Mood Music

Tonight, S and I went to the Harris Theatre for the final MusicNow concert of the season. It featured film music - Golijov's suite from Youth without Youth, and Philip Glass's suite from The Hours. There is something strange about a concert based on film scores; the music is hitched to some action, some narrative arc, that is oppressively absent. It reminded me of a ride I suffered through at a nearby water park. You're sitting on an innertube, pushed down a slide that is itself a tube - a pitch dark tunnel. There's no way of anticipating the myriad twists and turns, the changes of direction. It's absolutely nauseating. Not to say that the concert was nauseating, just, I felt manipulated. Film music is all about creating a mood, so there we sat, drenched in pathos, bleeding from the heartlace, not really sure why.