The Pop of Yestercentury

A classical music critic once compared a performance of one of Wagner’s operas to a skeleton wearing its organs on the outside. He didn’t think the transparency of the orchestra suited a composer who worked with such dense textures. Hearing too much of the inner parts made everything sound lopsided. So, he came up with a disturbing metaphor for both ineffectiveness and sheer ugliness.

Still, that inside-out body would make studying anatomy much easier. Occasionally hearing all the notes in Wagner’s chords could also prove illuminating.

Moving onto the work of another great artist, Fletcher Henderson’s “Panama” demonstrates how his all-star sidemen might have handled their section parts:

Maybe it’s the acoustically recorded sound of the Harmony label’s studio. Perhaps the musicians were having an off day and lost their dynamic balance. It could just be my listening on headphones. Regardless, it’s as though the sections took turns letting the bottom voice stick out. Coleman Hawkins’s tenor sax and Charlie Green’s trombone nearly swamp the lead.

Most of the time, listeners are not supposed to hear the insides of music such as the second trumpet part, the alto in a vocal quartet or, in this case, the third brass or reed part. Yet this aural anomaly shows what two great musicians “do” in a section.

Green and Hawkins both had a big sound and big personalities. It’s no surprise that they embellish their respective parts. Their fills and ornaments create a sense of movement within the harmony. It’s possible that they’re simply playing the written arrangement, but things sound too spontaneous.

Either way, that inner motion marks some of the best orchestration. Even a lush, mellifluous string section isn’t playing lockstep whole notes. The effect is just more felt than heard. This record becomes a fascinating sonic x-ray. If you can see the joists framing a wall, it doesn’t make for an attractive living space, but sometimes it’s helpful to know what’s holding everything up.