf’s Anthracite Fields (2014), for which she won a Pulitzer Prize. And in transitioning from dry orchestral rumbles to powerful tutti riffs, this section of ‘unEarth’ is a tribute to her memorable recording of ‘Fire in mymouth’ (2019) premiered by the Philharmonic Orchestra. ) also reminded me of the “Factory” movement.
When soprano Else Taupe comes on, with a beaming, stratospheric straight-tone voice that quotes Emily Dickinson’s “Who Stole the Woods,” Wolfe’s movements on the song are joyful and consistently weird. There was found. But it was a strange one that served a dramatically clear purpose, as the whole acted as an sonic commentary on the wonders of biodiversity.
The piece was designed with both amplified and acoustic sounds in mind, and Van Zweden struck a balance. However, the animated footage accompanying “unEarth” was far less imaginative than the score. Instead, the video played like a slideshow of words for “tree” in each language, with some local tree information in the margins. The music was a passionate litany. Multimedia was like articles.
A stage director (Anne Kaufman), a projection designer (Lucy McKinnon), two animators and four video technicians are on the programme, but soloists like Stewart and electric bassist Greg August are not to be missed. Lack of alignment is another sign of deviant multimedia impulses. A little more detail about the musical presentation of the Philharmonic Orchestra.
This same literal literalism of video art influenced the sound and visuals of the third and final movements of “unEarth”. In this movement, Woolf puts several texts contributed by young singers to monotonous yet disturbing music. Here, screen test-like portraits featuring members of a youth choir were projected and combined with music. Serious stuff, but a little too obvious to impress.
The whole concert was somewhat chaotic, down to the seemingly random combination of “unEarth” and Sibelius’ Violin Concerto. The difficulty of the solo part was often heard as described by Frank Huang, concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra.
However, next week’s program seems to lay a firmer conceptual foundation. The orchestra performed Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes from ‘Peter Grimes'”, Toru Takemitsu’s “I Hear the Dreams of Water”, and the New York premiere of John Luther Adams’ majestic “Become Desert”. I plan to show it off.
Most importantly, the night can be completely focused on the music.
new york philharmonic
The program runs through Saturday at David Geffen Hall in Manhattan. Naifir.org.
