Wordless Music Series: Jonny Greenwood, NYC, 16 & 17/01/08

We are a lucky generation, really. And the latest installment in the Wordless Music series, held last Wednesday and Thursday night, is my exhibit A. Held in the massive and beautiful Church of St. Paul the Apostle (site of a previous Múm show for the series), the show featured the works of three living composers: Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking of the Titanic, John Adams’ Christian Zeal and Activity, and Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver.

It was, surprisingly, the U.S. premiere for Greenwood’s piece, which was—of course—the major attraction of the show. His name helped pack the church with thousands of stalwart Radiohead fans eager to feed their ears (and many probably hoped their eyes, too) on anything associated with that giant of indie music. But there was also a large group of curious and avid fans of new avant-garde music. This mixture was classic Wordless Music and a major key to the appeal of the program. Any show where these different groups share the same seat-, ear-, and head-space proves just how much musical freedom young and old composers have today. We really can do anything. And Greenwood’s work takes full advantage of this freedom. While his piece is clearly indebted to his major influences—Ligeti, Penderecki, Stockhausen, Messiaen—it has an intense dramatic and emotional appeal that allows it to stand alone. Unlike other rock star composers we can or cannot think of, his work will stand the test of time because it is unabashedly contemporary. He’s making music for the best ears today and the normal ears of tomorrow. We are lucky to live at a moment in aesthetic history when such things can happen and when eclecticism and boundary-crossing are the watchwords. Of course, we are also lucky that there are currently many talented musicians willing to play in rock bands and in orchestras, with electric and acoustic instruments, in dirty basements and beautiful churches. The members of Wordless Music Orchestra are these types: classically-trained and technically exceptional musicians who are still comfortable on a small stage filled to the brim with microphones, cables and equipment. Essentially a New York new music supergroup pulled together by the ubiquitous Caleb Burhans of Alarm Will Sound, they played the heck out of a demanding program on both nights.

The Sinking of the Titanic opened the show. A forty-minute, conductor-less piece, Bryars constructed it as a musical picture of the Titanic’s last moments. Intrigued by stories that a string quartet continued to play as the ship went down, Bryars split the piece between somewhat improvised percussion (including water gongs, random pieces of metal, chimes, and sundry other things to hit) and a lush orchestral repetition of a somber hymn. Also included were bits and pieces of taped interviews with Titanic survivors. The creaking of the wooden pews at St. Paul’s only added to the effect of listening to the boat’s sinking. The space was also perfect in another way for the imaginary disaster: the reverberations echoed through the church and added to the sense of complete inundation.

Next came Adams’ Christian Zeal and Activity, and here the slow drift into silence that characterized Titanic is replaced by conflicts of all kinds: words against music, electronic tape against live instruments, and dirge-like orchestral hymn against fiery preacher’s speech. As the Wordless Orchestra (this time with conductor Brad Lubman at the helm—nautical pun intended) resolutely played and replayed the slow music, the speakers set up at the front of the seats by the Wordless crew blasted out the preacher’s words (“What’s wrong with a withered hand!?” “Healing all that were oppressed of the Devil!”). These phrases and others were cut up and repeated in a way that emphasized their seductive but horrifying musicality. They seemed to win against the plain and plaintive tune, but the music held its own, suddenly swelling in answer. It was a classic musical tug of war (think piano versus orchestra in any piano concerto, or singer versus lead guitarist in any band) but set in a subdued minimalist vein that emphasizes timbre and stasis over ornament and movement.

In contrast to this minimalism came Popcorn Superhet Receiver. While certainly inspired by minimalism’s emphasis on texture and timbre, Greenwood’s piece refused to remain still. It moved to radically different places in its short span of about 18 minutes. The opening chord clusters were absolutely dissonant and yet they seemed open and floating, like we were placed in a not wholly unkind, even warm ocean of sound. But these chords gave way to shrill, low-level dissonances that changed the character of that spaciousness: warm water became dry desert. Then the piece resolved into a surprising and loud unison, only to then descend back into gravelly dissonance (this is the part of the piece you probably remember if you have seen There Will Be Blood). The piece only got—for lack of a better word—creepier after that. Not schlock creepy. Rather, a very unsettling sense that something is about to happen, that something has happened, that something is happening…but you don’t know what. All these opening swirls and swells of sound danced around each other; it was dramatic and dangerous, especially in contrast to the more meditative, slow-moving compositions played beforehand. At one moment, a fragmentary cluster of notes played by a couple cellos seemed to point to a drowned out and lost melody in the noise. At another moment, nearly every instrument in the orchestra played a single figure in quick succession, creating a wave of movement through the orchestra that was exciting to hear and see. At yet another moment, the cellos played intensely eerie harmonics that sounded like devilish whale music. Greenwood’s opening strategy seems to be to fill up and empty out our ears, creating long drawn-out bursts of sound, but this strategy gave way to what was for many their favorite part of the piece: a kind of orchestral rhythmic breakdown with all the strings plucking pizzicato and the double basses playing a crazy off-kilter beat. This section of the music invited head-banging—and I saw many doing exactly that.

And then it stopped. And for a long, drawn out moment, Lubman held the audience in suspense (long enough for an impressed whistle to ring out on Thursday night). Then the piece started up again in the opening mode of swirling but seductive dissonance. It came to a close on a super-loud, fully-saturated chord that simply shouted out “raw power.”

The great thing about this work is that it is a piece about creating and moving masses of sound but every individual player has a unique part to play in creating this totality. No one can get lost as the twentieth chair, second violins; there is no room for error. Which makes the playing by the Wordless Orchestra all the more impressive; under Lubman’s leadership, they performed at a level beyond expectations. I could not help but walk out of the church newly acquainted with noise. Going home, I am certain I heard a partial reprise of Greenwood’s piece played by the subway’s wheels against the tracks. You know it has been a magical evening when dead and dull things start to make music for you.

You can stream the show via WNYC here.

Links
Wordless Music Series [official site]
Photos [chris owyoung]