On Wednesday in Toronto, the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa, conducted by Alexander Shelley, will create on the theme “Truth in the Modern Age” the 13and Symphony by Phillip Glass. The duty will attend on April 3 at Carnegie Hall the American premiere of this work dedicated to the Canadian journalist Peter Jennings, famous anchorman of the ABC network.
“Truth in the Modern Age”. The ambition is startling. How can music carry such a challenge of illustration? We know that the musical director of the National Arts Center Orchestra, Alexander Shelley, is concerned about social issues. He handed us a mirror with the record Life Reflected (2017). But tackling the subject of truth and information is an amazing challenge.
It was two years ago
“When I spoke with the National Arts Center team about what could guide us in terms of programming, we discussed themes such as climate change, political polarization, questions of identity, information , the wars. Everything brought us back to a central question: where do we get our information and how do we value it? explains Alexander Shelley to Homework.
In pre-pandemic times, there was already reason to wonder where the truth lies when the amount of information accessible to each individual has never been so high. At the same time, as Alexander Shelley points out, “our thought patterns are reflected back to us like mirrors by algorithms in order to reinforce our opinions rather than challenge them.”
“That’s when Peter Jennings’ family came to us with the idea of commissioning a work in his memory,” recalls the chef. Torontonian Peter Jennings (1938-2005) was the legendary anchor of the ABC network from 1983 to 2005, made famous among other things by his marathons, such as the 17 hours without stopping on the air after the attacks of September 11. “I didn’t grow up with Peter Jennings in the same way as Americans and Canadians,” says the Briton Alexander Shelley, “but I read his biography and it seemed to me that for at least a generation, and perhaps being two, he embodied the truth of the information. Alexander Shelley notes that things have changed in 15 years, the Canadian is probably one of the last to have personified that.
When the project originated, there was no COVID or threat of war in Ukraine. “We had a concert date at Carnegie Hall in 2020. There was the American elections with Donald Trump, the fake news and attacks on the media. It was then a major subject. »
The connection with Philip Glass was made all the better since the composer had received the Glenn Gould Prize in 2015, when the NAC Orchestra played his 8and Symphony. “The new work was not commissioned as a symphony. It was Philip Glass who made it his 13and Symphony. Alexander Shelley notes that the 25-minute composition is an extension of the style of Philip Glass, which is also reflected in the 12and Symphony (2019) “Lodger”, “third symphony based on an album by David Bowie”.
In practice, the subject is “abstract”. “There is no theme from the life of Peter Jennings or storytelling. You have to compose what you believe in and let the listener feel what they want. The conductor nevertheless notes a subtle game of distortions in this symphony, where Glass superimposes chords that create furtive dissonances: “I kept seeing ground sharp against ground natural or do sharp in front of do natural. I always checked whether they were copying errors or deliberate dissonances. It is a spice in language and color in music that undulates organically and leads the listener into a meditative state. »
State Truth
The rest of the program is there to make us think and immerse ourselves in 2022. Alexander Shelley insists in particular on the presence of the 9and Symphony by Shostakovich. “Some are wondering whether to cancel the Russian works. If you cancel a Shostakovich symphony, you miss the chance to feel the emotion of a genius who lived under the yoke of totalitarianism and deliberately created a capsule sent to future generations to say, “This is how I feel.” ; “That is the emotion in Russia in 1943 or 1944.” or “That’s the emotion after the war, when we said we were victorious.” »
In the eyes of the chef, the 9and Symphony by Shostakovich “casts doubt on the way Stalin wanted to portray the world”. “Shostakovich was to compose a 9and Symphony to celebrate the victory of the “Great Patriotic War” (Second War). The composer, who knew that during this time, millions of people would die in the gulags, had to find a solution to create subversive music that challenge Propaganda. How could he do that without ending up in the gulag himself? »
Alexander Shelley recalls that Shostakovich multiplied the false leads, saying around that he was composing a great work for orchestra and choirs (reference, which everyone was waiting for, at the 9and Symphony of Beethoven), while preparing something very different. “You can never say that it’s subversive, anti-Stalin or anti-war and yet, at every moment you feel that it’s a work that tries to express what it is to live in a totalitarian regime”. Moreover, “the human anguish is palpable. The two cadences where he quotes the 9and of Beethoven and the 9and of Mahler tell us in the face: “This is what it is to live in a world where the truth is perverted and where you cannot express yourself freely”. »
For the chef, this analysis leads us to an interpretative problem. “We hear various ways of interpreting the first and the last movement. Sometimes it’s jubilant, sometimes it’s light. What I’m trying to achieve is that the light moments and the steps are under the yoke of something: it moves, but there’s something resistant and heavy. In terms of colors, it’s not blue, yellow or red; it’s gray. In the eyes of the conductor, the score is a model and “a source of reflection” in the questioning of “the idea of state truth”.
The climate and the weather
With regard to the question of the perception of things and the underlying messages, the chef, keen on philosophy, remembers, troubled, a personal experience. “I was musical director of the Nuremberg Orchestra. But the first time I arrived there as a guest chef, on my way to town, I saw a huge Colosseum. It had been built by Albert Speer, the architect of the Third Reich. But I didn’t know anything about it. And I said to the driver: “That’s beautiful, what is it?” And the driver said to me: “You can’t say it’s beautiful, it’s a Nazi building.” I apologized: “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know!” »
“I understood that my spontaneous reaction was interesting. Take architecture as an artistic discipline. Art can directly touch our emotions. While we read behavioral psychology books seeking to understand how we think, researchers insist that we make decisions before we even think about them. Yet many policies are defined by how we respond to our preconceptions. Alexander Shelley grants art the dual capacity to “reflect truth” and to “make us feel things”.
The next challenge for Alexander Shelley will be the musical expression of climate change. He was particularly interested in the work Become Ocean by John Luther Adams. “Music is abstract and emotional. What John Luther Adams does is alter the perception of time. Wagner proceeds as follows: he plunges us into a different perception of time, takes us out of everyday life and transports us into a metaphysical experience. »
This particular experience is important to the chef because “the big challenge when you want to raise awareness on the issue of climate change is understanding the major periods of time. We are very bad at perceiving things that change slowly over a long period of time.” Additional keys will be delivered to us during the next season.