Blog

Above: composer John Zorn; Sae Hashimoto, percussion; Jay Campbell, cello; Michael Nicolas, cello; Ches Smith, percussion

~ Author: Shoshana Klein

Thursday September 21st, 2023 – This was my first official concert of the 23/24 season and it was a good way to start off the year! 

Composer John Zorn has a series of concerts marking his 70th, spanning the city and the season. He started over the summer, with concerts at Roulette, and now has a series at the Miller Theater. I heard at this concert about some other ambitious projects he’s done to mark other decades of his life, and given that, this series seems like it might be on the tamer side of things. 

 

Zorn is a staple of the NYC music scene – I’ve already seen him around a few times, having only lived here for year. He’s usually in some variation of a black hoodie and camo pants, no matter the context.

 

This concert, called “Music for Strings”, began with a trumpet duet that Zorn came out to introduce with his usual casual demeanor. He referenced Stravinsky as an influence in his short introduction of the piece, which was definitely noticeable in the high-ranged, rhythmically complicated duet.

 

I’ll admit in general I don’t have a great handle on Zorn’s music – he has such a wide range, spanning jazz, classical, and of course his “game music”. It’s hard to get a sense of his personal style, other than sort of energetic and fast-paced, with quick and frequent changes in style and mood. 

 

 

Above:  Christopher Otto, violin; David Fulmer, violin; Jay Campbell, cello; Michael Nicolas, cello; Yura Lee, viola; John Pickford Richards, viola. Photo by Rob Davidson

 

The other three pieces on the program were written during lockdown. The first – for string quartet plus extra cello – was called Sigil Magik: A Curious and Detailed Exposition of Sigils, Signs, and Hieroglyphs Peculiar to the Occult Orders, Hermetic Brotherhoods, and Dark Mystery Schools of the Late Middle Ages. The name reminds me of a Terry Pratchett book, and in a similar way it was engaging and whimsical (and not very long). 

 

The Gas Heart, a mini opera based on the play by Tristan Tzara, was the centerpiece of the show, and at least the one I found most enjoyable. Zorn said in his introduction to it that he was drawn to Tzara and the dadaists as a teenager, and that it was full of “quiet sounds that will probably make your ears bleed”. The piece had some of the energy of his game pieces: sudden and frequent switches between wildly different moods, particularly in the first act. Each performer had speaking roles and a microphone. 

 

There was never a dull moment, as the piece included interesting sounds such as percussionists slurping water in bowls by their microphones, screaming (sometimes words, sometimes not), the cellists bowing above their fingering hands, an on-stage prop door that was slammed at the beginning and the end of the piece, a real saw, and at least one pair of tap dancing shoes.

 

I wish I had some familiarity with the play to have some context, but even without, it was a spectacle. 

 

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science was the last piece on this program. Zorn – who I still can’t quite read to know exactly how serious he is (my guess is, not very) – said: “…occasionally you create something you never thought you were capable of creating…” (this part I think was sincere) and then he went on to say that it might be the greatest string sextet ever written. 

 

I think someone with a better ear for form may have gotten more out of this piece, but it certainly had interesting moments and started to make me feel like I was getting an understanding for Zorn’s style. A standout for me was when he brought back the technique for all the players of playing the fingerboard above the fingering hand, this time for a haunting early music chorale sound. 

 

All in all, an interesting evening.

 

~ Shoshana Klein

 

Performance photos by Rob Davidson, courtesy of The Miller Theatre at Columbia University.