‘Philharmonia Fantastique’
Pittsburgh Symphony performs composer’s answer to Disney’s ‘Fantasia’
Acomposer set himself a daunting task: Write the next “Fantasia” for orchestra, the perfect blend of music and animation after Disney’s famous flick from the 1940s.
Mason Bates, one of the top composers today by any metric and one of the most-performed, toiled at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch with animation director Jim Capobianco for years to create “Philharmonia Fantastique,” a work that introduces listeners to the instruments of the orchestra. It required six orchestras and many foundations and individuals to pay for this 25-minute work, which is indeed a mammoth undertaking.
The piece premiered in Chicago, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra took on the work on Tuesday in Heinz Hall with associate conductor Jacob Joyce at the podium.
The piece begins playfully, a tuning “A” sounding in the orchestra before being passed around the instruments in high and low registers, opening up the sound world for listeners and featuring the varied colors of the different “families” in the orchestra. That’s meant literally — strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion — all have their own identifying colors and shapes in the animation.
Next gen
For context, the piece instantly calls to mind the famous “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” by British composer Benjamin Britten, written nearly 80 years ago and used ad nauseum to introduce kids to the orchestra.
That piece, too, starts with a simple tune passed around each instrumental family, but uses a narrator rather than silent animation to explain the instruments. A flute, oboe, clarinet and so on then play a variation based on the tune to show off their individual strengths and sounds, culminating in a grand and wickedly complicated fugue overlaid against the original tune.
Britten’s work is deceptively complex and extremely effective. Because it uses a single melody, the variations clearly connect and flow and build toward its dazzling finale. Other works like Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” or Saint-Saens “Carnival of the Animals” are similarly aimed at introducing children to the characters of different instruments, but “Young Person’s Guide” is easily the most comprehensive and instructive.
Sound story
Back to Bates’ work: This updated exploration hands a different theme to each of the instrumental families rather than working from only one melody.
“The strings are sort of romantic, winds are noir-ish, brass is kind of militant and the percussion are boisterous,” Bates said in a post-rehearsal chat on Tuesday.
The character shifts in the work were clear and engaging and vibrant, granting life to each group of instruments and setting up rivalries. The animation — which has a Pixar-like story about a musical sprite with expressive eyes exploring the instruments and helping them work together — is charming and weaves in actual footage of the instruments being performed with a seamless, stylish polish.
That said, the piece sounds quite difficult, in part because it has to line up perfectly with the visuals and a click track — Pittsburgh’s symphony struggled slightly but overall carried off the piece to marvelous effect.
Still, without a singular melody to tie it together, the piece felt more diffuse than Britten’s “Young Person’s
Guide” and relied on the animation more heavily. This isn’t a problem, but I’ll say the Britten holds up better without narration as a piece of concert music than “Philharmonia Fantastique.” It’s a different flavor, but still an engaging one with oodles of nuance for listeners of all ages. (I’ll be listening again.)
Shelf life
Bates said that he was inspired to work on the project by orchestras’ increasing performances of blockbuster films in concert halls with live soundtracks. As a foray into a new genre of videosymphonies, it’s an engaging, charming work that will continue to travel the country.
Next, the orchestra performs the piece for thousands of school-age children in Pittsburgh. During the season, the orchestra performs for about 22,000 kids total. From there, it’ll travel to Washington D.C. and the National Symphony Orchestra. Co-commissioning projects like this help orchestras share the extravagant costs of commissioning and also guarantees that a piece will receive more than a single performance before being shelved for the next flavor of the month.
An imaginative, functional work like this is likely to have a lasting shelf-life. “Fantasia” certainly has.
“Philharmonia Fantastique” is available to stream on AppleTV and Apple Music.