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BMOP Concert
Nov. 5th, 2005 12:13 amI just got back from the Boston Modern Orchestra Project concert, which I attended with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
epilimnion and a couple of her NEC friends. I also met up with sen_no_ongaku and sigerson there, too. The concert was very interesting, although I only really liked one of the pieces. Here's the rundown.
The Vermeer Room - Julie Wolfe
This piece was very obviously influenced by the work of Louis Andriessen. It had big, beautiful sounds and interesting rhtyhmic intenstiy, but for all that, it seemed to lack real meat.
The Ornate Zither and the Nomad Flute - Evan Ziporyn
This was absolutely the best piece of the concert. I have yet to hear BMOP play anything by Ziporyn that isn't really good. This was lovely - lots of pulsating ostinatos and gorgeous, shimmery upward-moving figures. The vocal part (for soprano) was also very beautiful. And sometimes it was just part of the ensemble, not always a solo part, which I really liked. There were bits that were reminiscent of jazz, and a nice bit that was reminiscent of gamelan music. The timbres were almost magical at times. It was kind of like the aural equivalent of a Miyazaki film. I really hope that a recording becomes available soon.
The Trilogy of the Last Day - Louis Andriessen
This work was very long, and very interesting, but in the final analysis, I didn't much like it. The first movement was the longest, and also the loudest. The second movement was a lot quiter and had a really cool ending that included a koto and some Japanese poetry. To tell the truth, I don't remember much about the third movement, because I was rather tired of the piece by then.
The biggest problem I had with the piece was a lack of depth in the texture. Almost the entire piece (and we're talking nearly an hour) was in rhythmic unison. There was no real counterpoint, and no real sense of foreground-middle ground-background. It was all just one ground (and as my sister said, that ground was occupied by a hammer). There was very little contrast within the movements either, no build-ups and wind-downs, no tension and release. Thus, I found that, especially in the first movement, there were several passages that struck me as fairly attractive moments that would have been vastly improved if there had been some preceding contrast or build-up to make a real moment out of it.
I was a little disappointed, too. The only other Andriessen work I've heard is Der Staat, which I like a lot. And this was not the kind of thing I was expecting at all.
epilimnion and a couple of her NEC friends. I also met up with sen_no_ongaku and sigerson there, too. The concert was very interesting, although I only really liked one of the pieces. Here's the rundown.The Vermeer Room - Julie Wolfe
This piece was very obviously influenced by the work of Louis Andriessen. It had big, beautiful sounds and interesting rhtyhmic intenstiy, but for all that, it seemed to lack real meat.
The Ornate Zither and the Nomad Flute - Evan Ziporyn
This was absolutely the best piece of the concert. I have yet to hear BMOP play anything by Ziporyn that isn't really good. This was lovely - lots of pulsating ostinatos and gorgeous, shimmery upward-moving figures. The vocal part (for soprano) was also very beautiful. And sometimes it was just part of the ensemble, not always a solo part, which I really liked. There were bits that were reminiscent of jazz, and a nice bit that was reminiscent of gamelan music. The timbres were almost magical at times. It was kind of like the aural equivalent of a Miyazaki film. I really hope that a recording becomes available soon.
The Trilogy of the Last Day - Louis Andriessen
This work was very long, and very interesting, but in the final analysis, I didn't much like it. The first movement was the longest, and also the loudest. The second movement was a lot quiter and had a really cool ending that included a koto and some Japanese poetry. To tell the truth, I don't remember much about the third movement, because I was rather tired of the piece by then.
The biggest problem I had with the piece was a lack of depth in the texture. Almost the entire piece (and we're talking nearly an hour) was in rhythmic unison. There was no real counterpoint, and no real sense of foreground-middle ground-background. It was all just one ground (and as my sister said, that ground was occupied by a hammer). There was very little contrast within the movements either, no build-ups and wind-downs, no tension and release. Thus, I found that, especially in the first movement, there were several passages that struck me as fairly attractive moments that would have been vastly improved if there had been some preceding contrast or build-up to make a real moment out of it.
I was a little disappointed, too. The only other Andriessen work I've heard is Der Staat, which I like a lot. And this was not the kind of thing I was expecting at all.
