RICHARD BLACKFORD: Not in Our Time (An Oratorio about War in God’s Name Marking the Anniversary of 9/11) – Paul Nilon, tenor/ Stephan Gadd, baritone/ Bournemouth Sym. Orch., Chorus, and Youth Chorus/ Gavin Carr – Nimbus Alliance 6161, 54:13 [Distr. by Allegro] ***1/2:
It’s tough having to review a piece and not knowing from which angle to proceed. As much as Richard Blackford seems to have poured into this work, I can’t get beyond the idea that this is not so much an oratorio as a political statement set to music. In fact, the two other works touted in the booklet, Mirrors of Perfection and Voices of Exile seem to confirm this. However, wanting to be fair, I ventured onto his website before starting this. Nothing there. Then to an interview in a podcast. A little more enlightening, at least in terms of his interest in political awareness as expressed through music. Still, the topic chosen, that of making war in God’s name is a huge one and fraught with the possibility of misinterpretation. What is he really trying to say here, mixing statements from Pope Urban of the First Crusade with supposed “crusader” talk post-9/11 by George W. Bush, or Ayman Al Zawahiri and Mohammed Ben Zeky? The topic is a valid one; no one doubts for a minute that religion has been used to push war. But contextually, despite similarities in tone and content among texts from 1000 years ago and today, I remain unconvinced about the genuine pretexts these texts inspired in terms of belligerence.
What I do read in the notes is a small blurb by the composer that says the section from the Book of Habakkuk “How long O Lord? I cry for help – but you do not listen!” reflects the composer’s own “ambivalence towards the God who does not intervene in war…” Now maybe we are getting somewhere. Is this really a statement about the hijacking of religion to propagate war, or is it a personal diatribe about God because He allows it to begin with? There are profound theological concepts at work here that elude the rather juvenile and haphazard treatment of the texts used in this piece, and it is always dangerous comparing—let alone making judgments about—times so far removed from our own, and civilizations that had radically difference premises for existence and belief. And it is the ultimate haughtiness to make assumptions about our own modern moral high ground compared to theirs—it just isn’t there.
So it is difficult to recommend a piece that I find flawed in its origins. But when we eventually get around to the music—and this is a piece of music, right?—we have only the notes to guide us. Blackford had his roots in the music of the seventies, and that meant the Darmstadt school, which put a choke hold on at least two generations of composers. After coming to realize that he preferred not just absolute music—though he has written much of it—after a two year stint studying with dramatist extraordinaire Hans Werner Henze in Rome, he decided to go his own way and has chosen a musical language that is dramatic and highly lyrical. Taken on its own terms the music is successful in portraying the ideas and ideals found in the text. And we do know that even operas can succeed with lousy librettos. Somehow I doubt that is the case here—the makeup of any one audience will decide time and time again whether Blackford’s concept holds water or not; that is simply the nature of the topic he has chosen, and it will remain controversial.
The Nimbus sound could be better—I find it too close in and bordering on distortion in some places. But the orchestra and chorus are excellent, with the soloists taxed with some lovely lines.
—Steven Ritter
Brahms Violin Concerto – Isaac Stern, Paul Paray – Forgotten Records
Another in the series of historic recordings from Forgotten Records, Paul Paray and Isaac Stern
