An orchestra of students at the RNCM presented a “dramatic” performance of Beethoven’s seventh symphony using “stories, movement, and multimedia, to weave together historical, personal, and fictional responses, opening up an entirely new way of experiencing this music for both players and audience alike”. The idea was to explore what a symphony should or could be like in the digital age. This was an interesting premise but I wondered if it was trying to create a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist – symphonies are loved all over the world across every demograph. I was intrigued to find out what this experience would be like and indeed it raised debate and thought.
The evening started off with a real scherzo – a notice outside the concert hall indicated that the doors opened at 1750, the concert started at 1800 and finished circa 1900 – these not simpy being the time on a 24 hour clock but also the years in which the Classical and Romantic periods begins and end! Once the doors opened and I went inside, the orchestra members were stood around the auditorium mingling with each other and the audience – they seemed nervous and excited – and thus the first break with tradition took place. These musicians welcomed us to our seats and chatted freely, answering questions.
At some point a voice could be heard on the PA system. I thought that somebody had a radio microphone switched on and were chatting unaware that they were being broadcast to the auditorium, but it turned out that this was part of the show. An interview, presumably pre-recorded, was being broadcast discussing some aspects of music – “if you were in charge of the world for a day, what would you change about music?”. Unfortunately I didn’t really hear the answer as the recording was really unclear. This was a problem throughout the evening – audio interviews with and by unknown people, and readings from various relevant texts such as an extract from a letter by Beethoven were broadcast between each movement but these were mostly unintelligible due to the quality of the audio, the volume - particularly when the orchestra were playing – and also quite simply to bad diction. I must say that this was thoroughly disappointing and made the event seem quite amateur – the idea was worthwhile but completely lost. I think this could very easily have been remedied by using a video instead of simply audio and by including subtitles of the text. This could have been enhanced by imagery to suit the various extracts. I believe the idea here was to engage the audience with the music using texts and I really think it would have worked – we can all be guilty of letting our minds wander during even the most successful of symphonies – but it was not delivered on this occasion. This was doubly frustrating as the sources of the texts were presented on screen, but not the texts themselves, and video was used successfully throughout the performance zooming in on individual performers. At last, in the final movement, video interviews with whimsical questions presented to the musicians were projected successfully. “When did you last eat a bar of chocolate?” was asked among other questions. The answers were clear – you could hear the response, see the speaker and subtitles were used, and the audience reacted really well with laughter and applause at different times.
The feel of this event was relaxed – we were told that we could applaud at any time, laugh, shout out, chat to those around us – there were no more rules! I think that the relaxed reception of this symphony was certainly novel and some of it really made a welcome difference. It was wholly satisfying to applaud the mighty end of the first movement and then again the end of the beautiful and chilling second movement - indeed there were spontaneous applauses at different points, not only between movements. You could see the audience expressing their reactions to the music more clearly and freely than in a typical, perhaps stuffier, classical music concert.
The music itself was performed beautifully – it is an epic and well known symphony but it has plenty of challenges and it was easy to take for granted how well these young – some teenaged – musicians performed. The music really stirred the heart and while tradition was broken around the audience experience, it certainly was adhered to under the baton of a very energetic Gregory Bataleer who danced through every movement (in trainers and jeans, like most of the performers, I might add) taking us in to the very heart and mind of Beethoven with his conducting.
The second movement saw most of the orchestra leave the stage and walk up into the auditorium, playing in the round with the audience in the middle. This was beyond a gimmick to break up a monotonous use of the performance space, but allowed the audience to literally hear the music in a different way. A really magic moment here was when a musical phrase passed through the different sections – it felt like surround sound swooping around the auditorium.
The event left me in two minds – I don’t want symphonies to be performed with visual distractions, traditional conventions around classical performance reception are good, the music – particularly this symphony – says a thousand words and paints a million pictures on its own. We need to have access to some depth in our culture, particularly in an age of individualism and constant and superficial bombardment of the senses. Nevertheless, this event was not simply a performance of Beethoven’s seventh, it was something else and in that stand it had its own merit.
I wondered how this event impacted the performers themselves – the distraction of their moving around, their interaction with the audience and quite a few unpredictable variables must have given them some excitement and maybe simply something else to worry about. I imagine they had less performance anxiety with regards to the symphony, and I also imagine that they felt more rewarded or inspired by the interaction with the audience. It was also a great way to open up the conversation about performance practice in contemporary times.
Apart from some disappointing approaches to the execution of the audio-visual elements, this was a thoroughly enjoyable concert and I would love to watch it again, with improvements to the quality of the recorded elements.
Did I hear this symphony in a different way? Did I experience a different relationship with the orchestra? The answer to both these questions is a firm yes.
Reviewer - Aaron Loughrey
on - 7/6/19
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