stereophile.com n August2019 119stersopsthitl.
CLASSICAL
ROCK / POP
JAZZsterophil.ecmpscopte Al
oulrgsl2o rgis entirely different. At one end of
the second tier are three piccolos
and three clarinets. They play what
they have to play without keeping
together because I want their sound
to represent the kinds of elements
that happen in everyday life—a lot’s
going on, without connecting with
anything. At the opposite side of
the second tier are the glockenspiel
and xylophone. Low percussion
instruments are on the orchestra
level, in side boxes. There’s nothing
left except the huge pipe organ of
Davies Symphony Hall...”
Now imagine the challenge of
recording such a 12-ring circus. Ac-
cording to longtime San Francisco
Media producer/engineer Jack Vad,
“We just couldn’t get it to work in
5.1, 7.1, or 2-channel—it was a mess.
The only way this recording has
worked musically for us is in an
Atmos presentation”—a presenta-
tion, I should repeat, that requires
no special equipment or decoding:
Any two-channel DAC and head-
phone amp and pair of headphones
will do.
When Brant was 12 years old,
before he studied at the Montreal
Conservatory and Juilliard Graduate
School—long before he went on to
serve on the faculties of Columbia
University, Juilliard, and Benning-
ton College—he joined his violinist
father on a trip to Europe. During the
voyage, the ship spent an entire day
passing through a field of icebergs.
“I claim that the memory of that
experience is reflected in Ice Field,”
Brant said. “But it’s only a title. I was
thinking about this when I started to
write it, but the idea of trying to depict
an iceberg in sound is something I
wouldn’t want to attempt.”
As you listen, see if occasional frag-
ments of Brant’s massive score bring
to mind an orchestra playing as the
Titanic sinks, or if others simulate the
moaning of huge chunks of ice as they
begin to cleave—or reflect the sounds
of your own mind bursting at the
seams.^1 n
1 Be sure to look at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=I4rfukf_eqI before you leap.Music champion Charles Amirkhanian
before Ice Field’s premiere: “On the
stage will be the string orchestra in the
place where it usually sits, all together.
The only other instruments on the
stage are two pianos, two harps, and
the timpanist. So the sound that comes
from that area of the stage is not what
you ordinarily hear. It’s more intensi-
fied because you hear each tone quality
by itself, not duplicated by anything
else. Behind the stage, in the organ
loft, I put the oboes and bassoons.
What they play is a kind of music that
the strings, pianos, harps, and timpani
never play. In the first tier is the entire
brass section, plus a jazz drummer.
This group has its own conductor,
who pays no attention to the conduc-
tor on stage, because the music hereE
ven though Henry Brant’s
mind-boggling Ice Field
for orchestra and organ
won the Pulitzer Prize for
Music in 2002—the year after its
premiere—and years later was revis-
ited by the San Francisco Sympho-
ny, for which it was commissioned,
no recording format has succeeded
at capturing its musical and spatial
wonders. Until now.
In a first for the San Francisco
Symphony, the 2014 performance
of Ice Field, recorded in 24/192
PCM in Davies Symphony Hall,
has been issued as a bargain-priced
(about $7) 24/48 WAV download-
only binaural recording. Processed
with Dolby Atmos, Ice Field is
intended for anyone with two-
channel playback gear and a pair of
headphones.
And what a listen it is. This work,
which combines carefully orches-
trated sections with passages that
depend on spontaneous improvisa-
tion, stretches the limits with its
wildly divergent but ultimately uni-
fied sonic excursions. In the huge
expanse of Davies Symphony Hall,
one hears percussive blows, silly
treble organ exclamations followed
by rumbles from the lowest pedals,
deep growls, bits of swinging jazz,
and mysterious but determinedly
consonant sections that touch the
heart—a crazy cacophony of careening
sounds and lines superimposed one
over the other that fascinates even as it
confounds.
Conceived for the unique acoustic of
San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall,
Brant’s virtually unclassifiable work
places two conductors and countless
musicians in multiple locations within
the hall. Years ago, I attended the
work’s premiere and was so distracted
by the many disparate sound sources
that I was unable, at times, to compre-
hend where Brant’s score intended to
take me. SFS Media’s binaural issue is
the first time I’ve been able to close my
eyes, focus on the music, and begin to
make sense of Ice Field’s divine chaos.
Imagine this spatial scenario, which
Brant (1913–2008) shared with NewHENRY BRANT
Ice FieldCameron Carpenter, organ, San Francisco
Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas,
Edwin Outwater, Conds.
SFS Media SFS 0075 (24/48 WAV). 2019.
Jack Vad, prod. and eng.; Roni Jules, Gus
Pollek, Jonathan Stevens, Denise Woodward,
supporting engs.; Jack Vad, Mark Willsher,
John Loose, Atmos post-prod. DDD. TT: 24.31
PERFORMANCE
SONICS