American Ballet Theatre
A few weeks ago I went to see a ballet at the American Ballet Theatre. Most of the performance focused mainly on the dance, but there was a section in the middle that was dedicated to Chuck Close in which the music was the main focus. The musical score that accompanied the ballet was composed by Philip Glass. The music sounded a lot like I expected it to. I had never heard any Philip Glass’ work, but I had heard a lot about it and it pretty much fulfilled everything that I had heard.
It was very calm music, with no really abrupt changes in dynamics. There was a definite eerie quality. It was slow and simple music with no real strong emotional sequences. Glass used a lot of sequences, and seemed to always be returning to an earlier, simple theme. It seems like this type of music would be boring, but that wasn’t the case. The melody moved step-wise most of the time in small intervals, producing the affect that it was just rolling on, with no real beginning or end.
The piece was supposed to be based on the life and work of Chuck Close, a visual artist and friend of Glass. I didn’t really get any sense of biography from the music, and I think that using the slow, dreary style the Glass did made it hard for him to tell a story with his music. Also, since there was no dramatic changes throughout the piece, it didn’t seem to be following any sort of narrative or responding to real-life events.
It was a monophonic piece, and it was mostly just melody. This allowed the audience to focus on the music as well as the dance, it wasn’t too complicated or overwhelming. I did however feel as if the mood that Glass set was a little bit too forced. It was clear that he was trying to use dissonance and odd chords to make the music feel tense and emotional, but I think he might have overdone it a bit. I think that it made the music feel more interesting than enjoyable.
Overall I enjoyed the show. It was very modern, and very avant-garde. It was a sharp contrast to the other ballet pieces, and also to the more classical compositions that we have been listening to in class. It was good to see how the technical aspects of music were used to create the desired feeling and mood.