In Monday’s (5/23) New York Times, Allan Kozinn writes about the latest offering from Ronen Givony’s Wordless Music series, “heard on Saturday evening at the New York Society for Ethical Culture (the program was also played on Friday), was built around two works with rock connections: Philip Glass’s ‘Heroes’ Symphony (1996), which is based on themes from David Bowie’s 1977 album ‘Heroes,’ and ‘Doghouse’ (2010), the latest orchestral score by Jonny Greenwood, who is best known as a member of Radiohead. Gyorgy Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto (1970), a study in energy and texture that prefigures some of Mr. Greenwood’s work, was interposed between them. For the occasion the conductor Brad Lubman convened the Wordless Music Orchestra, a freelance new-music band that included, this time, all four members of the JACK Quartet and players from Alarm Will Sound, Signal (which played the Ligeti on its own) and other ensembles. … In a program note, Mr. Greenwood writes that he imagined his piece as a ramble through the faded scores of forgotten light music works and jingles in the BBC ensemble’s archives. … But the qualities that make the nearly 30-minute piece so consistently involving are its insistent drive and Mr. Greenwood’s intuitive use of dissonance and resolution.”
Posted May 25, 2011
