COLLAGE IN TANGIER (3/11/2011)

    Plaza in front of the entrance to the Tribeca Performing Arts Center

  

Setup for Paul and Jane Bowles: Two Stars in the Desert

As someone with a strong interest in the music of New  York, the name Paul Bowles has often surfaced although I have never looked at his music.  He is perhaps better known as a writer whose literary work is largely in Morocco.  Several years ago, the Boston University College of Fine Arts began its "Incite Festival," a play on the words "incite" and  "insight," to demonstrate the power of art. Other events in this year's festival included a playwright's response to the Iraq War and the seduction of Nazism.  The inclusion of collage view of the music and words of Paul and Jane Bowles is so timely, given recent events in north Africa.

Paul & Jane Bowles:  Two Stars in the Desert intermingles the work of this husband and wife.  While only one of the works, which were performed as a continuous stream of works, is directly connected to Morocco, the country he visited in 1931 and where he permanently lived from 1947 until his death in 1999, key points in the collage tie it to Morocco.  A traditional call on the double-reeded rhaita (recorded performance) sends the audience into Northern Africa. A recited excerpt from Millicent Dillon's You are not I: A Portrait of Paul Bowles introduced the audience to Bowles.  Three jazz-inflected preludes for piano provided a taste of his music. A second reading intoduced Jane Bowles.    

A fascinating performance of the zarzuela The Wind Remains recreates Garcia Lorca's surrealist drama Asi Que Pasen Cinco Anos (When Five Years Pass).  Due to its surrealist origins, the zarzuela moves between the unreal and the seemingly more real with smoothness and grace with the voices of Harlequin (tenor) and a Girl (mezzo soprano) becoming the voices of a young man and his secretary. Marvelous dance sequences with two dancers link different parts of the zarzuela.  The chamber orchestra is also intimately linked to the drama from the overture, where the four stage characters wander among the orchestra as if to breath life into the performers, to the every end where when a reference to the violin ("The wind remains and the music of your violin.") prompts the violinist to stand and perform a brief cadenza.  The sound of the harp evokes the sound of the guitar in may places.  Lorca's words, even in translation, are so vocally inspired that they almost sing themselves, with music providing an often delicate and sympathetic accompaniment.  

A reading from Jane Bowles' play In the Summer House moves immediately into Paul Bowles' settings of two of his wife's poems ("Farther from the Heart" and "My Sister's Hand in Mine").  Bowles' Music for a Farce, with music originally written for a theatrical production by Orson Wells, intermingles music that is straight from 1920s Paris (Les Six) with readings from Bowles' Points in Time.  I am not sure the music needed the readings as it was delightful all by itself.  

A dramatic reading of a graphic and very compelling excerpt from Bowles' Let It All Come Down was definitely the most intense event of the evening.  A young man is lured into an inner room where a performer dances a trance dance with a sword and the young man gets caught up in the events of the evening.  Quite gruesome and unsettling,

Bowles' four-movement Concerto for Two Pianos, Wind and Percussion rounded out the evening.  Extremely effectively composed for the two pianos (commissioned by the well-known piano duo Gold and Fizdale), the work creates strong interplay between all of the instruments while still highlighting the two pianos.  The first two movements are very percussive and evoke the sounds of the Javanese gamelan, albeit with elements of Les Six and some jazz elements tossed in.  The third movement, an Andante, is much more melodic and brings out the collaborative ins and outs of the two pianos quite wonderfully.  The entire work ends with a cheeky Les Six style finale.  It was a great way to end a great program.

The inclusion of this celebration of Paul Bowles and his wife in Boston University's Incite Festival added a dimension that brings to the forefront concerns about north Africa and the Arabic world that, while current, have deep historical significance.  It's also nice to hear music that does not try to be great, transcendent or immortal, merely effective for the time it is performed.