Four premieres by Network for New Music

The classical audience may not be as freewheeling as the rock audience, but it’s more relaxed than his criticisms indicate. Anyone who has attended a Philadelphia Chamber Music Society concert has witnessed the good-humored byplay between the audience and the artistic director, Miles Cohen, when he makes his brief pre-concert remarks. I see a lot of socializing during intermission at most concerts, and most chamber music and early music events feature post-concert receptions where the conversations can continue. Classical music enthusiasts may not talk while the music is playing, but they never have any trouble getting started once it stops.

The prohibition against applauding between movements is still the rule, but it’s been loosened in the last 20 years. Philadelphia Orchestra audiences frequently applaud after the first movements of concertos, which usually end with a showy display by the soloist. I’ve even heard an audience applaud after a particularly beautiful slow movement.

Room to move

The latest Network for New Music concert took place in the big main hall in the Barnes Foundation building, a space where the audience could roam around freely, as Lawrence suggests they should. Some people sat at high bar tables, others sat on padded benches that look like couches. A quarter of the audience even stood along one wall. Many of us ate and drank while we listened.

But nobody moved around, and nobody felt the need to talk or whistle. I would say the audience listened with great intensity. They had come to hear the first performances of four pieces commissioned by the Network, and they gave them the same attention they would give a new play or a talk by an exceptionally interesting speaker.

The opener was an older work by William Kraft, with a “score” composed of colored lines. The musicians could play whatever notes they wanted, but the lines told them when they were supposed to go up or down — the kind of experimental music that went out of fashion sometime in the 1980s. It received the polite applause new pieces usually received back in the good old days when the Philadelphia Orchestra would open a concert with a short new piece and the audience would listen while they waited for the real thing. The four new pieces, on the other hand, received the enthusiastic applause audiences frequently give new music these days. Believe me, there’s a difference.

Let’s hear it for the home team

I can still remember the first times I heard real applause at the conclusion of a new piece. Sometimes, the audience sounded like they were just happy they’d heard something new they liked. Sometimes, they sounded like they were cheering because somebody from our time — the home team — had racked up a score. Nowadays, the applause usually just sounds like honest enthusiasm. We’re no longer surprised.

The four new pieces were supposed to offer musical reactions to pictures and other aspects of the Barnes, but you could listen to all the premieres just to hear the music, without worrying about extra-musical references. Kristin Kuster’s Frozen Panes, for example, was a reaction to the building itself, but it had so much drive I could have associated it with something more mobile, like a locomotive. The high point was a section in which the bravura violin part soared over the pulse created by the cello, the piano, and the vibraphone.

Jeremy Gill’s Sons Découpés used a musical version of the visual technique developed by Matisse, but you could listen to the melodies and the instrumental interactions without knowing that. It belonged in the general world inhabited by Debussy and even used a trio similar to Debussy’s sonata for flute, viola, and harp. Gill explored new ground — and enhanced the contrasts — by combining the harp with the lower voice of the cello and the high, melodious voice of the piccolo.

Louis Karchin’s Luminous Fields added a vibraphone to Gill’s trio and substituted a flute for the piccolo — an instrumental combination that reproduced the “vibrancy” he saw in the colors of Rousseau’s paintings.

A jazzy hall of mirrors

Stephen Hartke’s Blue Studio was a response to paintings of artist’s studios. As Hartke pointed out, artists usually include pictures of their own works in their paintings of their studios — a hall of mirrors effect that creates endless possibilities for those of us who like to contemplate such things.

Hartke channeled his feelings through a standard piano trio, the most conventional ensemble on the program. The music once again transcended its immediate inspiration. Blue Studio closed the program with a work that captured all the piano trio’s appeal, with touches of jazz and passages that exploited the strong contrasts between the voices of the piano, the violin, and the cello.

The audience may not have greeted these works with cheers and stamping feet, but they gave the musicians and the composers something that’s a lot more precious: They listened. It’s one of the most important skills we humans possess. We should treasure any social custom that encourages us to shut up and practice it.