Concert Report #3

Hello Bloggers!

       So for my third and last concert report I went to the Contemporary Ensemble in Hockett Family Recital Hall on November 19th at 8:15pm. Due to the printer breaking there were no programs being handed out so I improvised and used the description on the Ithaca College website. For the third concert report I had to go to a type of concert I haven't attended before; I had already been to a jazz ensemble and a solo Bass concert, I knew going to this ensemble it was going to be very modernistic. The size of the performances varied with each composition; there were small compositions containing only three performers and there were also large performances with many of the same instruments.
       There were seven performances all embodying Modernism music characteristics. Varying in size, I will talk about two that I believe embodied the Modernism aesthetic the most. The first piece I choose was performed by a violin, cello and piano. The texture and melody started off soft, the rhythm seemed to stay together; the cello and piano frequently complimenting each other and harmonizing with one another. Then just like in 'Rite of Spring' there was an explosive part; each instrument playing their own melodies, the use of disjunction and fragmentation was used frequently in this piece. The texture during this time was deep, each instrument playing as loud and hard as they could, conveying a story of chaos. Then the melody and tempo slowed down again and all three instruments begin to compliment each other again but not playing the same melody. The cello was used in a nontraditional way at times, the cello player would pluck at the strings giving it a different sound and in return giving the song a different sound as well which we experienced in music we listened to in class, like 'Rite of Spring how string instruments could sound like drums at times. The second piece I'm going to talk about was the third piece performed. This piece contained a piano, small bongos, percussion, vocals as in chanting and a bit of opera, violin, cello, clarinet, flute and then an oboe was later added in. This piece was very different, to me it screamed Modernism. Every instrument was on its own melody only to come together occasionally to play a short chorus like piece. The flute played a melody frequently that was similar to a piece we listened to in class by Claude Debussy called "Faun" the melody was very dream like by using the whole tone scale and the texture was soft. It also helped convey the story of the piece as well. The parts that made this ensemble memorable was the performers odd use of instruments at time and the chanting and singing in some pieces.
       To be honest I did not enjoy this concert. The last two concerts I attended I enjoyed a lot but this concert was too modernistic for me. We had listened to "Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky in class and this ensemble reminded me of that piece. The aesthetics of modernism were very present, the fragmentations and starting and stopping of melodies on top of each other and some melodies fighting each other and trying to fit together. In general I don't like Modernism pieces, I enjoy the classic phrase structures and danceable and singable melodies, this was just not my kind of concert. I do however think that every performer that played was incredibly talented, I can't imagine how hard it is to follow this form of music and some performers were switching between multiple other instruments and still executing the melody which I thought was very impressive.
       As I've stated before I definitely compare every song performed at this ensemble to 'Rite of Spring' by Stravinsky because they are both embodying modernism characteristics. 'Rite of Spring' was a composition that changed music; people were used to classical music, they enjoyed to dance to string quartets at parties this was the polar opposite of that. 'Rite of Spring' was about telling a story, it was not a song to be danced to just like these songs performed at the ensemble. It was very much about the back story. To strengthen my point Patrice Pastore, who was a faculty performer at the ensemble, every time she was about to perform a piece she told a back story. One was about the struggle between light and dark, and the second was about heaven and earth and how the darkness of earth is balanced out by the light of heaven.
      This concert was a great example of Modernism aesthetics. The melodies, textures and rhythms were similar to those in Stravinsky's piece, 'Rite of Spring'.

-Kelsey