It's The Age of Anxiety

Well not exactly... "The Age of Anxiety" is actually the title of the orchestra (played by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra) conducted and directed by Andrew Litton, which I had the pleasure of going to watch last night at Bergen's Grieghallen.

The symphony itself is not titled “The Age of Anxiety”; in fact it accompanies the long six-part poem by W. H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue. In short (and from what I was told, since I have not actually read the poem) the poem is about a man’s journey to find his own identity in a transforming post-wartime industrialised world. The poem was so inspiring in fact that it influenced composer Leonard Bernstein to write a symphony that would compliment the poem’s themes.

Yet it is Andrew Litton who has brought this music to the attention of the students (and residents, although it was free for students) of Bergen by being the conductor and director of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and presenting this delight to our ears.

Now in all honesty, I have never actually been to see a symphony – I have seen musicals and plays which have had orchestras for accompaniment, yet they have just been the substitutes on the bench of a team: never fully taking the centre stage and attention of the audience, it’s just been a ‘background enhancement/effect’. So I was quite intrigued to see and more importantly hear what this symphony would be like. The resulting verdict? It was beautifully incredible. 

Not only was it a delight to watch – to see the conductor Andrew Litton get so involved with directing the music to perfect, all the different musicians of the orchestra play with complete love for the music – but it was also amazing to hear. Before the symphony began, Andrew Litton gave a brief presentation of what the poem itself was about, and how the symphony reflected the plot. As I had said previously, the poem is in six parts, and reflecting this, the symphony is divided into six parts (although you have to really listen out to the changes in parts, because it was that fast, there is not a big intermission in-between, but actually the piano was used as a sort of flowing guidance of where one part ended and the next began: like a deep breath before beginning the next paragraph in written work).

Even though I have never read the poem The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue, I felt through Litton’s brief explanation of the plot and the ways in which the orchestra reflected the ‘scenes’ or parts of the poem that I could understand and imagine this story just through listening to the symphony.

And this made me reflect about all music…

We don’t often realise (or sometimes we do, maybe not all the time though), but unconsciously we create a story or a narrative is created for us through any type of music – if we take away the lyrics of most songs, we can still decipher a narrative through just listening to the music itself: the instruments. Music is in fact actually so complimentary to narratives, yet we don’t always realise, however if you begin to think about it, a film or television show is viewed as incomplete if no soundtrack is tied to it. I mean I know perhaps some of the music chosen for the soundtrack is not always a reflection of the narrative, but actually a marketing ploy but choosing music that the larger audience will enjoy – however films or television shows that do this generally do not have any deeper underlying meaning, they are just ‘best-sellers’ of a generalised theme and plot. (Note: I am aware this is a different circumstance for print narratives i.e. books, although there are some cases where books and dramas will describe music in a particular scene to help aid the reader to create a visual and even aural story in their mind).

Perhaps I am just thinking too deeply into this, and perhaps I have had too much coffee and therefore my brain is thinking about so many different ideas a mile a minute.

One thing I am certain of though is that I did sit there for this one-hour symphony mesmerised and in fact hypnotised by the story created through the music.

AND, I definitely would be more than happy to go watch an orchestra again to uncover even more obvious or hidden narratives within the music… or if not, to just simply enjoy the delightfulness of watching and hearing music!