A Wall of Sound

That's what it felt like.

Ok, the best way I can describe what I saw last night is by analogy with visual art. You know the old saying, “I may not know anything about art but I know what I like”? And when you go to the museum and people look at the Renaissance paintings and say, “Nice” and look at the Baroque paintings and say, “Pretty” and look at the Modern art, with its color splashes and broken glass and say, “That’s not art, my seven year old could do that”? Art moved from the realistic representation of life and became more deconstructed, experimental in its media, more a statement of the artist about himself or about society. Maybe this was more music for musicians. Not being one, I dunno. I have zero musical training and no ear. Overall, it was loud, dissonant, deconstructed and very different. I enjoyed it. But I can’t say I liked it.

Let me begin at the beginning. After the initial Branca piece, the symphony orchestra played a Frank Zappa selection, which I liked, followed by a Varèse piece which made me feel like I was listening to a Sci-Fi Gilligan’s Island soundtrack. I can see why Varèse’s music was included in the program last night. SLSO music director David Robertson commented that Zappa really liked Varèse but it seems now that Branca takes Varèse ten steps beyond.

I took my earplugs. One hundred guitars, electric guitars. At the Pageant. Not the Symphony Hall. No way it could NOT be loud. The show opened with the St. Louis Symphony. Nice. After the first part of the program, the conductor picked up his guitar and had a seat to join the musicians while the guest conductor came on. The first movement started out slow and progressively built throughout the piece to a crashing end. The first, second and fourth parts each had some interesting parts to it, undertones and interesting chords. The third was just loud. I couldn’t hear what was underneath, if there was anything. Most classical style music we listen to is thematic. The theme is usually a pretty simple melody and pulls the composition together, especially for non-musical people like me. Branca’s had no theme. It was an experiment in chords and sounds. Much like I have a difficult time listening to Asian music, atonal and dissonant styles are unusual and hard for me to process. It isn’t traditional Western music.

I don’t know if there are many composers out there trying to write music for contemporary instruments, but I suppose it’s only natural that someone try to create something beyond 17^th to 19^th century traditional Western classical music. I liked it more than I expected to and YouTube doesn't do it justice. I was surprised by some of the undertones to the music. There were parts that sounded like bees, and parts that sounded like violins. My favorite part was the drum. One drummer for almost 100 guitars and basses. The drum provided the structure and framework for the whole thing. Without it, I would have been lost.

But hey, I got to watch the Maestro play air drums while conducting. Don’t see that very often.

(And Dave made it into this clip.)