Much ado about nothing.
That’s one way to describe a musical program based on a meeting between John Lennon and Karlheinz Stockhausen . . . a supposed meeting that never happened, allegedly because of a blizzard. Or so the story goes.
Yet at Gates Concert Hall on Saturday, the discourse between the German composer and the Beatles’ frontman served as the catalyst of “1969” — an energetic, ingenious exploration of the political, ideological, cultural and artistic atmosphere some 40 years ago.
Through music arrangements, visuals, narrative and theatrical staging, New York-based Alarm Will Sound took a provocative, in-your- face approach to that tumultuous time when the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and the ensuing election of Richard Nixon rocked the country.
It’s seductive to think about what might have been, had Lennon and Stockhausen (well-played by Jon Patrick Walker and Robert Stanton, respectively) actually met and realized their plans to collaborate, to create something new. But that’s not really the point of “1969,” which also presents David Chandler as Luciano Berio. Instead, Alarm Will Sound casts a far wider net, assaulting the senses with its experimental, genre-defying soundtrack that further includes the stories of Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney and Leonard Bernstein.
Conducted by Alan Pierson, who created and developed the event with Nigel Maister and Andrew Kupfer, “1969” is about pushing boundaries, then and now. In looking back at the creative spirit and artistic aspirations of the Stockhausen-Lennon duo through fragments of music, letters, diaries, interviews and other sources, the 20-member band is simultaneously pushing forward an untried direction for classical music.
“1969” is an unconventional mashup of top-notch, multifacted instrumentalists/vocalists/actors performing scraps of Stockhausen’s “Stimmung” and “Hymnen,” the Beatles’ “Revolution 9,” Bernstein’s “Mass,” Berio’s “Sinfonia” and his obscure, confrontational opera “Traces,” and a smattering of other works, words and historical figures representative of this pivotal period in our history.
The two-act, spectacle ends with a premiere performance of “Swimming,” a confluence of ideas, musical motifs and artistic devices that precede it on the program. Kudos for the pleasing work go to Stefan Freund, a composer and cellist in Alarm Will Sound.
The avant-garde ensemble is nothing if not innovative. It is ambitious, challenging and pioneering, as well as tightly scripted and surprisingly successful in creating substance from an impossibly flimsy story.
But the show is also self-important and tries too hard to accomplish too much.
Anyone expecting a concert experience is shortchanged by the hodgepodge of excerpted arrangements. The opening of the second act — including loudly shouted phrases from critics’ unfavorable reviews of various featured compositions — is an exhausting cacophony that goes on too long.
That said, Alarm Will Sound is a group to watch, commendable for its bold thematic inventions, and imaginative juxtapositions of traditional classical and familiar pop subjects, new commissions, electronica, discordant rhythms, and staging and showmanship.
