Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I needed to blow my nose.
But we were only five minutes into Nu.Mu.Zu., and I'd just have to be content with quietly sniffling for the next twenty minutes.
It was the first modern piece that I've seen receive a full standing ovation from a full house at the Seattle Symphony, and, despite the second half of the concert being taken up by Brahms Violin Concerto, Nu.Mu.Zu. was what the audience was talking excitedly about after everything was over for the evening.
Written by Georgian film composer Giya Kancheli, this piece was like a great soundtrack without having to endure the movie. With interweaving thematic elements snagged neatly from Bach and crashing crescendos with an impressive battalion of excellent percussionists, the cinematic quality of this work drew us all in.
The words Nu.Mu.Zu are Sumerian for "I don't know", and the composer, having reached his 80th birthday this year, wanted to express his perplexion and despair of the current state of the world.
It is difficult to recount a piece of this nature that I've only heard once and of which there are no recordings, but a basic outline would be thus:
A soft, slow opening with gentle piano playing the theme from Bach's Invention in E minor, harp carrying much melodic weight. A prominent suspension of the fourth gives motion and tension.
A build-up, featuring bassoon solos and a bow drawn across orchestral bells to create a sound like feedback from a stereo.
Explosion into a variation of the first theme, with a drop in the bass to a harmonic mediant relationship. This repeats several times, each time building with gongs, cymbals, and other heavy percussion.
It seemed that one of the greatest things was how deeply sold on the piece the Symphony itself, as a unit, was. The orchestra members gave everything they had for this piece, with enduring concentration throughout the piece. In fact, I found myself thinking after the piece had finished that I really wanted to hear it again... But in that odd way, a recording, even a very high quality recording, wouldn't really match that intensity.
I do have one complaint, however, and that is that I feel that the piece could have been ten minutes shorter. The build-up repeated itself no less than three times; the climax-heaviness was too oft repeated to be fully effective. I'd have preferred another contrasting theme in the middle, followed by the soft beginning and then a repetition of the climactic theme.
That is, of course, only my opinion.
I can say with sincerity, however, that I haven't felt touched so deeply by a piece in quite a while. It left a mark in my heart like a spontaneous, flame-bright love affair of a single night; waking in the morning to find the lover gone.
Update: You can now download a recording of this piece on the Seattle Symphony Orchestra website. Enjoy!
