You think the title is on the ridiculous side? Well, have I a review for you!
The Seattle Chamber Music Festival is beloved by its fans for its Romantic sweet spot, but even the most ardent champions of easy-on-the-ear melody would have had to reconsider the merits of dissonance last Sunday night.
Damn! That, indeed, sounds spicy. So spicy, in fact, I might reconsider renewing my subscription to Earplugs-R-Us, the Anti-modernist Relief Association’s bi-annual magazine that caters to concertgoers who are routinely subjected to unresolved fourths. The magazine also comes with complimentary earplugs, duh.
But, really, who am I kidding? Bring on the pain! Bring on the pain!!
The evening opened with Mozart's crisp and deceptively melodious Piano Trio in B-flat Major...
Bring on the p...
Huh?
Uh, surely, the Mozart isn’t the spicy bit; it doesn’t even hit the “Romantic sweet spot.” It makes me wonder, then, what, if anything, could make one “reconsider the merits [really, merits?] of dissonance”?
Compared to the pleasant, cuppa-tea-with-milk-and-honey Mozart...
(Does your stomach churn when you see “cuppa,” too?)
Compared to the [...] Mozart, Prokofiev's Quartet No. 2 in F Major is a stiff shot of vodka.
Prokofiev? You’re shitting me.
F friggin’ major!?
And dissonant to the point that it makes one wonder if dissonance is overrated? Huh? What are you? Eight years old?!
To jog our memories, maybe we should give it a listen.
Oh! Now I get it. Because Russians drink vodka, see, unlike Mozart. And they’re all bears, bears who drink vodka. So, they’re un-bear-ably dissonant.
Right?
...
Wait. That doesn’t make any damned sense. What’s really going on, here?
Maybe the rest of the review will explain.
The starting Allegro is a stolid contraption of levers and pulleys, a steel factory producing energy in the form of audible vibrations.
Not to ruin your nice little story, but did you ever consider that the actual, in-front-of-you string quartet is, you know, making real, audible vibrations?
Maybe it’s just me, but confusing the real for the simulation (metaphoric description) is, well, a detrimental symptom of postmodernism that nobody needs; not here, anyway.
It seemed impossible that the night could get any better, but after intermission it did.
I’ll cut to the chase: it was Lalo. Lalo’s Piano Trio in A friggin’ minor. (The descriptive writing is a bit over the top, here, so it is omitted) Anyway...
End of dissonance inquiry.
I don’t get it. Either our author has a weak stomach or...I just don’t get it.
Maybe the title and hook left us some clues.
Review: Stiff shot of dissonance vibrates at Seattle chamber-music fest
Sumi Hahn
Special to the Seattle Times
No help here.
Dissonance in music is a taste acquired over time.
If only Bach wrote dissonant music...
Like a craving for coffee or scotch, the appetite for such harmonics is also culturally conditioned.
That’s part of it, sure, I guess.
One man's song may well be another man's noise.
There you have it: dissonance.
And now: Mozart, Prokofiev, and Lalo. Enjoy!
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