Toronto Symphony Orchestra's New Creations Festival: "Electronica Meets Orchestra"
Roy Thompson Hall. Saturday, March 5, 2011
This is an an expansion of my earlier notes which appeared here.
Once again, the festival's programming at Roy Thompson extended beyond the main concert, and I arrived early enough to hear some of the pre-show lobby performance by the Gryphon Trio, which sounded a bit like a mildly abrasive 'moderne' sort of chamber music — a stately-but-drunken mix of Bartók and "Rock of Ages".
That was curiously enjoyable, but I also had another tangential musical adventure in mind, so I took care to settle into my seat with enough time to listen to the orchestra warming up. I've always loved that random drift, the soundquilt of overlapping melodic fragments, from even before I knew anything about "ambient" or abstract music of any kind. It's actually one of my favourite things about going to the symphony.1
The programme proper began with Gary Kulesha's Torque, which was simpatico with the later City Noir — and also paralleled the previous show's Short Ride in a Fast Machine with the brisk invocation of a sleek car ride. But Kulesha's piece, though designed as something sort and punchy to begin shows with a burst of energy, employed more of a atmospheric cinematic vocabulary than Short Ride.
And then on to the main event — Mason Bates' Liquid Interface. This night's title ("Electronica Meets Orchestra") was an interesting demonstration of the pace at which "popular" forms filter up into the high culture, and enough to make me wonder if, by the time they reach this level, things might have already moved on at ground level. Although it's not particularly my realm, "electronica", as a word or concept, has a bit of a turn-of-the-century whiff to it, coming off (in the accelerated world of pop forms) as a bit of a quaint attempt to create a marketable umbrella term for what is really a diverse rage of subgenres.
It also offers the promise of one of my least-favourite live tropes — the image of the lone figure behind a laptop, possibly pressing keys to control the music in vague and unfathomable ways — or just updating their twitter for all the audience might know. So, watching Bates take his spot in the orchestra, "playing" his laptop and drumpad, I was curious to see how everything here was going to meld.
As the title implies, Liquid Interface was a sonic exploration of various states of water, from icebergs sliding into the sea to the gentle patter of falling droplets to the overwhelming power of a gale. Bates' contributions were mostly percussive, and surrounded by the lushness of the orchestra, the beats sounded somewhat tinny and boxy. It's also interesting to ponder on whether the metronomic regularity that the programmed beats enforced on the orchestra2 let the ensemble "breathe" a little less than they might have otherwise.
The various movements went in a few interesting directions and Bates also provided a lot of scene-setting sound effects, from the drip-drop rain patterns to the white noise of wind. There was one jazzy section that made this feel more akin to the night's next piece than I was expecting — but also a bit like a "pops" piece as well. On the whole, I wasn't particularly overwhelmed — I wouldn't say either half of the style collision did much to elevate the other.
Then again, the reason I was chuffed for this show came from the next selection, John Adams' City Noir. It was introduced by Adams as a sort of theoretical film noir soundtrack, unrestrained by film music's need to give way to dialogue — "you just get going, and you have to stop," he said of his frustrations with music cues.
The piece also functions as a tribute to Los Angeles, playing itself in its seedy, after-hours, dark-side-of-Hollywood guise. As such, the music did a good job of building up a tense texture of implied threats of violence alongside hints of glamour. Because of that pre-existing cinematic language, it was very vivid, and musically, there were homages to bebop and Ellington brushing shoulders against rushing car-chase tempos and moments of stillness like a foggy night in a desperate harbourtown.
By that measure, this was great fun to listen to, and a smashing success, right up to the bombasto ending. I don't know if this was pushing the envelope forward, technically speaking, like Adams' Harmonielehre (performed at the festival's previous show), but it was interesting as hell.
The night concluded with an after-show lobby party, featuring Mason Bates switching personas to spin some discs as DJ Masonic — another lively touch even if it's not my sort of thing. And anyway, wrapping up early-ish meant that I could rush off to another show to complete my evening.
1 I ask this in all seriousness: has anyone ever released an album just of orchestras warming up? If you had a bunch of source material and the sensibility to edit it, you could make something deliciously woozy.
2 It's worth noting that John Adams conducted not only his own work, but Liquid Interface as well, wearing a click track in his ear for the latter. I have no particular insight, but it would be interesting to hear whether that drove any change is his approach and how he guided the orchestra.
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