by Kevin T McEneaney
Last Sunday evening at Sosnoff Theater, Eastern and Western elements blended under the hypnotic baton of Conductor and Composer Tan Dun in an exciting blend of modern and post-modern compositions. Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1894) by Claude Debussy ignited a dreamlike landscape of haunting proportion with the siren flute of Wen-Hsiu (Angela) Lai and the abstract, luscious melodies of the clarinet played by Craig Swink.
Written during his bohemian years, impoverished Debussy spent his time at billiard tournaments where the constant clatter of billiard balls and girlfriends may have inspired the birth of his seductive, elegant myth. I have heard this work several times, but this performance made me swoon like a leaf falling off a tree on its way to extinction….
Concerto for 12 cellos and orchestra (2007) offered an avant-garde description of the travels of Marco Polo along the Silk Road. The Cellos, improvising in unity, sounded like they were recording monetary transactions, the uneven floor of a rollicking market. (Antonio Vivaldi, who wrote the greatest number of cello compositions, would have been quite pleased!) The cellos were placed in an arch facing you, the audience, as if they were the zodiacal sky above. These cellos produced an unusual anthology of sounds as they travelled over strange, mysterious landscapes and struggled with exotic cultural customs. The orchestra was haunting with mysterious and suspenseful harmonies. Travel became a riddle that only a cello might comprehend….
The path taken was to employ Western rhythms in an Eastern landscape where the mix might create unexpected disorientation that would lead puzzling introspection amid the assurance that the natural world represented by the cellos which would carry one along to an intriguing and disoriented destination, a symphonic work on which one might ponder for days, months, or years!
Ten Thousand Galloping Horses (2026) by Tan Dun brought the thunder of reality into focus. This conjured a marvelous rural landscape where young horses grazed in pastoral innocence before they were harnessed by galloping warriors. This new composition was based upon a double bass concerto Wolf Totem (2014), first performed at the Rose Theater, Lincoln Center in 2023. Surrealistic music unfolded like a historic epic scroll that predicted the unrecorded future with startling rhythmic vigor. In the Chinese lunar calendar, this is the year of the Fiery Horse, a period of tumult, rapid change, and possibly war.
The opening movement depicted innocent young horses grazing in remote green pastoral innocence. As the young foals begin to grow, they learn to run in rural freedom as they explore the landscape, as space and motion expand with a two-beat rhythm growing into a three-beat pace…
The second movement celebrates the quiet and obedient young foals learning how to enjoy their frolicking youth amid pastoral wonder as the young horses play with each other, learning of the strength of the herd. Long melodic lines expand in sound as the strings enhance melodies. Excitement is punctuated with rest, friendships, and casual grazing as the herd matures, growing more boldly in coloration as the basses under Zacharie Small exuded a growing confidence.
The third movement became increasingly propulsive with melodic leaps as the warriors conduct mounted maneuvers and charges, while timpani and percussion under Philip Drembus grow bolder, while the violas under Casey Lebkicker kick in with exciting horns that arouse a sensation of menace. The violins under Concertmaster Chance McDermott rosenin fury. The army is mounted and runs toward some future historical exclamation mark! The thundering finale brims with overwhelming emotion and memorable éclat! This was an earthshaking, transcendent experience!
Daphnis et Cholé Suite No.2 (1902) is from the third act of a ballet by Maurice Ravel. The glissandos from the harps Zibin Zhou and Sayi Chen transported one’s imagination to an Otherworld of dreams. Olivia Chaikin on piccolo provided a short yet memorable announcement of birds singing at early dawn, while the woodwinds transported us to the sunlight of another world of sympathetic wonder. The flutes of the god Pan appear and ignite the spark of love, which dances into a memorable Dionysian frenzy!
This was a concert of exclamation marks! Tan Dun has the rare ability to meld East with West and to conduct with ecstatic energy! The audience rose in unison to applaud for over ten minutes of frantic, ecstatic clapping, the longest applause that I have ever experienced!
