Over dinner, I revealed to a friend that I would be covering an "avant-garde performance at Peabody tonight. Sounds interesting, right?"
I was received by a couple blank stares, and a short pause. Then: "Oh, Amy. You do remember that we use that term for ugly things right?"
I recalled this pessimistic conversation later, as I fidgeted in the second row, waiting for the affair to begin. The concert hall was ironically traditional, a large white room with classical architecture dominated by an organ. In front of the organ sat a raised platform with two opposing pianos and an array of unconventional looking percussive instruments. I winced internally, wondering what I had gotten myself into by going to an experimental music concert.
As a short introduction (for those unfamiliar with this phrase), avant-garde in music typically is defined by a lack of attention to a fundamental chord structure or rhythm. John Cage, after whom the Peabody Conseratory Avant-Garde Ensemble (CAGE) is named, was an American composer, best known for his piece "Four Minutes and 33 Seconds," in which no instrument is actually played in the conventional sense. It is four minutes and 33 seconds of "silence," making it a very controversial piece of contemporary music. As such, the avant-garde musical style embraces the unconventional and bizarre and pushes the limits of what can be even coined as musical expression.
The lights dimmed. First on the program was a piece entitled, "Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)," by George Crumb. The performers filled the stage. There were two pianists and two men attending percussion instruments. The music began. Eerie, echoing plucking reverberated around the room and was joined by the occasional slide whistle, cymbal (played with a violin bow pulled across its edge), and vocal exclamation. Oddly enough, I found myself enjoying this. Sure, the piece severely lacked any distinct rhythmic unification. But - it was exciting. It was irreverent. It was ... beautiful. As the director of CAGE, Ann Teresa Kang, described it, the experience was, "an unexpectedly emotional medium."
"For a Dream's Sake," was the second piece of the evening. It featured a small ensemble of stringed instruments and one singer. The composer of the second piece, Amy Beth Kirsten, is currently a graduate student at the Peabody Conservatory. In her program notes, she discusses her inspiration for the music, the poem of the same title by the 19th century poet Christina Rossetti. The music is about a young woman who falls into a dream. She is at first seduced by the beauty of her escapism, but becomes increasingly horrified as she falls into a nightmare and is "incapable of getting the words out."
This effect is achieved as the singer at first sings the full words of the poem, "Laura stretched her gleaming neck/Like a rush-embedded swan/Like a lily from the beck/Like a moonlit poplar branch..." and so forth. As the music develops, the singer sings only the vowels, and the instruments form the percussion of the consonants. Then the roles reverse, and the singer articulated the consonants, and the strings play the swells of the vowels. In this way, the role of Laura is initially assumed by the singer, but is then passed around the entire ensemble.
Kirsten herself is extremely well received in the musical community. She has been described by the American Composers Orchestra as having, "original, unusual textures" and "very colorful, detailed orchestration." Her style "is a synthesis of lyricism and experimentation and often features some element of theatre."
I found this to be an extremely true description, barely able to tear my eyes away from Bonnie Lander, the vocalist, who's classically operatic voice perfectly captured the true purpose of the work: the raw panic of not knowing what is real or true, and the terror of not knowing how to express ones' self in such a bewildering world.
The final piece was written by celebrated composer Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and is called "Mugam Sayagi." Traditional Islamic culture and religion inspired Ali-Zadeh. She wanted to show the strong, yet subtle passion of men for women that exists in her culture, but that tends to be lost to the eyes of Western society. By using experimental stylistic methods combined with traditional instruments and melody patterns, convention meets modernity in this lovely arrangement.
Musicians with no shoes, who played at first from another room via a speaker, gradually entered or exited the stage. The cello served as the composer's voice, but was played by a man. The cello part revolved around a single repeating phrase, and mingled with a viola and two violins. The higher registers added a swirling, passion to the undulating cello part. This finale was breathtaking, and I found myself actually emotionally drained by the final bow-sweep.
Exiting the hall, I was somewhat dazed. I had ... actually really enjoyed myself. I called my friend who I had spoken to earlier. I told her, "I guess we'll have to find a new word for ugly."
