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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
Unoriginal and Unexciting November 11, 2001
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By Heuwell Tircuit
When someone asked Stravinsky if he liked American pop music, he famously answered, "I like good music; I don't like bad music." Monday's concert of the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra featuring violinist Mark O'Connor fell into neither category. What emerged was a superbly played entertainment featuring new American music that was neither good nor bad, but all relentlessly pedestrian.
Conductor Scott Yoo, who founded this orchestra in Boston in 1993, opened with two ensemble works: Dan Coleman's 1994 Long Ago, this radiant day and John Adams' well known Shaker Loops of 1978 in its 1982 arrangement for string orchestra. Following intermission, violinist O'Connor joined the orchestra as soloist in his six-movement 1986 String and Threads suite and then his American Seasons, the latter commissioned two years ago. O'Connor's Appalachia Waltz served as encore.
O'Connor has achieved considerable success in his dedication to American folk idioms, notably country western fiddling and soft-core jazz. The self-taught composer became a leading soloist on the Nashville pops scene before he got into the crossover field, contributing scores for PBS' series on the American Revolution and film music. In the process he has attracted a number of distinguished musicians such as cellist Yo-Yo Ma to join in his crossover adventures. Numerous O'Connor recordings exist, mostly for Sony.
But like all crossover, the result comes off as representative of neither its origins nor its ambitions. Too often, the result resembles children dressing up in their parents clothes. Once past the illusion of importance, the fact is that it's just so much silliness. Simplistic materials get shoehorned into inappropriate formats, or are bloated into tedious exaggerations. After all, not every tune is suitable to every purpose. One of the major problems facing any form of composition lies in the ability to identify the appropriate uses for an idea. There have been brilliant and elegant applications of American folk materials into symphonic use in the past: Virgil Thomson's film scores spring to mind; William Schuman's spectacular advancement of Big Band jazz style in his Sixth Symphony; or Roy Harris' bluegrass forays for his Kentucky Spring. On the other hand, O'Connor's folk adaptations came off as just so much fooling around. And in any case, how authentically American can American Seasons claim to be when he admits to inspirations from Vivaldi and Shakespeare? Indeed, most of his music sounded like watery Vaughan Williams on the rocks. O'Connor is, of course, into commercial success in music, greatly aided by skillful use of publicity. There's nothing wrong with that as such, provided the product rises above the level of expediency. It does not. His compositions neglect both the earthy purity of the originals and the potentials of sophisticated parody. They passed the time in a reasonably pleasant way, but as Liszt said of Bruckner's symphonies, “They don't begin; they don't end. They last.” O'Connor's attempts proved to be about as original and exciting as the average fast-food hamburger.
The quarter-hour Coleman piece, a sort of tone poem, offered the most interesting experience of the evening. Coleman belongs to that middle ground, which is basically tonal but is spiked here and there with this or that bit of 20th Century vocabulary. The flaw lay in the music's seeming inability to take a stance, while remaining determined to offend no one. Writer Jeremy Eichler, in a superb article for the October 22 issue of The New Republic agonizing over such middle-of-the-road efforts in American music, dubbed the movement “Up to the minute mediocrity,” a phrase I think likely to stick. Coleman, born in 1972, wrote Long ago, this radiant day” on commission, with the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra in mind. Certain elements of the Baroque concerto grosso concept were employed along the way, giving ample opportunity to hear just how truly fine are individual musicians of the orchestra. Most of the players got at least some scrap of solo, and some had extensive forays. Near its conclusion, Long ago included a full cadenza passage for the concertmaster of the moment. (The Metamorphosen musicians switch positions from work to work, so that it's impossible to identify individuals by name.) Adams has become a composer of international renown over the past 30 years, largely through his operas in the minimalist idiom. What surprised me is just how dated Shaker Loops sounds these days. It belongs to an era consumed by the simplicity of the alleged New Age, the blight of PC and similar nonsense within the general denial of reality. But like the once strong fad for the music of Eric Satie, its time has passed. Conductor Yoo, himself a violinist of distinction, led the entire program from memory. That, however, was not as impressive by itself as was his obvious grasp of the scores, his chosen tempos and the architectural unity he achieved though a play of tensions. Yoo has all his musicians play standing except for the cellists and, in one O'Connor piece, a guitarist. His baton technique is nothing to brag about but that hardly matters when the music making is so refined: any number of famous conductors have had poor baton technique. This was an event at which one could cheer the messenger, if not the message. (Heuwell Tircuit, composer, performer and writer, was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for the SF Chronicle, previously for the Chicago American and Asahi Evening News.) ©2001 Heuwell Tircuit, all rights reserved |
