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Dave Dunnet Community Theatre, Oak Bay High School
February 8, 2020
"Who in the audience attended a concert by one of the composers on today's programme?" is not the usual sort of question that gets asked at the start of a classical concert. But it's not very often that a programme features music by someone who was a rock star. But Frank Zappa wasn't your average rock star, and if anything, his reputation as a composer has only increased since his death in 1993. And unlike some rock musicians who have dabbled in "serious" composition late in their careers, Zappa was composing orchestrated pieces right from the start. The notes on his debut album Freak Out (credited to the band he led, The Mothers of Invention) included a quote from the experimental composer Edgard Varèse: "The present day composer refuses to die!"
As Christian Kluxen noted in his opening remarks, for Frank Zappa there was no "rock music" or "jazz music" or "classical music"...only music. I was intrigued by Kluxen's personal observation about not being a "rock person", and how that meant he came to Zappa's music first as compositions. For many (too many?) of us of a certain age, it was Zappa's mid-seventies rock music that served as our entry point.
While it was Zappa's reputation and fame that filled all the seats at the Dave Dunnett hall, we heard music by two other composers in a challenging and exceptionally interesting programme. The two Zappa pieces on the programme ended the two halves of the concert. Before them, we got longer works by Varèse, the composer with whom a youthful Zappa had correspondence, and an intriguing piece by Canadian composer Nicole Lizée.
It was the Lizée that opened the evening, a multi-media composition that combined looped video fragments from 8-bit video games with a score that at times brought to mind a Sim City version of Philip Glass's score for Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, and at others the animated abstract films of Norman McLaren. The score of 8-bit Urbex builds on the fragmentary and recurring loops of early video games, and the limited but idiosyncratic sonic palette of the sounds of those games. This is a remarkably piece, one I would like to hear (and see) again.
In some ways it was the music of Edgard Varèse that loomed largest on the program. His philosophy of music as "organized sound" had a profound influence on virtually every composer who has followed — either a direct influence (as with Zappa), or an explicit rejection.
Both Intégrales and Déserts are scored for brass, wind, and percussion (including many pieces of tuned percussion).The latter also includes significant use of pre-taped music and sound collages. Further, the performance of Déserts included a film by Bill Viola, the content of which is based on notes Varèse left behind.
These long, complex pieces were brilliantly performed. In particular, the percussion section was outstanding; the players moved between various instruments with a flow that never disrupted the music. Also of note was the obviously challenging solo oboe part in Intégrales, which received nothing less than a virtuoso performance.
But it was the Zappa that most people came for, and the two pieces on the programme received rousing performances. To my ears it seemed that both were the arrangements used by the Ensemble Modern for the concerts that were released on the Zappa album Yellow Shark: that is to say, essentially a small chamber group (with the requisite percussion).
As with the Varèse, the percussion section stood out, but Zappa's music is more, let's say, conventional — the melodic structures are longer, and the rhythms are more firmly established. From the audience's point of view the music is more accessible, but perhaps to the performing musicians it is every bit as complex.
The audience was clearly happy with the performances; a standing ovation led to a lengthy encore of more Zappa. And while it was undoubtedly the Zappa that sold the tickets, the Varèse and Lizée pieces were every bit as interesting to hear.
The Victoria Symphony played exceptionally well throughout, and Christian Kluxen was an engaged and engaging leader; all were clearly enjoying themselves.
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