Music in a Time of Disaster...The Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Pierre Boulez, Carnegie Hall, January 16, 2010
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Pierre Boulez, conductor
Carnegie Hall, January 16, 2010
Schoenberg, Second Chamber Symphony
Schoenberg, Piano Concerto (Daniel Barenboim, soloist)
Webern, Six Pieces for Orchestra
Mahler, Adagio from Symphony no. 10
To hear a program of music by Mahler and the members of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Webern) five days after the earthquake in Haiti is to experience questions about the role that the arts, and music in particular, plays in our lives. Burke and Kant recognized two categories of artistic experience, the beautiful and the sublime, one characterized by orderliness, balance, and grace, the other by overwhelming power. Beauty is associated with the works of humans, and the sublime with the acts of nature (and/or God, depending on your persuasion). Both pieces on the second half of the Vienna Philharmonic’s program (Webern and Mahler) contained climactic moments that can only be described as devastating, as close as art can get to imparting the experience of disastrous loss. As we read the papers about the destruction of a country, we struggle to find the connection between our own lives and the unimaginable suffering and trauma being experienced by our neighbors and fellow humans. Music can help.
