Went to see the LA Phil last night.
The Marseillais Hymn was instantly recognizable and the combined forces of the LA Philharmonic and Master Chorale was quite powerful. What I didn't realize was how blood curdling the lyrics were!
This was followed by the volatile Royal Hunt and Storm by Berlioz.
Ades then went on to take the microphone to explain why he chose these pieces to lead into his work, America: a prophecy.
He set his music as a wraparound to words from Mayan poetry.
Lyrically and musically, it didn't do much for me. It represented some of the excesses of contemporary art and music: attempts to shock for the purpose of shocking.
In its defense, in the program notes, it made the point about how the coming of the Europeans to the Americas had multiple perspectives. For the natives, it meant the destruction of their societies as they were defeated by the Europeans who came from the east. But at another level, those societies had very brutal elements tied to human sacrifices and so the Europeans destroyed that and liberated the masses oppressed by their rulers. Of course, the Europeans also did bad things. But then again, the Americas have now grown to be powerful on the world stage and have brought much to the world. Thus, the Americas of 1000-2000 is a complex story. Ades also pointed out that 9/11, the singular event of the new millenia, was once again the East, in this case Middle Eastern terrorists, coming to the Americas.
On this level, I have some sympathy to the consequences of post-modern thought. Indeed, there are multiple realities to historical/cultural events which seems to be the mantra of post-moderns. But, of course, these perspectives only have meaning because the narrative has objective elements that can be used by the person making the analysis which runs against some post-modern claims against the possibility of such knowledge.
If we hold to the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief, we would have to say that Ades' effort to provide a narrative about the drama of the American story from 1000-2000 is defensible as his facts are correct.
Thus, I suppose, a true hard core post-modern perspective is self-defeating in that any attempt at weaving a narrative would be nothing more than whisting in a wind storm and would be attempted only for the purpose of pleasure or shock and not for illumination.
The second half of the show had Berlioz music from an opera he never completed. It has the spooky elements consistent with its title about a secretive jury.
The final work was then introduced by Ades as his attempt to paint with musical notes the Ark of Genesis carrying humanity through which he tied to our earth today carrying all of humanity through the universe.
This work was quite a bit easier to listen to than his first work and allowed me and the 2/3 full auditorium to leave feeling a bit better compared to the disquiet of our entry into intermission.
UPDATE: For a music professional's perspective, check out Swed from the LA Times.
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