Chicago Symphony Orchestra
That’s why we get concerts like the one Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra put on at Orchestra Hall the other night. There were two works on the program: the world premiere of a major piece called Exody, by the contemporary British composer Harrison Birtwistle, and the Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony. It was a pretty good concert, but it was also totally ridiculous. These two works have no business being yoked together on the same program. (It was an even worse pairing than what the CSO had originally scheduled–the Birtwistle and the Beethoven Violin Concerto.) Birtwistle is one of the most intransigent composers alive, and Tchaikovsky has become a byword for the Romantic movement at its most sentimental: the effect was like one of those prison movies where two convicts with nothing in common have to make their escape while handcuffed together.
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Still, I’m impressed that the CSO commissioned a work from Birtwistle in the first place. At least it shows that they’re continuing their long-standing commitment to contemporary orchestral music. I’m even more impressed that once they saw what they’d bought they were still willing to put it on. Exody is a harsh and thorny piece even by Birtwistle’s standards, and the temptation must have been strong to pay him off and program some nice Brahms instead.
Part of the problem may have been the performance, which was enthusiastic and committed but sloppy; some of the intricate detailing came out awfully smeared. But then I liked that–it was a pleasant change from the icy way Birtwistle is usually performed. Sloppy enthusiasm is much more interesting than laserlike clarity. The real problem, of course, is that it’s unfair to Birtwistle to try to sum up such a difficult piece at first hearing.
Orchestras have to get rid of the idea that the classical repertoire is frozen and nonnegotiable–a sort of combined fortress and museum where new works appear only fitfully, for brief gate-crashing appearances, before the guards hustle them out the door again. A work like Exody might really shine as the climax of a program of contemporary music, where listeners would have a chance to prime themselves for its difficult sound world. I refuse to believe that such a program would be a guaranteed flop; there are a lot of contemporary pieces that even the most conservative classical fan could enjoy, that are never programmed only because it’s assumed that the audience has a blanket fear of the unfamiliar. There is a frozen, nonnegotiable tradition of classical music: it’s the one fixed in place on CDs. People should be going to the concert hall to hear something new. It shouldn’t matter if it’s a new piece of music or a new interpretation of an old standard. Even in an age of perfect digital sound reproduction, there’s nothing like the thrill of a live performance by an inspired conductor and a great orchestra at full throttle. If Barenboim can prove this with Tchaikovsky, anything’s possible.
