Tan Dun's Water Concerto

I just finished watching a performance of Tan Dun's "Water Concerto" tonight after seeing a clip earlier in the day and being quite intrigued about it.

In short: It's an absolutely fascinating work!

A very interesting mismash of disparate elements put together in interesting ways...

Tan Dun(譚盾) - Water Concerto (水協奏曲) performed by Yi Chen

I can see why it does result in some rather divisive responses...

On one hand, you've got this really strong theatrical element to this piece (for example, at one point, literally evoking the antics of street-musicians + buskers clowning around - i.e. the bit with the pink flip-flop being used to beat the grey plumbing tube, after wielding it around and "theatrically" showing it to the gathered crowed), coupled with lots of experimental "play" driven "fiddling with what interesting sounds we can eke out of everyday items" that many music-making folks will at some point have played with doing themselves...

Then you've got all this really foreign-sounding, somewhat big + bombastic tutti stuff (e.g. what I presume is mvmt 3) that's rooted in Chinese musical tradition  (i.e. so inspired by stuff like Chinese opera, but also to some extent your traditional funeral marches with the dizi (or whatever that oboe-like thing leading the procession is called) and so forth)

In other words, much of this piece is very much *NOT* rooted in the traditional "Western Classical Tonal Tradition" (bah... boring 4-party harmony church hymns *barf*), and even further than the sorts of avant-garde  techniques developed in the early 20th century and then popularised for contemporary audiences by many film scores.

This can all seem quite jarring to anyone who hasn't had any prior exposure to this style of music.  And that's putting it lightly... a "cacophony of senseless noise" might be a more apt description in the eyes of some, who likely also feel a disgruntled sense of snooty affront / offense at having such a piece performed in a sanctified atmosphere of some of the great concert halls originally designed + built for the peak glory of the fine achievements of the Western Classical Music establishment.

Finally, you've got various members of the woodwind and brass sections yanking off their mouthpieces, making really loud + obnoxious squeeky noises like duck-hunters on open season day, then quickly patching things back in (like, how did they get those back in tune after that?!)

And very quickly, IMO you've got yourself a recipe for a very "tricky" piece for most classically trained orchestras to pull off. You really can't be shy or uncomfortable about doing it, as the vibe easily comes off... "wrong"! (TBH, watching the faces of some of the orchestra, you could tell that at some points, you get the sense that at least some of them really didn't want to be there doing that at that moment)

 

In Summary

What works:
* Many of the exotic technical explorations on display, particularly using the water percussively (cups against water, splashing like a fish flapping its tail, dripping water slowly, etc.) and/or with the gold gong-plates / upturned wooden bowls sounded neat.

* The cello solos were quite nice + pretty

* The final conclusion / recap echoing the start, and ending with that sift (wish we heard more of that)!

What was meh:
* Some transitions were a bit disjointed...

* There were a few sections that felt a little too drawn out

 

What I'm curious about:

Watching a piece like this being performed, you just cannot help but wonder some times: 

* "How on earth is a piece like this notated?!"

* "To what extent is the 'intended' interpretation / performance of various elements of the piece encoded in the sheet music and/or any supporting documentation (e.g. the layout of the various instruments / props / bowls-in-water / etc.), vs how much can only be gleaned by watching a prior performance and then copying + refining / adjusting things you saw until you get a "good" result.