Digital Overtone

This was an event that I will remember for a long time. A brilliant composition, superbly interpreted and spectacularly performed by the NEC’’s Philharmonia. A tentative first few bars gave way to a compelling and emotional hour-and-a-half of some of the most visceral, poignant music of the early twentieth century. The texture of the orchestra was carefully performed, always transparent enough that each voice was audible, distinct, an important part of a whole sound. The woodwind players demonstrated extraordinary sensitivity to color and blend, both with each other and with the orchestra as a whole. The first flute solos in the first movement were sublimely beautiful throughout and were, at moments, breathtaking. The strings were similarly brilliant, the brass dark and dense, each line always clear, the mood subtle and intentional. The piano passages were as exquisite as the powerful fortes.

And yet, as Mr. Zander reminded in his program notes (magnificent, as program notes go, belying a profound emotional connection with the music he conducted), as interesting as this type of critical (and analytical) commentary is, this symphony is not experienced intellectually, but emotionally, which requires a fundamental and willful surrendering of the intellect. It is not self-indulgent to experience it in this way; it is human, and it speaks to every person who is mortal who ultimately must confront his mortality, who realizes it is inevitable, who nevertheless rails against it, and who seeks peace. As symphonists go, Mahler is among the most difficult, and the 9th is certainly one of the most demanding and complex. I wish I could wax knowledgeable and break things down in a bout of inspired historiographical genius, but I believe the 9th wishes to express something that words do not fit around. They are both too general and too specific, and anything I say will sound like poetic posturing, which I, believe it or not, would like to avoid in this journal. But whatever story the symphony suggests to the listener, the end cannot but put you at peace in the face of turmoil and make you believe that there is hope in spite of our powerlessness. The peace and hope it speaks of are permanent, final, irrational, and ultimately acts of great faith.

These themes are not easy to deal with - they require a kind of vulnerability that we shy away from - and their difficulty is reflected in the symphony. It is by turns sublimely beautiful and unabashedly ugly; quietly pained and violently vulnerable; in takes but a moment for victory to become defeat, for triumph to be twisted into despair. The music is never casual - even its moments of lightness are ultimately revealed to be sarcastic, dark, and sardonic - and the listener is not permitted to be passive. It demands that we suffer and revel not in it, but with it. The listener who wishes to approach this music must do so seriously and openly, without defenses and with commitment. He who does not is likely to find it confusing, incoherent, and ugly. He who does will come to find that is speaks to something so basic in us that it is perfectly intelligible not with our intellect but with our humanity, and that even if it leaves some questions unanswered, it is complete in a way that makes us feel whole.

The beauty of it makes me high.

Posted by Kyle / criticism and music