We saw the Wellington Orchestra perform John Psathas's View from Olympus last night. It was incredible, a brilliant piece played with real gusto. It got a standing ovation, something you don't often/very seldom get in Wellington.
In fact, let me run that past you again: a contemporary piece of New Zealand music received a standing ovation in performance in New Zealand. In the handful of orchestral concerts I've been to in the last five years (probably not a statistically representative number, but that's never stopped me) the programmes have usually included a local commission (never longer than ten minutes, 'cos the audience gets really bored), in between [Enjoyable 19th Century standard no. I] and [Enjoyable 19th Century Standard no. II]. Everyone sits through it and claps politely, inwardly grating that taxpayer money was spent on such nonsense.
Unlike these sterile, self-indulgent and clever clever commissions, A View From Olympus is intended for people to be enjoy, and shock horror, it is indeed well-received. An ungenerous response to this might be that Psathas is slumming it, but his arrangement is so supple, the use of dynamics and contrasting elements so deft, that no one could deny the work is genuinely brilliant.
Note to Bruce: It's so prog, you'd love it!
Posted by stuart at April 15, 2007 5:12 PM