Postclassical Entertainment

One thing’s for certain: Alarm Will Sound wants its audience to have a good time. Committed to what the group describes as "innovative performances of today’s music,” the former artists-in-residence at Dickinson College (Carlisle, Penn.) often indulge in a host of choreographed visual effects more associated with rock and pop ensembles than with classical music. While thankfully, they don’t intentionally grimace or try to look cool as they blow, strum, and pound, they are all too willing to assemble into clusters, go down on their knees, and arrive onstage one by one to enliven the proceedings. Having Colin Chatfield play his double bass while lying on his back, and resting the instrument on his torso during electronica guru Aphex Twin’s Gwely Mernans — an example of IDM (intelligent dance music) — certainly makes for a lot of fun. But the question is, to what extent should an evening of new/classical music be entertaining? And even if it does succeed on the level of entertainment, might the fun detract from the impact of the works at hand on a purely musical level? In fact, what does “purely musical” mean in a context in which the images are accorded as much importance as the sound?

Although I don’t presume to have definitive answers to such questions, they kept arising as 18 members of Alarm Will Sound took over Stanford’s 700-seat Dinkelspiel Auditorium Friday night in their Stanford Lively Arts debut. The concert, arranged to present the premiere of John Adams’ Son of Chamber Symphony, almost buried that new opus under 10 other, considerably shorter, works, many of whose emotional content and choreography were so different from Adams’ as to create cognitive dissonance.

A Lively Pulse

Not that the program lacked structure or planning. Its catchy title, a/rhythmia, derives from the word arrhythmia, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "want of rhythm or regularity, specifically of the pulse.” As Alan Pierson, Alarm Will Sound’s engaging artistic director and conductor, explained in his program notes, “Throughout the 20th century, composers have argued about pulse, with some claiming that truly innovative music must avoid rhythmic regularity and others believing that only music built on pulse feels vital and alive. … In each piece [on the program], a basic pulse is disturbed, either by distortions in the flow of time (like a record player with an unsteady motor) or by other conflicting pulses (like the flashing turn signals on a line of cars waiting to cross traffic), or by both. … The underlying pulsation catches the ear, while the disturbances keep us alert and guessing. The ‘want of rhythm or regularity’ becomes palpable.” I wanted for little during the first piece, Gavin Chuck’s arrangement of Conlon Nancarrow’s Player Piano Study 2A. Nancarrow’s music swung in a slightly off-kilter, most ingratiating way. It also seemed light years apart from the fascinating third movement of Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto that followed, which was reminiscent of buzzing, pulsing insects. An arrangement of music by Josquin des Prez (complemented by late-medieval composer Johannes Ciconia’s music in the second half) underscored the existence of a/rhythmia in music of old. All well and good, but we’re not in class. After Yvar Mikhashof’s arrangement of Nancarrow’s Player Piano Study 6, the presence of woodwinds in Gavin Chuck’s purely instrumental arrangement of the Shaggs’ Looney-Tunes Philosophy of the World softened the impact of what the The New York Times once called “the most horrible” rock band. Best to let the Shaggs, whose Philosophy sounds a bit like Charles Ives gone to carnival, speak for themselves. Harrison Birtwistle’s Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum, which ended the set, seemed like a wake-up call. Violent, angry, slashing, and rhythmically complex, Birtwistle’s amazing take on the imagined song of a mechanical bird swept all the nonsense that had come before it off the stage.

Adams at Last

In the second half, Stefan Freund’s arrangement of Mochipet’s Dessert Search 4 Techno Baklava treated the audience to wild, klezmerlike rhythms, fabulous percussion, and lots of fun. Finally, arriving at the end of the evening’s 100-plus-minute roller coaster ride, Adams’ new opus, 23 minutes long, seemed constrained and anticlimactic. The first movement’s strong, quirky, dancelike rhythms — Mark Morris’ choreographic version will premiere during San Francisco Ballet’s New Works Festival in spring 2008 — were rather joyless, and far more visceral than emotional in impact. My guess is, had the work not been framed by so much overly frenetic fluff, it would have shone far more. Alas, the audience, which had become accustomed to applauding after short works, killed the continuity of the piece with prolonged clapping between the movements. Ignoring the first violinist, who took a while to find correct pitch, the second movement began in a curiously restrained, wistful manner, speeding up and becoming more alive as it went along. The fast final movement began with Glass-like doodles, then outdid him by a long shot with its interesting and complex peregrinations. Curiously, the piece ended without much fanfare, as if it had no grand statement to make. “It’s so much fun playing that piece,” was Pierson’s less than enlightening comment on the proceedings. Rather than encoring one of Adams’ movements, Alarm Will Sound turned to Aphex Twin’s Cock/Ver 10 (arr. Stefan Freund). Wild rhythms, jagged lines, music that winds up and down: Following Son of Chamber Symphony with such a piece seemed, in the larger context, almost dismissive of Adams' genius. I look forward to hearing his piece, which has its Zankel Hall premiere early next year in New York, in another context.