It’s 26 degrees in Westerpark. Families are scattered across the grass, the sun is shining, and I’m patiently waiting for the premiere of Passing Remark, an orchestration by Hildur Guðnadóttir. Armed with little more context than the title and the fact that it was written for an “XXL brass ensemble” of conservatory students, I had just started to wonder where there would be space for such a large group among all the running kids and dogs when the musicians came marching toward the central pond.
To my surprise, the ensemble didn’t gather in one place. Instead, only four horn players stopped at the edge of the lake while the rest walked on. Slowly but surely, the massive group divided itself into small pods of three or four all around the water.
When the lake was fully surrounded, the first slow, droning note sounded, soon to be answered from across the pond. Over the following twenty minutes, the players communicated back and forth like ships sounding their foghorns at sea. Yet, much like ships lost at sea—and noticeable only when paying close attention—it became clear that the big body of water was obscuring their cues. The players were starting to get lost in the piece:
“I can’t hear them.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“No, no, we’re not there yet.”
Despite this quiet disorientation, the musicians carried on, carefully listening to one another. The air filled with slowly alternating, sometimes dissonant harmonies, creating a calming atmosphere for the crowd that had gathered by now. And then, just as unannounced as the piece had started, the last notes faded over the pond. The ships had passed.
The sound of Passing Remark is classic Guðnadóttir. The low, heavy brass notes felt deeply reminiscent of the moody, minimalist cello compositions on her recent album Where to From (which she will perform herself later this week at the Holland Festival), as well as "Bathroom Dance" from her Oscar-winning score for Joker. By swapping her usual strings for an expansive brass section, she managed to evoke that same haunting weight, but on a grand, open-air scale, effectively using the far-reaching sound quality of the brass instruments. Differently from her often intimate and introspective sounding string instruments, the brass instruments created a more solemn almost ceremonial sound. This solemness was, however, counteracted by the fact that the piece was performed in the park, with an audience that was free to move and choose how they experienced the conversation. This offered a form of interaction that’s usually absent from official ceremonies as traditional orchestrations alike and leaves the audience wondering what fleeting remarks they may have not given their full attention just because they were standing somewhere else.
Yet to me, the true beauty of the piece lay in the hurdles that came with the use of this outdoor space. It perfectly demonstrated how much music is a conversation, not only with the audience, but between the players themselves. It showed how fragile communication can be and how easily it can be obscured, but also how much is possible when there is a real effort put into listening. Of course, this is also a testament to the young musicians who, despite the difficult circumstances, showed real professionalism and performed a beautiful piece nonetheless. Ultimately, Passing Remark proved that even when we get a little lost, there is a distinct beauty in simply trying to hear each other through the fog.