On more music, and on books

[annathepiper]

Last night solarbird, spazzkat, and I once more met up with kathrynt at Benaroya Hall for another entry in their ongoing Made in America festival. This performance was all instrumental, featuring five pieces: Eric Moe's No Time Like the Present, John Harbison's Rubies, Pierre Jalbert's In Aeternam, Bright Sheng's Red Silk Dance, and the highlight of the evening, Philip Glass' Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists.

And it was all fun, though I almost got more entertainment value out of the jokes Dara and Paul and I kept muttering at one another in between performances. We were rather charmed by this gentleman in the violin section who had a huge, magnificent, ZZ-Top-esque beard, which I fear made all three of us wonder if he was going to start spinning his instrument around in the middle of the performance. Of the pieces themselves, I can say that at least the first three had us all thinking of movie music; the first definitely had this sort of action-y, brass-heavy, syncopation-y thing going on that was rhythmically interesting to listen to, but really came across to me as rather "opening action sequence of a James Bond flick". The second piece had this lush, almost wistful sort of air about it that made me think of emotional scenes from 1940's-era films, perhaps involving long-separated lovers who are wondering whether to reunite. And the third, Paul adamantly insisted, was a chase scene--though it came across more to me as "spooky horror movie scene where the characters are creeping into the monster-infested part of the haunted house". At the same time, I also found myself thinking of some sort of "creation of a world" kind of motif, which I suppose indicates that of the first three pieces, the third was most interesting to me since it made me think of two different things at the same time.

Bright Sheng's piece broke me out of the movie mode, though, since it got significantly more unusual and didn't use nearly so many musical tropes that are long familiar to people who see a lot of movies. He was playing the piano as the centerpiece of the work, and there were times that that worked and times where it didn't. In several places where the orchestra was in full swing, the piano really kind of got lost among them all--but in the places where things got very quiet and minimalist, then the piano really shone through. I particularly liked those parts since the Chinese influences of the work were most apparent to me there.

Last but not least we had the timpani piece, which was quite impressive with fourteen, count 'em, FOURTEEN timpani up on the stage. And it was quite cool seeing the two performers go at it on their drums even though in parts of the work, the rhythms got lost for me again--maybe due to how far we were sitting back, maybe due to the volume of the orchestra, I don't know. It wasn't the coolest drum performance I have ever seen--Dara and I both mentioned afterwards that after having seen the excellent taiko groups at Folklife every year (the words "Seattle Kodon Taiko" still bring great joy and happiness to my heart), we have a very high bar that must be met by a drum performance. Watching these guys play their timpani like bongos did come pretty close, though I think I'm still a taiko girl when it comes to drums.

In other news, I have finished The Radioactive Redhead by John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem--and was somewhat disappointed to see that I didn't ultimately care for it, mostly because the humor was trying too hard. And really, what kept me from actually getting into it was a nitpicky little detail--all the characters using "Gates" and "DOS" as swear words. Uh-huh. Right. Bill Gates only wishes people would swear by him in the year 2060. And honestly, if you want to use a Microsoft operating system as a synonym for "shit", DOS is not the one that comes to mind, as any serious geek will tell you. ;)

I don't think I'll bother to go into detail on this one, or Carrie Bebris' Pride and Prescience or donna_andrews's Murder With Puffins either. They were all fairly forgettable. I'm hoping to get jolted back up again by what's next on the queue, though: Elizabeth Peters' The Serpent in the Crown!

Wednesday evening miles: 2.4
Thursday miles: 3.15
Friday morning miles: 2.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 985.2
Miles out of Rivendell: 527.2
Miles out of Lothlórien: 65.2
Miles to Rauros Falls: 323.8

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Knowing what I do of Phillip Glass (my first housemate out of the dorms was an architorture major who thought Glass was the greatest thing since sliced bread) I'm not surprised the rhythms got lost a bit in the timpani piece... to say that Glass' musical style is unique is like telling you that Great Big Sea is a good band... it just fails to cover the subject adequately.

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Philip Glass's music is pretty, but I think it gets repetative and boring very quickly. I went to a piano concert of his once and he was playing this music and by the third or fourth piece, I thought I was going crazy, because everything was the same. C major triad. WOW . . . as a joke, my friend asked him to autograph his "Form and Analysis" (advanced music theory) text book.

[annathepiper]

The only thing of his I'd had any prior exposure to was Koyaanisqatsi; Dara's got that on CD. I'd always kind of liked it. But I haven't heard any of his piano work.

Hee about the autograph, though!

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

You probably have heard some of his other music (not necessarily piano) in the "The Truman Show" and "The Hours" soundtracks. He did both of those. I think that his music was very appropriate for "The Truman Show" actually. I never saw "The Hours" (it didn't look very interesting to me).

[annathepiper]

Ah okay, yeah, I saw The Truman Show. But I don't recollect the music making any kind of an impact on me, and I don't own the soundtrack, so I had no idea that was him.

I've never seen The Hours either.

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wouldn't bother buying the soundtrack, though downloading a few tracks from your uh . . . what's it called, the music service thingie that you said you're subscribed to, you'll probably remember it when you hear it. The music works really well for the whole idea behind the show in "The Truman Show" because the music is very repetative and could just go on as long as you like . . . as long as Truman sleeps, haha.

[annathepiper]

Rhapsody is the service--and heh, I've got tons of stuff to go through already, to see how much of it I like. But maybe I'll be able to find this. I'm sure you're right; I find what I've heard of Glass so far to be perfectly nice ambient background music, but nothing that really has seized my ear. I only remember Koyaanisqatsi because Dara has played it often enough and the vocal bits stand out for me more often than the instrumental bits do.

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely works as ambient background music . . . unfortunately, I'm sort of against the whole idea of background music (such as music in stores, restuarants, and whatnot). His music is really good to fall asleep listening to, too, because it is generally very pleasant that way.

[annathepiper]

Heh! I don't mind background music so much as long as the music doesn't actually suck. But there are places where I think it's kind of goofy, such as out on the sidewalks in front of stores--that whole theory of "let's play classical music because the loiterers won't like it and will go away" has always struck me as rather snobbish.

[annathepiper]

to say that Glass' musical style is unique is like telling you that Great Big Sea is a good band... it just fails to cover the subject adequately.

I see you are learning well how to make me grin ear to ear, aren't you? ;)

But yeah, what the orchestra was doing kept distracting me from the drummers. There was a lot of neat going on all around them, and I guess that no matter how good two timpanists are, if they're outnumbered by a hundred-odd-piece orchestra, the orchestra is going to win.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Growf. Sucks about the orchestra imbalance.

As for grinning... jeez, I haven't even gotten to make you pie yet, and I'm already this successful? *EG*

[annathepiper]

Hey, praise of my B'ys always makes for a happy Anna. But pie does not suck, either. ;)

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Dude, I LOVE the 1st violinist with the beard. He's my hero. Well not really, I just think his beard is awesome.

Bright Sheng is . . . not my favourite composer. I'm not really one for the atonal music. I had a composition lesson with him once, and he was a nice and interesting person though.

[solarbird]

I liked the atonality. I didn't like how the piece highlighted all the flaws of the piano as an orchestral instrument. He tried really hard to compensate for those flaws using other instruments in sympathy (and it worked a couple of times) but... it's just not a good instrument for that environment.

[annathepiper]

The beard was, I must admit, awfully fabulous!

Sheng's piece didn't really leap out and grab me as a whole, I think, though there were bits of it that I definitely liked. Possibly just because I'm all in a mood for Chinese things, having just finished Throne of Jade, for which this would have been quite an appropriate piece of music.

Nice to hear he's a neat person, though!