by Robert Leeper
Photo Credit: Brandon Patoc Photography
The Seattle Symphony's trip to New York this week was more than just a touring gig to expose the orchestra to new audiences—it was a statement by Ludovic Morlot, now four years into his tenure as music director, as to where the symphony is going. Morlot intends to bring audiences together to fulfill their promise to "listen boldly," the marketing slogan that arrived with the French conductor's appointment in 2011. Monday's performance at (le) Poisson Rouge allowed New Yorkers (though a notable portion of the audience seemed to be from Seattle, or even Alaska) to see this approach in action.
A small group of six Seattle Symphony musicians brought an informal program entitled "Spring for Music after Hours," a reference to the ensemble's Spring for Music appearance at Carnegie Hall. Inspired by their regular hometown "untitled" performances—late-night gatherings of drink and music—the small cadre seemed eager to demonstrate their commitment to bold programming.
This particular program featured works important in the life of the Seattle and the symphony: Debussy's Pagodes was written in 1903, the year the symphony was founded; a commision for Angelique Poteat, a composer from their Young Composers workshop, was inspired by the Seattle alt-rock group Pearl Jam; and John Cage's Imaginary Landscape No.1 was written while teaching at the city's Cornish School in 1939.
The main offering was, like the full orchestra's Carnegie Hall program, a work by John Luther Adams. The Light Within (2007) is vast and cataclysmic on a religious scale, a work that allows hours to seemingly flow amidst the complex shifting harmonies before the listener emerges at the other end only to realize that 12 minutes had actually passed. Six musicians and a conductor created a blend without harmony or melody; the wall of sound seemed to exist outside of its current predicament, suspended by some cosmic thread.
Within the the confines of the space of the piece, Adams brought streaking light, dark hues, and deep shadows that communicated an artist's exploration of empty space and darkness on canvas. The Light Within requires a degree of surrender, as the sounds of the earth groan and a picture of the Northern Lights shine above you.
The Seattle Star (sold to The Seattle Times in 1947) described an early performance of John Cage's Imaginary Landscapes No. 1 as "a staccato roar of radio static and ghastly, ghostly whistles with intermittent shrieks." Though we may not be as shocked by it today—percussionist Michael Werner pointed out that his eight-year-old creates electronic music in Garageband every morning—it was a joy to imagine John Cage's delight in experimenting with the state-of-the-art radio lab at Cornish College, and the piece remains an eerie delectation that was carefully recreated by the ensemble.
Written by another father of electronic music, Varese's Density 21.5 was given a clean reading by flutist Zartouhi Dombourian that utilized numerous extended techniques, such as tapping the flute keys as a form of percussion, but these could have been brought out to much greater effect.
Though there was no encore to the evening, the crowd gave an appropriately uproarious response at the close of The Light Within, and John Luther Adams could be seen chatting and mingling with the crowd in his now-ubiquitous black hat.