A Little Nightmare Music

A grand performance started from Vienna. The series “Igudesman & Joo” spread across the world like a lark waking up the morning. The first performance was “A little Nightmare Music” held in Vienna, held subsequently in New York City, Los Angeles, Rotterdam, and Milano. Although the audience was small, the cheers were much louder and much vibrant than thousands of people watching a dull and mediocre performance.

1) Performers

8.5/10

The performers of the series “Igudesman & Joo” are very talented and excelling musicians worldwide. Joo Hyung Ki, the pianist, has been performing several contemporary and Neo-romanticism pieces. Grown up in United Kingdom under South Korean parents, the pianist performed as a talented pianist who could drive the audience with passion and emotions. His famous performances include “Saint-Saens The Carnival of the Animals” and “Alla Molto Turca” (The new version of Mozart’s Turkish March).

Aleksey Igudesman is a russian violinist, composer, and conductor. He was born in Leningrad, Russia. Studing at Yehudi Menuhin School in England, he set his career as both violinist and composer. Contemporary critics consider Igudesman as a pioneer of “Classical Music Comedy” – combining classical music with comedy. He is considered as a brave composer to experiment several aspects of music. Some of his compositions have humoristic but sarcastic elements about the society. His famous performances include “Violins of the World” and the “Cyber Conductor for two violins and symphony orchestra.”

2) Pieces

9.5/10

Among the several pieces performed during “A little Nightmare Music”, the 3 pieces “Piano Lesson”, “Rachmaninoff had Big Hands”, and “A Ticket to Ride” put every audience into an entertained feeling and a pondering pose. All 3 pieces focused on two aspects: a serious problem and a creative but ironic solution. The performer encounters with a problem during the performance. Then, the performers show a solution – a solution that is at once entertaining and ironic that the audience laugh, chuckle, and ponder during the performance.

"Piano Lesson" entertainingly portrays the education method of ordinary South Korean musicians. Although the teacher is talented in playing the piano, he is inept in teaching his students. Such lack of devotion in teaching lead to a “tragicomedy”: both the teacher and the student get tired of learning a new piece. The portrayal of the teacher and the students are balanced: the teacher, acting as an extremely arrogant and slightly mental person, and the student, acting as a very nervous and extremely scared child wearing eccentric clothes. The use of musical instruments as a method of education was also inspiring. The use of the bow of the violin to hit the student cast memories of being spanked by teacher among the audience who learned music in a harsh way. However, the performance was so short to be called as a piano lesson. Rather than portraying “a typical day” of the lesson, the performers would have gained much approval if they had performed several days in a row, like “day 1: learning a new song”, “day 2: still learning”, “day 3: tired of learning”. By showing the progress, Igudesman and Joo could have portrayed the misleading lesson much more dramatic and entertaining.

“Rachmaninoff had Big Hands” provides a solution for the pianists who have small hands. There are several incidents in which performers cannot play the notes accurately since the chords are so far apart that they cannot play at once, such as Liszt’s “Apres Lecture de Dante” or Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance no.5”. The solution Igudesman and Joo provides is remarkable: not so many performers would have thought about that solution. The portrayal of the piano performance is also entertaining: the helper who gives the “solution” to the pianist is again wearing eccentric clothes, while the pianist pay almost no attention to the helper who becomes almost breathless to sustain the pianist. I really enjoyed the first narration of the pianist: “Rachmaninoff, Big Hands”. “I am Korean (stated in Korean), Small Hands”. The narration sets the theme of the whole performance, providing both introduction and the conclusion of the performance. Several audiences, on the other hand, lost humor during the performance. Although the solution was a inspiration at first glance, it became another ordinary “solution” as the solution was repeated several times within a 1 minute piece. Maybe the performers should have used the solution less frequently to evoke the special characteristic of the solution.

“A Ticket to Ride” is a hilarious recreation of the Beatles “A Ticket to Ride” into a classical music. Joo performs as both the vocalist and the pianist. Though he makes several mistakes such as singing one note too long or singing voices too high or too low, he manages to sing the pop song with humor and sarcasm. The performance implicitly criticizes the performance of the vocalists who do not sing well. There are several musicians in modern society who performs exceedingly well and who performs extremely badly. The performance moderately mocks those who stood up in stage with great expectations from the audience but ends the performance with disappointment and frustration. The performance also makes adequate contrast between the performer and the narrator. Although the narrator makes several facial expressions showing dismay and shock toward the performance, the vocalist smiles, even shows enthusiasm even though he made devastating mistakes. However, the vocalist could have expressed other mistakes the vocalists make in daily life as well. The mistakes the performers made were limited to three mistakes: too high voices, too low voices, and too long notes. Maybe the performers could have tried several other “mistakes”, such as irregular breaths, wrong chords, wrong notes, and severe blackouts (in which the performer forgets what to sing).

3) Overall

9.0/10

The performance was one of the most hilarious and most thoughtful performances mankind has ever observed. Portraying both humor and sarcasm, Igudesman and Joo provided a new era: that Classical Music can be viewed from different perspectives: that Classical Music is open to everyone: and that Classical Music is humor.