Minh and I attended a concert called "Strauss, Smith, Solonen" at Walt Disney Concert Hall which included the world premier of Breathing Forests by Gabriella Smith. Breathing Forests, for organ and orchestra, was astounding. At one moment, the combination of sounds was absolutely heartbreaking and Minh and I were sobbing beneath our masks. It was one of the most moving things I've ever seen at WDCH.
How does the piece achieve this? Oh I wish I knew! Breathing Forests uses a swarm of out-of-time sound effects to create texture. The piece begins in silence, and emerges with gentle "bow taps" by the strings. The effect is warm and enveloping and I imagined a forest waking. Later in the piece, windy "pitchless bowing" made me feel cold and exposed. "Bow creaks" made me imagine the masts of boats swaying in a harbor. (See Smith's demonstrations of these extended techniques.) These swarms of sound set the emotional foundation for additional layers. Even a featured instrument would often be somewhat "effecty". A downward bending note on the clarinet, for example, repeated between oddly timed breaths, sounded like a crying whale, or a distraught mother. I'm tearing up remembering it. (See Smith's Maré for something similar.) It was like sloshing around in a bathtub of emotions.
These effects often happened over a sustained note on the organ, sometimes played surprisingly softly. I didn't know the organ could play so gently. At the other extreme, the organ and whole orchestra blare an extremely discordant combination. I was absolutely ready for the onslaught. When the woman ahead of me plugged her ear I thought, "Don't listen to her... more!"
The other pieces provided intersting contrast for me. Esa-Pekka Solonen's Fog, written for Frank Geary (in attendance), was more interesting than moving for me. It was preceded by the piece that inspired Solonen, Bach's Preludio from Partita No. 3, performed on solo violin at the opposite side of the hall, above and behind the audience. The orchestration didn't work for me; the bongos and piano felt out of place. I found myself studying the piece instead of feeling it. Then was Smith's piece. Boom! Then Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, which like Fog was study-inducing. The orchestration of Zarathustra was amazing. The piece feels perfectly "cohesive", almost "inevitable", but again, it just didn't move me like Breathing Forests.
It's like Breathing Forests took all the notes and boiled them down into a concentrate of salty tears and mud.