Boston Symphony Chamber Players
WYNER - “Into the evening air,” for wind quintet (2013)
DEBUSSY - Sonata for flute, violin, and harp (1915)
SCHUBERT - Octet in F, D.803, for clarinet, horn, bassoon, two violins, viola, cello, and double bass (1824)
Wyner and Debussy… Blue. Bluish hazy skies right before sunset. I dream of being directionless, sitting or wandering, thinking of nothing. Escaping language. The Wyner and Debussy are parallels in their use of poignant unisons amid harmonically strange mists. A ghostly flutter tongue flute creates a wave of some sort. Motives are passed between instruments, developed in unlikely but utterly innovative ways. A simple tritone becomes a symbol. Bursts of simple tonality wash over sections of the Debussy; the lonely unison pierces out of the sweetly atonal textures of the Wyner.
Schubert: what the fuck?! It’s hard to comprehend how badly such a great composer could write. It was oddly amelodic for Schubert: a complete pastiche of Beethoven with gratuitous Schubertian lieder and atmospheric tremolos. The piece is 1 hour of complete hell; one sits through an disingenuous Beethoven, the last movement replete with a horrible number of false endings. Beethoven’s false endings create a prolonged musical orgasm, while Schubert’s leave a limp phallus and a pool of fetid cum. I ran out of the concert hall in horror.