CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW: If Only ... by Jeff Dunn, Kronos Quartet, September 11, 2006

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW

Kronos Quartet

September 11, 2006

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If Only ...

By Jeff Dunn

Like the designers of the World Trade Center, the Kronos Quartet set their sights high — they would recognize the fifth anniversary of the devastation of that landmark with more than a simple memorial. Kronos presented an "Awakening: A Musical Meditation on the Fifth Anniversary of 9/11." In their words, it is “a new soundtrack to an internal movie, a creation of equilibrium in the midst of imbalance: a special covering on an open wound by using a wide range of sonic building blocks from 12 countries.”

Did they succeed? Partially. The carefully crafted and modulated program offered ample material for meditation. Each of its three sections challenged the audience, and the performance was magnificent. Unfortunately, the interminable centerpiece of the evening, Michael Gordon’s The Sad Park, cast such an irrevocable pall that even a beautiful children’s chorus at the end could not save the day. Commissioned by Kronos, it was proof that a piece for a disaster should not be a disaster.

Challenge #1: culture

The first section of the "Awakening" was a confrontation. At a time when some Americans are pushing to call 9/11 “Patriot Day,” Kronos began the program with works closer to Bin Laden’s homeland. A traditional call to Muslim prayer, the adhan was played by the quartet from the corners of the stage, as if from separate minarets. The four players then merged in the center of the stage for the Uzbeki composition Awakening, also based on adhans.

Instead of Manhattan hustle and bustle, an infectious and popular song from Iraq came next, Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me. This was supposed to be a love song, but considering Abu Ghraib, isn’t that verb a provocation? The section was rounded off by melismatic numbers from Iran and India. Still, no New York on the program, yet.

Challenge #2: hard-edged music

The Western avant-garde was the topic of the second section, beginning with a literal and striking arrangement of Armenia, a song by the German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten. Bashing with hammers, and rasping with hacksaws and spark-flying grinders, members of the quartet had a jolly time. Violinist and founder David Harrington turned into a rock star and horror master as he recited in highly distorted German, “Are the volcanoes still active? Please don’t disappoint me.” In case you're wondering, the band’s name translates as “collapsing new buildings.”

Next came John Oswald’s Spectre, six minutes long and unforgettable. Without pause, that was followed by Gordon’s Park, 30 minutes long and unendurable. Spectre begins with a tuning session that merges into overdubs of simultaneous Kronos recordings, more than one thousand. According to Oswald it creates, “a wall of sound of veils of vibration of ghosts of events of past and future continuously present in a virtually extended moment.” At the climax, which has been described by Harrington and listeners alike as “747s taking off,” the quartet members, like a sped-up cartoon, flashed their bows balletlike back-and-forth in the air above their strings — breathtaking.

Where the jets went is the subject of Gordon’s wet blanket, played last night in its West Coast premiere. Gordon was walking his son Lev to prekindergarten in lower Manhattan on 9/11. The two experienced firsthand what happened that day. Lev’s teacher later recorded her students’ descriptions, such as, “There was a big boom and then there was teeny fiery coming out.” To fulfill his commission, Gordon directed sound designer Luke DuBois to drastically distort the kids’ words. Meanwhile, he wrote the extremely repetitive, astringent accompaniment for Kronos. The meditations of members of the audience are not known, but the effects on their bodies were clearly visible: squirming, fidgeting, grimacing, and for a lucky few, sleep.

Challenge #3: symbolic reconciliation

After the Gordon, the concluding section of tonal works was welcome, but still not enough to make up for previous suffering. A joint work by Osvaldo Golijov and Gustavo Santaolalla, sounded every bit like the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. It was nice, even if it was originally written for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s stark film — a mostly blank screen, sounds of a morass of voices, and occasional flashes of people falling to their deaths from the World Trade Center.

Kronos Quartet

Terry Riley’s One Earth, One People, One Love from Sun Rings took a My Country 'Tis of Theelike melody, accompanied by an intriguing film and words by Neil Armstrong and poet Alice Walker. It opened with Armstrong and a shot of the Earth as seen from space. The rest of the film consisted of Walker intoning the title while two cylinders, mounted vertically on sticks, swung back-and-forth toward each other, just missing each other. Are these the two cultures, East and West? Will they collide? They did in the film, quite gently, which put them in a parallel orbit around each another.

A Swedish folk song arranged for Kronos was followed by a Finnish song by Aulis Sallinen, and sung by the children of the Piedmont Choirs Concert Choir. Those performances and Vladimir Martynov’s The Beatitudes were all sweet and fine. The kids even brought tears to my eyes. But none was enough.

The challenges proposed by this concert of the Kronos were stimulating and laudatory. There was a lot for the mind, some for the heart, and — unfortunately — a mixed, poisoned bag for the ear. The soundtrack was not replaced, the equilibrium was only partially achieved, and the covering for the wound had a 30-minute hole in it. The building block of the program, the one from America, was made of defective concrete.

In future anniversaries, a substitute for The Sad Park should be found. Still, the rest of the music and its framework constitutes an impressive contribution to the art.

(Jeff Dunn is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in geologic education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of NACUSA and president of Composers Inc.)