Although traditional classical-music formats will never disappear, today’s presenters have to find innovative ways to package their offerings if they are to compete for the attention of contemporary audiences and survive.
Among the potential new approaches are cross-disciplinary undertakings, and Wednesday evening’s presentation of “The Tiger’s Ear: Listening to Abstract Expressionist Painting” at the King Center, on the Auraria campus in Denver, was a superb example of what is possible.
The Colorado Chamber Players program, which paired a performance of the chamber work with a panel discussion, imaginatively merged art and music, enhancing both forms and bringing together the traditional audiences for each.
“The Tiger’s Ear,” commissioned by the Armstrong Chamber Concerts of New York and debuted in 2004, mostly succeeds in musically evoking the distinctive look and feel of paintings created by six of the pioneers of abstract expressionism.
If New York composer Bruce Adolphe’s style, which operates within a kind of safe, augmented tonality, is not especially original or daring, it is earnest and down to earth, and it works effectively in the context of this programmatic piece.
It is all too easy for a musical representation of art to be either superficial, a kind of bad movie soundtrack, or too analytical and academic. Adolphe avoids both extremes, creating a work that is sophisticated, easy to like and often engrossing.
The 40-minute piece, composed for the unusual combination of piano, violin, viola, cello, oboe and flute, starts with a suitably contrapuntal, agitated evocation of Jackson Pollock’s all- over canvases and subsequently shifts in character to fit each artist’s work.
Arguably the strongest of the six sections was the ethereal, sometimes doleful music devoted to Mark Rothko, with its extended harmonies blending into a moving and beautifully impressionistic whole.
While it was possible to wish at times for a bit more nuanced phrasing here or tonal depth there, it was hard to fault the Chamber Players’ solid, obviously well-rehearsed playing.
The concert will be repeated at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 21 at the Foothills Art Center in Golden, with a second musical selection in place of the panel discussion.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
