Ritualist Zorn

By Eugene W. McBride

John Zorn: Rituals (U.S. premiere); Charles Wuorinen: Arabia Felix and The Winds. Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble, Brad Lubman, conductor/music director. The Great Hall at Cooper Union, NYC, March 9, 2002.

Members of the Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble presented a concert on March 9 at Cooper Union in Manhattan. Two accomplished and acknowledged composers had their compositions performed. The years separating these compositions spanned a quarter of a century and more. Presented were two compositions by Charles Wuorinen, Arabia Felix (1973) and The Winds (1977). This review addresses the U.S. Premiere of Rituals by John Zorn. The differences between Mr. Wuorinen’s intense, polyphonic, tightly constructed musical style and Mr. Zorn’s open, sporadic style show clearly the diversity available to contemporary music audiences. While I unabashedly favor Mr. Wuorinen’s style there is no doubt that Mr. Zorn’s approach has its merits.

The word ritual presents the audience with expectations. Rituals can be defined as ceremonial acts, forms or procedures faithfully followed, generally imbued with some religious overtones. Perhaps the title refers to the religiosity of music, though extra-musical intent was not evident. As Mr. Zorn is often considered to be an experimentalist, I do not see him as faithfully following procedures. The intention of a ritual is to unify of its practitioners. We are speaking of community rituals, are we not?

The ensemble handled the complexity of the score superbly and virtuostically. There were often episodes that showed the professional level attained by these student musicians. The conductor, Brad Lubman, did a fine job bringing a high level of artistry to the program.

Rituals is a five movement work for soprano (Heather Gardner) and large chamber ensemble. Ms. Gardner tossed off the difficult vocalizes (no words are sung in Rituals) with ease. The work was also a tour de force for the percussionists (John Hain and Rob Sandrel). The battery of percussion instruments was astounding. On keyboards Jeniffer Snyder shifted gears continually between Piano, Celeste, Harpsichord and Organ. She also handled the composition as a truly fine musician. It would be possible to mention every player and give accolades to each. Suffice it to say the ensemble cooked. With such fine musicians, the array of instruments available and Mr. Zorn’s obvious talent as a composer I found it curious that I left the hall wanting to have heard a more satisfying result, and wondering as to Mr. Zorn’s intent. The five movements did not follow any traditional organization – not that the composer is interested in that. Rather, they were self-contained entities lacking differentiation from each other. Each movement had its own elements of intensity and calmness, a striking shift in rhythmic vitality, then long held notes that intruded on forward movement. I did not get a sense of the tempi (Allegro/Lento, etc.) of each of the movements. They seemed to just unfold at their own pace. So why bother with movements? Why not just write one long movement?

The piece seemed to be an experiment in sound gestures. These gestures were consistent in stylistic language. No apparent rock/jazz idioms were employed in this work. Rather, there were traditional contemporary melodic and harmonic creations with the dissonance/consonance of the 20th and 21st centuries, with which we are familiar. There was also a nod to music concrete: birdlike sounds from the percussionists, wind machines, a violin sounding like a siren, beans swirling in a bowl, paper being wrinkled, and shoveling dirt (I can hear the percussionist saying, “dirty work but somebody’s got to do it”). This shoveling was interesting visually, but sonically flat. And what was the reason for this shoveling? Was it to represent burial or rebirth as in tilling the soil in the spring, or was it something else? Who knows. What would the effect of this be on a CD or the radio broadcast, where there is no visual component? Mr. Zorn may well believe that only live performances have validity. That would explain his choice, though not his numerous CDs. The often-stunning effects seemed to be there for their own sake rather than as a contribution to some larger concept.

Certainly there was interplay between the instrumentalists and various timbre combinations, yet each player often seemed to be in his or her own world. It was as if Mr. Zorn was thinking, “here’s this, now here’s that.” Developmentally, there was something lacking. One interesting musical gesture would be heard, then filler, until the next gesture came to the fore. Indeed there was a static quality throughout the work; movement forward, then a hold back. There was a break between the 2nd and 3rd movements when the cellist left the stage. Initially I thought that perhaps this was a tribute to John Cage’s philosophical piece 4’33”. Soon it became clear that replacing a snapped string was the reason for the halt. I mention this because the composition could have gone anywhere at that point. Why not silence? Mr. Zorn, again, is a well-known experimentalist. Often the piece seemed to be searching for where to go next. The ‘ritual’ did not unify, but rather showed disunity in its concept. Regardless of the excellence of each player’s voice, the independent, stand-alone quality of the gestures did not make for one cogent unified statement.

This being said there is also the fact that Rituals is filled with interesting moments. If you have an opportunity to attend a performance of it do so. There is enough of interest in it to hold your attention and keep you wondering what’s coming next. Every work a composer pens does not have to be an enjoyable masterpiece. In closing, bravos to the Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble and conductor Brad Lubman for their fine work in bringing the challenging music of these two fine composers to such a superb level.