On January 28th, I went to Ólafur Arnalds’s concert at The Commodore Ballroom. I was very excited to see him perform live, since I had been a fan of his music for many years. Ólafur Arnalds is an Icelandic artist known for his ambient music produced with strings, piano and the use of computer programming.
The setting of the stage has surprised me as soon as I walked into the venue – there were four pianos on the stage! I became quite excited to see how he would intertwine those pianos with other string instruments to deliver the optimal auditory experience to the audiences. The ensemble consisted of Ólafur Arnalds on piano, one cello player, one viola player, and two violinists. Arnalds would simultaneously operate the computer program to add loops and beats on top of the sounds created by the instruments.
From an audience’s perspective, his music had a lot of imagery, just like the movie soundtracks. For example, as they performed the song ‘they sink’, I could close my eyes and picture myself being underwater. The scattered, staccato, light notes on the piano were symbolizing the sun glistening on the surface of the water with a few ripples; while I could still feel the depth of the ocean as the cello would layout long bass notes as the foundation. This reminds me of how Pachelbel layers Canon in D with the arpeggiated chords on cello, violas, and other harmonizing string instruments to harmonize for the melody played on the violin. However, there is no basso continuo like there is in Canon, since the audience could not tell what the main melody is – it just sounded like a cluster of harmonies that were not accompanying any line. Therefore, it could not be summarized as purely polyphonic or homophonic, but rather a combination of them. Since each instrument was doing a different thing rhythmically, the song was homorhythmic. The lower notes of the song did not follow a chord progression sequence as Canon did either; but was rather through-composed with little or no repetition.
One of the highlights of the show was that Arnalds had applied modern technology to his performance. The audiences could see him physically playing on one piano, and occasionally input some commands on his computer program. Meanwhile, the other two pianos on each end were playing on their owns, supporting the melody Arnalds played on his piano along with other string instruments.
The combination of three pianos playing together had definitely made the sound richer and more interesting. Nonetheless, Arnalds’ music was consistent on one theme: peace and serenity. Even though I still had emotions listening to the concert, especially when the strings adding intensity by going up the scale and finally resolve the 7th notes, it was still not comparable to the music in Baroque and Renaissance eras, where intense emotions and feelings were conveyed through powerful operas.
In the end, there is no good or bad about different forms of music. I believe that as technology further enhances through time, there will only be more innovation on the presentation of music.