Bang on a Can at Mass MoCA: Part I, Field of Vision

NORTH ADAMS, MA--Any major Bang on a Can event is bound to test what you think music is, what it can say, and even how sound is made. But during the Bang on a Can LOUD Weekend July 28-30 at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams, artistic consolidation--or, God forbid, maturity--seemed to be setting in as many experimental strands appeared to be coming together among a  normally wild and wooly collective of downtown Manhattan composers.

Passport-style booklets gave brief introductions to the 32 new and newish concerts (ranging in length from 30 to 90 minutes) in this modern-art complex of repurposed factories with some 230,000 square feet of exhibition space. You had enough information to go on but never enough to enable the kind of intellectual detachment that prevents being enveloped by large, immersive works such as Michael Gordon's new offering for 36 percussionists, Field of Vision. That piece, alone, was reason to be there.

Performed by So Percussion and the University of Michigan Percussion, Field of Vision turned out to be a full hour of music with an ideal balance of unity and variety, plus rich, wide-ranging content akin to a Mahler symphony. Of the three founding Bang on a Can composers, the soft-spoken Gordon, 66, has steadily produced highly engaging works, from the opera Acquanetta to the film Decasia, but hasn't enjoyed the kind of Carnegie Hall/New York Philharmonic profile of Julia Wolfe and David Lang, the two other Bang founders (both of whom have been Musical America Composers of the Year, in 2019 and 2013, respectively). That may not change with the hard-to-assemble forces required of Field of Vision, which was rehearsed in Princeton, premiered at the Caramoor Festival, and was acoustically at home at MASS MoCA, whose hallmark is providing space for expansive art works. Gordon’s was performed in an open-air courtyard surrounded by the factory’s plain brick walls, which contained the sound. The piece’s mastery and imperative force of communication—in contrast, say, to his more modest 2009 Timber for six percussionists—demand that the usual rules of concert presentation be rewritten to fit its needs.

Starting with giddy rhythms and indefinable sheets of timbre, the piece could be called, in John Luther Adams parlance, "Become Sound." Motifs are simple; their power lies in cumulative repetition and contrast with other motifs, often heard in layers. The players migrate from one set of instruments to another, often filtering through the crowd (along with MASS MoCA personnel handing out free ear plugs). Soon, the piece moves into darker terrains with arresting explosions of sound afforded by simultaneous bass drum and gong, both played with soft mallets, enabling an aural fusion greater than the sum of its parts.

As per the score, the sounds that follow are precisely calculated and were here  masterfully layered upon one another. Instruments included pliable twigs slapped together, played with percussionists walking thru the audience. Stones were tapped against each other; small, rectangular slabs of metal received a pounding.

The musical gestures flowed like waves, receding gradually, returning with tempos stretched and contracted, and showing up in newly created forms. The piece progressed from storms to apocalypse and then, ultimately, to heartbeat. Afterwards, the audience lingered, peering at the notation on the music stands. Chatting with Wolfe, I wondered if Field of Vision was in eight movements. She wasn't going to guess. Gordon confirmed that the movement count was four.

Wolfe, Gordon, and Lang were all in evidence throughout the weekend, listening along with everyone else, making introductions to each concert that reminded you how every event had its own distinctly different rules. The program included mini-retrospectives devoted to Tania León (with her Cuban/modernist fusion), Phil Kline (with his ambient pieces for multiple boom boxes plus his Zippo Songs with texts by Vietnam War soldiers), and the recently deceased George Crumb (with his mystical sounds inspired by Garcia Lorca). The logistical demands of the weekend must have been staggering, with so much music requiring so many different elements. But never have I seen a festival of this scale run so smoothly--or cheerfully.

Pictured: One of 36 ingredients to Michael Gordon's Field of Vision, as performed in the Mass MoCA courtyard

Part II of BOAC at MASS MoCA will be posted within the week