The concert on Jaunary 28, 2009, at the Pulitzer was of Gubaidulina, Stockhausen, and Birtwistle.

A meditation, a good-bye, a marriage

“IMAGE”
Old houses were scaffolding once
and workmen whistling.
-T.E. Hulme

The spirit of Johann Sebastian Bach was roused from a 259- year sleep by three contemporary arrangements chosen by conductor and seeming clairvoyant, David Robertson. In the beginning, a meditation constructed from: foghorn cello, tugboat double bass, suspense filled violins and viola, and a harpsichord that sounds like an electrified screen door. The violins fluttered with tense wings while the cello and double bass moaned in agony. Harpsichord punctuated each passage of Gubaidulina’s soundtrack to Gethsemane. Its conclusion gave one last flicker of light before subsiding into darkness. I found struggle within this piece, not from the musicians but rather the mood. It flailed about beautifully and shrieked sweetly through clinched teeth.

Positioned in the middle of the concert-a goodbye from Stockhausen. “Adieu” is a work inspired by the paintings of Mondrian; intended for flute, clarinet, horn, oboe and bassoon. The sparse but compelling piece recalls the art from which it derived. There are few notes present so Stockhausen makes each one count. The twittering of horns and flutes rise upward while others fall downward. This work is stripped down. This work is nude. It is vulnerable to the elements and susceptible to criticism. “Adieu” is a composition made up of primary colors inside a perfect black grid; its paint still wet, still fresh.

Robertson prefaced the final work, Birtwistle’s “Bach Measures” as sounds that are “familiar and unfamiliar, which are constantly battling.” Disparate sounds melded together, a tryst between recognizable and foreign. While listening to each note caressing each note, there was warmth in my chest. I thought of my other half who is far away. I ran my hand across the smooth concrete wall. Comfort was found in its cool surface and the piece’s sometimes-brittle melodies. For some reason everything looked crisper. Everything my mother and father taught me made perfect sense. I reached a sort of understanding through the sweeping strings and horns, the pulsating vibraphone, the marriage of known and unknown sound. I became friendly with certain sounds as if they were audible acquaintances and quickly forgot about the strangers they once were.