When I play music for myself, it is music that I like: Beck, Nico Muehly, Stereolab, The Clash, the Pixies. Last weekend, I went to the the Seattle Symphonys performance of Tchaikovskys 6th Symphony, Pathetique. Before the Tchaikovsky, they performed the US premiere of a 27 minute piece called Night Butterflies, composed by Russian, Alexander Raskatov. Its structural makeup is 12 miniatures, each supposedly illustrating a unique type of butterfly. Its supposed to be about loss of innocence, and place. It was during this music that for the first time in along time, I was exposed to music I did not like. It was viscerally uncomfortable for me to sit in my seat, I couldnt wait for it to end. After each little miniature, I begged for it to be the last one. I was reminded that there is a lot of music that I like, that others might not: The Red Kraola, Dinosaur Jr., to name a few. These bands have some obscure sounds, but they are not objectively bad. This music was objectively bad, I thought. Even the guy sitting in the row in front of me plugged his ears with his fingers half way through! (Not kidding.) Night Butterflies is dissonant, has little to no melody, and a lot of times just sound like an orchestral cacophony of children blasting away on instruments. Any connection to diaspora, or loss of innocence was purely intellectual, and totally lost on me. I was in fact, unable to think about anything other than it ending, and feel nothing but annoyed. Except for the fact it was perfectly played. It was a highly technical piece that the pianist and orchestra completely nailed. (The piano music was actually written for the woman that performed it, which was very cool. And in the last of the 12 miniatures she sang for bit, beautifully. It only lasted for about 30 seconds, but it was a tall glass of water in a desert of thirst.) The music could be duplicated over and over again. It was written down - the musicians were playing it, and could play it again. Why all those people in the audience were standing and clapping at the end if it was completely beyond me though. How could they know so instantly they liked it enough to stand and clap? The irony, is of course, 100 years ago - Tchaikovsky premiered Pathetique to an audience that hated it. But, they told him so. (He also died two weeks later.) Will my grandkids hear Night Butterflies in 100 years? I highly doubt it. But thats fine, so long as someone is introducing music that is challenging and uncomfortable.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 22:38:29 +0000
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