Alice Tully: Mannes Orchestra Performs Glass, Ran and Strauss

Yesterday evening, the Mannes Orchestra traveled to Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center to give an eclectic performance of works by Philip Glass, Shulamit Ran and Richard Strauss.

The program began with Glass' Interludes 1 & 2 from The CIVIL WarS (1984), an excerpt from the "Rome" section of the lengthy opera conceived by Robert Wilson. Originally commissioned for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, it was intended to include the music of a number of composers.  Due to funding difficulties and missed deadlines, the opera was never completed as envisioned and has never been performed in its entirety.  The Interludes were about ten minutes in length and had a fairly traditional sound.  They are described on Philip Glass' website as follows:

"Part of Robert Wilson's multi-composer epic for the Olympic Games of 1984, the Rome Section of "the CIVIL warS" is a unit all its own, non-narrative, and portrays the future, the present, the past (both near and distant), and the legendary - all existing simultaneously. The opera is symbolic, metephysical [sic], realistic, metaphomical, and its stage ranges from ancient Athens to the spaceship-filled future of the human race."

The next piece was Ran's Violin Concerto (2003) featuring soloist Laurie Smukler, a member of the Mannes faculty.  The choice of music by Israeli-born Shulamit Ran was particularly appropriate for this concert as she is herself a graduate of Mannes.  Though its sound was often vigorous, almost strident, at the core of this concerto was a heartfelt elegy for the composer's mother to whom she was obviously deeply attached.  The program quoted Ms. Ran as follows:

"Though generally sparser and more intimate than the other two movements, it is the slow last movement, I believe, that functions as the work's emotional center.  From its meditative, prayerful opening solo, through a gradual instrumental build-up leading to a more intense cadenza and a final 'resolution,' it is a 'farewell' movement dealing with the inevitability of loss."

The evening ended with a performance of Strauss' most famous tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra  (1896).  I have to admit I've never cared all that much for Strauss' tone poems.  To me, they've always sounded self-indulgent and even slightly bombastic.  It was the later Strauss, the composer who wrote amid the ruins of a Germany almost obliterated by the World War II bombings, who has always most fascinated me.  In any event, hearing this particular piece has never failed to bring up associations with the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, a film I had seen long before I was familiar with any of Strauss' work.  

Though I thought the opening of the Strauss a bit uneven, the orchestra played extremely well under the direction of David Hayes.  It was obvious the students were striving their utmost to give the audience a great performance.