Leaving Home, Orchestral Music in the 20th Century, Vol. 1: Dancing on a Volcano (review)

Originally produced for video in 1996, "Leaving Home," is the first of a seven-part series re-issued on DVD and devoted, as its title indicates, to "Orchestral Music in the 20^th Century." If the other volumes hold to the quality of this one, the collection will be of considerable attraction not merely to the lay listener interested in the subject but more so to teachers of twentieth-century music, a difficult occupation at the best of times. By the brilliant, closeup portraits of musicians in the act of performing some rather astringent twentieth-century repertoires, students will learn what is so difficult to teach in a classroom—that musicians actually play this stuff, and what is more, draw from it an evident pleasure comparable to (if it doesn't exceed) the pleasure of performing earlier, more familiar repertoires.

The program is a blend of lecture (Sir Simon Rattle, usually seated at the keyboard), documentary with voice over (again Rattle, with either period stills or short period films), and illustrative excerpts (usually the aforementioned closeup shots of performing musicians, but sometimes pleasant if innocuous shots of a broad and gentle waterfall [which, given the Viennese centricity of the subject, is a little too reminiscent of the sewer crawl in Orson Welles's The Third Man]). The lecture is undergraduate survey material, largely the received view of Fin-de-siècle artistic turmoil and revolution. Rattle is a little wooden, and quite evidently reading a prompt screen. But the package is congenially produced, and the average undergraduate should find it easily comprehensible. Presumably Alexandra Maria Dielitz, the author of the text, has taught, for the text reads like a carefully considered lecture for university entry-level music majors or for general arts students, at any baccalaureate level with an interest in the subject matter.

The real gems here, as noted above, are the shots of musical performances. The two soloists are excellent: Felicity Palmer, mezzo soprano, sings a torrid Clytemnestra excerpt from Strauss's Elektra, while Gidon Kremer gives a fine reading of an excerpt from Berg's Violin Concerto. The remainder of the visual DVD brings together excerpts from the prelude to Tristan und Isolde, Schoenberg's Transfigured Night and his Five Orchestral Pieces, op. 16, Mahler's Seventh Symphony, and Webern's Five Orchestral Pieces, op. 10, in a well conceived tour of the principal threads of early twentieth-century orchestral repertoire. Most important for teaching purposes, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra appears in informal dress in keeping with the intimacy of the camera shots. The usual stiffness, so unattractive in a music that is already so unfamiliar, is replaced with a cotton shirt and blue jean informality. You cannot help but like these affable musicians, who might easily serve as role models to orchestral instrument majors.

In the visual part of the DVD, the program runs slightly under an hour in length. Added on are two audio-only tracks of Transfigured Night and the Berg Violin Concerto. (Still photographs appear on screen as the works are played, among these are colorful shots of Schoenberg's paintings.) Although the provenance of these two tracks isn't clear, they would appear to be taken from the Naxos library, with someone other than Rattle conducting. The disc is rounded out with a collection of short biographies.

In summary, the disc is highly recommended for use in university or college teaching. Arthaus, the producer, has promised the remaining six discs by the end of 2005. From the prospectus, it would appear the series is devoted to orchestral music principally of the first six decades of the century. If the remaining discs are engineered as well as the first, the result will be an excellent teaching tool, not without its attractions for a general audience.