Radiohead and Juliet

I went to a play this evening at the Lewis and Clark theater department, which was a modern interpretation set on the LC campus of the classic Shakespeare play. The soundtrack, besides an excellent live performance by some music students, was more or less entirely comprised of Radiohead songs. They filtered in and out, starting in the middle of songs and ending after 30 or so seconds generally; it was clear that they were carefully picked for their lyrical value as well as their contribution to the mood of the play.

I think that the use of Radiohead's music turned what starts out as a really happy story, and only later morphs into a tragedy, into a morose, doomed warning against falling in love at the wrong time. The melancholic singing of Thom Yorke foreshadowed the disastrous turn the story would take at the beginning of the story. This was not detrimental to the story at all; there aren't going to be many people that go into a performance of Romeo and Juliet expecting a happy ending, of course.

Just as the music turned the beginning of the play into a melancholic, fate-ridden back story, it adjusted the ending from the tragic, heartbreaking moment of dread that it normally is, into a detached series of events which highlighted the aloneness of each of the characters in their final moments. Fittingly for a time when personal contact has become more and more scarce, and the distance between people means that deaths are heard about through phone calls more often than not, the music and staging portrayed a community that had lost control of a situation, and was left to contemplate the thoughts, alone.

Music I've been listening to today:

George Friedrick Handel: Giulio Cesare

Claude Debussy: Preludes, Book 2

Concert Review: A Lesson in Making Good First Impressions

The Lewis & Clark College faculty music recital on September 8 had quite a unique raison d’etre; the conception of the performance was that the musicians would be new faculty of the music department from this year. It is quite surprising—and a testament to the talent of the faculty—that they would put on a performance so early in the semester.

In different combinations, the musicians played 3 classical chamber pieces. Perhaps the most interesting piece was Gioacchino Rossini’s Duo for violoncello and contrabass, which—besides the strangeness of the instrumentation—was a peculiar, jaunty piece. The unique instrumentation really showcased both of the musicians; Dorien de León played the particularly high pitched and melodic cello lines with a powerful sense of timing, and Jason Schooler played the double bass’ extremely rapid lines fastidiously accurately. In fact, the bass “solo” near the end of the piece nearly stole the show; Schooler’s hand was a typewriter, moving back and forth so quickly it was impossible to keep track of.

Wolfgang Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major (K.493) significantly contrasted with the Duo in style. The Allegro movement showcased violinist Gregory Ewer’s expression who played beautiful melodic lines. The four players played together quite well, especially considering the short period of time they’d had to practice. The Larghetto movement showed a different side of the group; it was a sensitive—particularly among the strings—and well-timed exercise in the beauty of restraint. The final movement, an Allegretto, was a harmonically dense, quick showcase of pianist Susan DeWitt Smith’s talent on the piano. The piece at times sounded almost Baroque in its arpeggiation, but Smith’s expression highlighted why Mozart is so different from Bach.

The final piece of the night was Franz Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A Major “The Trout” (D.667). The piece was written by Schubert in response to a friend’s desire for an arrangement of his song “Die Forelle” for the unconventional instrumentation of a piano quintet. The Quintet immediately captured the fuller sound that the group was capable of with five musicians, starting off with a difficult, ensemble oriented Allegro Vivace that took the audience through memories of happy summer days. The five movements were quite diverse, especially since they were all based off of the same song. The fourth movement, Theme and Variations, and the fifth movement, Allegro giusto, were both of a pastoral nature; their earthy music reminded me of strolling through the countryside in rural England. By this point in the performance, I had been somewhat desensitized to the difficulty of the music that they were playing, but looking back it was a remarkable amount of technically difficult music to put together. It is clear that all of the players involved in this performance are professionals, and I look forward to hearing more from them in the future.