Laughing Hysterically at the Symphony

On Friday night I had my second experience with the Symphony. Rosey and I, along with my friends S&J, went out to see the Utah Symphony perform Gershwin's "An American in Paris". At least that's what we thought we were going to see. It turns out that the Gershwin piece was just a small part of the overall performance that evening. The first half of the evening's performance was highlighting the work of an American composer that I had never heard of before: Charles Ives.

I first suspected that something was up when the conductor of the orchestra addressed the audience before the performance and gave something of an explanation as well as a disclaimer. Ives, as it turns out, was very experimental with his music. Few, if any, of his pieces were ever performed in his lifetime. We were warned that this group of professional musicians on stage were about to plays notes off beat and out of key and a myriad of rhythms intertwined with each other. We were assured that they were indeed worthy musicians but this was in fact how Charles Ives intended his music to be performed.

I'd like to think that I'm open to new things, so I was anxious to hear this 'original' American composer. The symphony was entitled, "Four Holidays" and each of the four movements was a tribute to a different New England holiday. The first movement was really different and kind of dissonant, but not all that bad. Things went downhill from there.

The second and third movements were really strange beyond my capacity for musical appreciation. One of the things that mesmerized me when we went to the symphony a couple of months ago was watching the bows of all of the violinists moving in perfect unison. That was not so in this performance. In fact, for the entire second and third movement I don't think that there were any two instruments on stage that were playing the same rhythm on the same beat.

By the end of the third movement, celebrating the 4th of July, there was so much musical chaos, so many different beats and rhythms, so many unexplained large frightening crashes and booms, that I couldn't contain myself and just started to burst out laughing. Not just snickering, but laughing hysterically. To hear a group of professional musicians playing this music that sounded a lot like a 3 year old banging pots and pans together was just amusing to me. It was even more amusing to me that a concert hall full of a couple of thousand people paid to see this performance.

I was not alone in my hysterics. About a quarter of the audience was apparently experiencing the same thing as I was. Total disbelief at what they were hearing. The effect was so uniform that I begun to believe that maybe this was even the desired effect of the conductor as he chose to perform this piece. For even the conductor as he concluded the third movement and turned around to address the audience, chuckled a little bit with a huge smile on his face and assured us once more that the musicians were intentionally playing off beat.

The fourth movement was actually the best. It was the earliest piece of the collection. There was still dissonance in the music, but it was balanced by enough consonance that you felt like he achieved the effect of adding a little chaos to the music without overwhelming the audience.

There were apparently some people in the audience, Rosey included, who "got it". These people made comments like, "What a brave choice of music by the conductor", or, "Imagine the skill required of the musicians to play a piece like that", or "What an interesting piece of America's musical history", or even, "Wow, the dissonance of the two middle movements create a negative contrast that really allows you to appreciate the final movement. Brilliant!".

I, on the other hand, am not afraid or ashamed to admit that I just didn't "get it". In fact, I'll go one step further and postulate that there really was nothing "to get". I understand that the conductor was brave to play a piece of music like that: Of course, he was brave, he was playing a crappy piece of music in front of an audience of thousands that paid good money to hear the orchestra play. Who cares that the conductor was brave? I would rather hear a good piece of music.

I also understand that the musicians were challenged by the piece. But, again, who cares? If the piece doesn't have any aesthetic quality, what do I care how challenging it is to play?

I have talked about this with my piano teacher on several occasions. Often when I come to practice some of the other teachers, many of whom are music majors at BYU, are practicing their difficult pieces in between lessons. Most of the time they sound like ass because they are playing these pieces that are musically difficult but aesthetically displeasing. My teacher has said that he'll never understand why people will spend a lifetime studying music to be able to play crap like that when there is so much beautiful music that you could play. I tend to agree.

Anyway, the evening at the symphony wasn't a total loss. The work of Charles Ives was good for a laugh and the second half of the performance, including Gershwin's "An American in Paris" was really quite good.