This past Friday, I went to hear the LA Philharmonic and Emmanuel Ax play Brahms’ First Piano Concerto. Or, that’s what my ticket said. In my own stint working for a major symphony orchestra (the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, circa 2011-2012), I learned very well that naming each concert is a bit of an art. If Beethoven’s Fifth will be performed, you’d better believe that concert is going to be called “Beethoven’s Fifth!” Unless of course, say, Yo-Yo Ma is performing some random cello sonata just before intermission. Then the concert might get advertised as “Yo-Yo Ma Plays Whoever,” famous symphony be damned.
But (also of course) such a program would never happen, because the Orchestra has to mete out its star power. Not to mention, there is much more to the symphonic repertoire than the big name composers, the all-time greatest hits.
There’s new stuff. There’s forgotten stuff. There’s undiscovered stuff. There’s weird stuff.
On Friday, sandwiched between a “forgotten stuff” offering (a movement that Mahler removed from one of his symphonies over a century ago) and a “famous stuff” showpiece (the aforementioned Brahms, as played by the aforementioned Ax), there was Alban Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra (Op. 6). It was a selection that (apologies to great fans of the Viennese avant garde) the audience might’ve filed under “weird stuff.” We might’ve, the majority of us, received it politely, only secretly counting the minutes to intermission, eager to push through to the main event.
Instead, after the once-redacted Mahler movement, after a multitude of additional musicians and instruments found their places on the stage at Disney Hall, the strangest thing happened. The guest conductor — none other than Michael Tilson Thomas, whose immense celebrity as a conductor was made clear to me during my time at the CSO — was handed a microphone. Though this itself is not the weird part, nor is it terribly common; as every member of the audience has a program containing detailed biographies of performers and meticulously crafted descriptions of everything they’ll be hearing, a speech is rarely necessary.
But MTT didn’t just express gratitude and do a little scene-setting. He gave us a crash course in the atypical pieces we were about to hear.
After a brief explanation of the historical and musical context in which Berg was writing, the conductor brought the orchestra in to illustrate the opening moments of the piece, only to stop again and tell us some more; this musical illustration was meant only as a point of interest on the map that he was drawing for us — “You Are Here.” Then, he had them play a few more measures to present another meaningful moment to listen for.
Because I have never experienced such a thing, and because there was no mention of it in the program, I grew increasingly mystified as Thomas and the Orchestra sketched out all three movements of the Berg, taking perhaps ten minutes in all. He pointed out the giant wooden box at the back of the stage, the size of a walk-in closet; how had I not seen it there before? Thomas asked one of the percussionists to show off the unusual, custom-made instrument (called the “large hammer.”) The percussionist held up the gargantuan wooden mallet that he’d use to bang out the symphony’s terrifying cease-fire.
Then, the conductor thanked us for listening, told us he hoped we’d be “enchanted” by at least some of what we were about to hear, and, without further (further) ado, conducted the piece in its entirety. Praeludium (Prelude), Reigen (Round Dance), Marsch (March). Three movements. 19 minutes.
I had arrived early for the concert, so I had plenty of time to read the program notes beforehand. One sentence stood out to me, even before I knew why. Not even a whole sentence, really, just an aside. The Berg pieces were referred to as “some of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas’ favorite music.” That knowledge colored his presentation, when it came, in an entirely new shade. Here was not only an expert, but a fan. With the careful delight of a father naming all the customers at Mos Eisley Cantina before his child’s first Star Wars screening, Thomas prepared us for something strange and then hoped we’d be as enchanted as he’d been at fifteen, when he’d first fallen for the piece.
There is a standard of “universality” to which art is often held. If something is truly, undeniably good, this standard argues, that goodness is unmissable. Anyone can understand it, anyone can see its value. And there’s something to that, honestly there is. An undeniable work of art is just that — undeniable. But there are also good things — great things — that shine through context. There is cinema that becomes more enthralling when you learn the story of the production, or paintings that come to life when you’ve been taught the theory behind them.
On top of all that, appreciaters of any sort of art are often expected to show up pre-informed. IF you’ve studied Rothko, THEN you can appreciate contemporary American abstractionism; IF you’ve read Lacan, THEN you can appreciate Haneke’s subversion of the cinematic gaze. Or something.
Whether you’re inside or outside of a particular cultural maze, there is this sense that it’s shameful to need a guide, unless you’re a child. But…why? There is so much culture out there, no one could be an expert in all of it. Wouldn’t it be just as fun to guide the willing novice through all the best bits? Wouldn’t it be fun to BE that guided novice?
I have not read, or even sought out, reviews or accounts of Friday’s concert or the surprise lesson therein. I attended the concert alone (and stayed my approximate six feet away from the nearest fellow concertgoers). I don’t know if this is something MTT does frequently. I don’t know for sure if the rest of the audience was as grateful as I was to have been drawn a map of a challenging piece of music, to have been urged along it by a world-renowned expert who was also an ardent fan. But I know that, when the giant wooden mallet struck its final blow, ending our strange collective journey, the applause that broke out was raucous. To my heart, it sounded like applause of hundreds of people who had understood at least some of what we heard and, yes, been enchanted by it.
Because I’m writing on the national holiday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, observed — and because I have not chosen to make today’s newsletter about Dr. King or his legacy — I’d like to make a recommendation. In a tremendous year for music documentaries, my personal favorite from 2021 was Questlove’s Summer of Soul, about 1969’s Harlem Cultural Festival. The movie not only serves as an important document of Black History, but is also a joy to watch and listen to. Quite the balancing act, huh? Well, get this: right in the middle of the film, during the section on the festival’s Gospel Music Day, there is a passage that makes the importance of Dr. King’s work and, even more, the sickening injustice of his death, visceral in a way that I have not stopped thinking about since. The documentary is available on Hulu, and if you haven’t seen it yet, I propose that it would make a nice addition to your holiday observance.
"With the careful delight of a father naming all the customers at Mos Eisley Cantina before his child’s first Star Wars screening ... " :-)
As having fathered five sons -1980-1992- I know that it means to be and to create a fan. Spent a couple hours on YouTube January 17 with Rev. Dr. King's "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech from April, 1967.
I would pay to listen to the cleaning crews at that hall!