'Daphnis et Chloé,’ 1824 painting by François Gérard (detail)

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Stewart Copeland, 2008 Photo: Josué Jacob

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November 14, 2015 Before San Antonio Symphony music director Sebastian Lang-Lessing led the orchestra in Maurice Ravel’s complete Daphnis et Chloé ballet score, Nov. 13 in the Tobin Center, he told the audience that the performance of that splendid representative of French culture was being dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attack in Paris that had shocked the world just a few hours earlier. A slightly amended version of that announcement would have been appropriate at the start of the concert, before Stewart Copeland’s very American Gamelan D’Drum. It was composed for the Dallas-based D’Drum World Percussion, a five-player ensemble that gave the premiere with the Dallas Symphony in 2011 and was also featured (with one change in personnel) in this performance.  What is American about the piece? It is indebted to the past but not confined by it. It appropriates from other cultures and then assimilates and transforms what it imports.  It is sometimes raucous, sometimes sentimental, often flawed but always striving. It requires musicians to bang on things. It’s got rhythm. Its composer, formerly the drummer with The Police, is a rock star. It is the sound of a free people.  Thus it can be situated among the ramifications of the French Enlightenment.  Too few Americans recognize the degree to which the very idea of America (and the specifics of our Constitution) owe their existence to Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau. Our Franklin, Jefferson and Madison inhaled their spirit and invented America on their schematics.  Gamelan D’Drum calls for an enormous assortment of percussion instruments, which sprawled across the stage extension and pushed the orchestra well back behind the proscenium. (The full-depth shell had to be used.) Most of the percussion instruments were those of traditional gamelan orchestras — Javanese at stage left, Balinese at stage right, with their metallophones built to different tuning systems — but Africa, Europe and the US (homeland of the vibraphone) also were represented.  Gamelan orchestras have a significant history of influence on American music, notably through Steve Reich, Philip Glass and the astonishing Harry Partch. Mr. Copeland’s approach is his own, however. Although the piece carries over some aspects of traditional gamelan performance, such as complex ostinato figures, the sounds of the instruments are presented mostly in an American context. The first movement is rather jazzy, hinting of Gershwin. The second begins as a slow processional, opening with a plaintive cello melody (beautifully played by Ken Freudigman), but as the music gathers energy it seems to draw on American funk. The finale is all over the map — there’s an extended passage built on an eight-beat ostinato for a Balinese metallophone,  a vibraphone solo worthy of Gary Burton, a sort of battle of the tambourines, a portentous orchestral passage, a rollicking conclusion for all the forces. The percussion scoring is highly intricate and varied, and the players often have to move to new stations, so as a practical matter they have to play from memory.  The problem is that much of Mr. Copeland’s orchestral writing is murky and not very interesting, though in a few patches the orchestra and the percussion are nicely integrated.  The percussionists played with miraculously precise ensemble and unflagging energy. The members of D’Drum were Doug Howard, Ron Snider, John Bryant and Ed Smith, joined by guest Josh Jennings.  Murky orchestration is not, of course, an issue for Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, as crystalline and colorful a score as has ever been crafted. Audiences are more familiar with the two suites, especially the second, that Ravel extracted from the full ballet, but those exclude a lot of wonderful music for both the orchestra and the wordless chorus — here, the excellent Trinity University Chamber Singers, prepared by Gary Seighman.  The orchestra’s execution in Daphnis et Chloé was as polished and precise as I’ve heard from any orchestra, anywhere; if there were any flaws, they were too minor to notice.  Principal flute Martha Long and concertmaster Eric Gratz earned special notice, but superb individual musicianship and taut teamwork were the rule throughout. Mr. Lang-Lessing’s wonderful tempo relations and rhythmic acuity were everywhere in evidence, and (thanks in large part to the H-E-B Performance Hall’s top-notch acoustics) every detail was clearly audible.  Mike Greenberg

San Antonio Symphony, Lang-Lessing, D’Drum

The sound of a free people

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A panoply of percussion, including Balinese and Javanese gamelan orchestras, crowds the forestage in front of the San Antonio Symphony before the performance of Stewart Copeland’s Gamelan D’Drum.

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San Antonio Symphony, Lang-Lessing, D'Drum

November 14, 2015 Before San Antonio Symphony music director Sebastian Lang-Lessing led the orchestra in Maurice Ravel’s complete Daphnis et Chloé ballet score, Nov. 13 in the Tobin Center, he told the audience that the performance of that splendid representative of French culture was being dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attack in Paris that had shocked the world just a few hours earlier. A slightly amended version of that announcement would have been appropriate at the start of the concert, before Stewart Copeland’s very American Gamelan D’Drum. It was composed for the Dallas-based D’Drum World Percussion, a five-player ensemble that gave the premiere with the Dallas Symphony in 2011 and was also featured (with one change in personnel) in this performance.  What is American about the piece? It is indebted to the past but not confined by it. It appropriates from other cultures and then assimilates and transforms what it imports.  It is sometimes raucous, sometimes sentimental, often flawed but always striving. It requires musicians to bang on things. It’s got rhythm. Its composer, formerly the drummer with The Police, is a rock star. It is the sound of a free people.  Thus it can be situated among the ramifications of the French Enlightenment.  Too few Americans recognize the degree to which the very idea of America (and the specifics of our Constitution) owe their existence to Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau. Our Franklin, Jefferson and Madison inhaled their spirit and invented America on their schematics.  Gamelan D’Drum calls for an enormous assortment of percussion instruments, which sprawled across the stage extension and pushed the orchestra well back behind the proscenium. (The full-depth shell had to be used.) Most of the percussion instruments were those of traditional gamelan orchestras — Javanese at stage left, Balinese at stage right, with their metallophones built to different tuning systems — but Africa, Europe and the US (homeland of the vibraphone) also were represented.  Gamelan orchestras have a significant history of influence on American music, notably through Steve Reich, Philip Glass and the astonishing Harry Partch. Mr. Copeland’s approach is his own, however. Although the piece carries over some aspects of traditional gamelan performance, such as complex ostinato figures, the sounds of the instruments are presented mostly in an American context. The first movement is rather jazzy, hinting of Gershwin. The second begins as a slow processional, opening with a plaintive cello melody (beautifully played by Ken Freudigman), but as the music gathers energy it seems to draw on American funk. The finale is all over the map — there’s an extended passage built on an eight-beat ostinato for a Balinese metallophone,  a vibraphone solo worthy of Gary Burton, a sort of battle of the tambourines, a portentous orchestral passage, a rollicking conclusion for all the forces. The percussion scoring is highly intricate and varied, and the players often have to move to new stations, so as a practical matter they have to play from memory.  The problem is that much of Mr. Copeland’s orchestral writing is murky and not very interesting, though in a few patches the orchestra and the percussion are nicely integrated.  The percussionists played with miraculously precise ensemble and unflagging energy. The members of D’Drum were Doug Howard, Ron Snider, John Bryant and Ed Smith, joined by guest Josh Jennings.  Murky orchestration is not, of course, an issue for Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, as crystalline and colorful a score as has ever been crafted. Audiences are more familiar with the two suites, especially the second, that Ravel extracted from the full ballet, but those exclude a lot of wonderful music for both the orchestra and the wordless chorus — here, the excellent Trinity University Chamber Singers, prepared by Gary Seighman.  The orchestra’s execution in Daphnis et Chloé was as polished and precise as I’ve heard from any orchestra, anywhere; if there were any flaws, they were too minor to notice.  Principal flute Martha Long and concertmaster Eric Gratz earned special notice, but superb individual musicianship and taut teamwork were the rule throughout. Mr. Lang-Lessing’s wonderful tempo relations and rhythmic acuity were everywhere in evidence, and (thanks in large part to the H-E-B Performance Hall’s top-notch acoustics) every detail was clearly audible.  Mike Greenberg

'Daphnis et Chloé,’ 1824 painting by François Gérard