Is anyone writing decent symphonies today?
To look at most modern symphony orchestras’ classical programs, one might think composers ceased to exist sometime during the 20th century.
Of course there are living, breathing composers alive and working. Regular Pittsburgh Symphony concertgoers hear the occasional premiere at Heinz Hall, a piece of brand new, never-beforeheard music. Friday’s concert featured one such work.
Last week, I wrote about why modern orchestras commission mostly short works and concertos. That article sparked some intense reactions — my inbox received missives from quite a few composers and listeners alike, a lively mix of criticism and endorsement.
On the composer side, the argument is fairly uniform: “I think large institutions are risk averse,” said composer Katherine (Katy) Balch, who wrote Friday’s brief new piece, which the orchestra plated with a program of classical bread-andbutter names like Shostakovich and Dvorak.
The evening was about the Dvorak in pretty much every way that counts. It was the longest piece on the program and took up the entire second half of the concert. His was the name on the concert title: “Manfred Conducts Dvorak.” And in terms of Friday’s performance, the orchestra’s trademark energy and verve burst forth in the Dvorak after a somewhat tepid first half.
Why? Why are orchestras still primarily fronting works from the past? Is the music “better” or “greater” somehow than today’s compositions, or is it mainly a question of name recognition and marketing?
Firefly music
It’s complicated, and largely subjective. Modern composition is a mixed bag of style. There’s no one defining style, no unifying element, really. Gauging compositional quality is a slippery thing that isn’t really tied to popularity in this subsidyand personality-driven business.
On Friday, Ms. Balch explained before the performance that the piece, “musica pyralis” (“Music of the Firefly”) is inspired by the soundscape of her rural Connecticut home. The music was thoroughly evocative, and soothing at times. Flutes and violins flitter about, bursting into bright little flurries of swirling movement against a dusky texture in the lower strings and percussion. Trombones croaked gutturally, harmonicas suggested wide open plains, and strings created a fluttering, winglike rustling by tapping ontheir instruments near the endof the piece.
Ms. Balch referred to the piece as a “snapshot” after Friday’s rehearsal. There was a stillness to the piece, which felt like a sort of impressionistic landscape. (Not that music necessarily needs a narrative to be compelling.) The stillness was peaceful, but at about 10 minutes, it was drawn out about as far as I’d have been keen to hear without more contrast or some sort of development or narrative.
Old school
Contrast this with the other works on the program: Shostakovich’s cello concerto is an aggressive, biting work that conveys huge emotions with an economy of thematic material. On Friday, however, cellist Pablo Ferrandez and the orchestra both lacked energy and “bite” in an angsty work that flings snark and venom and intense pathos at listeners in the right hands.
But then, Dvorak’s seventh symphony. Under Pittsburgh’s music director, Manfred Honeck, the orchestra came alive and launched into a gripping account, melodies stated and developed and restated and transformed. Mr. Honeck wrung every ounce of drama and nobility from this work, the musicians seeming to delight in the symphony’s contrasts and rhythmic energy. There was something untamed about the finale that worked especially well.
The tight construction of the symphony lends the piece to a more expansive, drawn-out form that holds the ear in a way that most of the shorter, more impressionistic works premiering at orchestras do not.
“Well you could write a piece that sounds like it was written in the 19th century, sure,” said Mr. Balch. “But I think it’s good to acknowledge that music is different now; we’re responding to a different world.”
Fair point. But some new concert music has given the genre a rep for being unpleasant to listen to. (I generally refer to this modern, experimental sort of music as “bang-squonk music,” and while it can have its place, a little of this goes a long way and tends to send casual listeners scurrying for the doors.) Most new works on orchestral programs are fairly approachable, these days, but the music tends to feel more ephemeral.
Money matters
“musica pyalis” is scheduled to be performed at several additional orchestras. The classical business has embraced “co-commissioning,” where multiple orchestras chip in to pay for a single work and then premiere it, as a business model. Whether it will have a life after that remains to be seen — very few works exist beyond their premieres. (This has always been true; how many other symphonies were written during the same year as Dvorak’s seventh that we’ll never hear again?)
So, then, how do we reimagine what the music of now sounds like? Is there a world where composition imbibes some of the melodic and formal clarity and drama of the music of the past and blends it with new sounds and timbral possibilities? I’ve yet to hear it, here.
That said, I hope that if Pittsburgh’s orchestral leaders were to identify a composer working in an idiom they believe in they’d take a risk and secure the funding to commission a larger work. This would be a significant thing.
I’d help bring people to the hall myself.
This concert repeats at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets begin at $20 at pittsburghsymphony.org.