Nick Morihisa

Thomas Lin

Music 1
4/28/16

Concert Review on River Charles Ensemble: Quantum Music Theory

The Spring 2016 River Charles Ensemble performance contained three different
sections comprised of the Romanian Folk Dances by Bla Bartk, a composition entitled
Decoherence by a math and physics concentrator at the college, Jonah Philion featuring a
solo by the same student on tenor saxophone, and Claude Debussys Petite Suite L 65
arranged for an orchestral ensemble. In particular I found the modifications to the
Romanian Folk Dances to be particularly intriguing as their arrangement called for
changes to the length of the pieces, the coupling of the fifth and sixth movements
together at the end, and enhanced featuring of the strings due to the ensemble having
fewer brass and even wind players than string instrumentalists present. The inclusion of
an original composition by a student was initially surprising, but what shattered any
preperceptions I had concerning the concert or the ensemble in general were completely
shattered with the start of the improvised solo by Jonah Philion during the back half of his
composition. Initially I misjudged this part of the program as I assumed from my years of
knowing the conductor-less ensemble that how the ensemble would handle the Romanian
Folk Dances as well as one of Debussys lesser-known pieces would be the most
interesting part of the concert. In reality this students original composition stole the show
for me due to its unexpected nature more so than the technical prowess or the changes
displayed in the two pieces composed more than a century ago.
Before launching into the idea that I saw in Jonahs composition I think it
essential to discuss how the Romanian Folk Dances were adapted from Bartks Eastern

European blend of Romanian folk music along with his diverse ancestry and musical
background. Bartks original version of the dances (played by the Royal Stockholm
Philharmonic Orchestra on Spotify) seems to have significantly more of an Eastern
European or 19th-20th century Jewish sound to them with the highlighting of the winds,
especially the oboe, bassoon, and flutes. Even when the songs take a faster, lighter tempo
they still seem to possess a more somber undertone to them. Other versions that have a
more similar approach to that of the River Charles Ensembles seem to be composed for
an orchestra and thus have more of a string component to them. This makes sense as two
of the common instruments that were used for Eastern European folk dances were the
Shepards flute and the fiddle, serving as a possible explanation for the two paths that
have emerged for the central musical group in different versions of Bartks collection.
Even though RCEs performance seemed to occupy a position in between these two
schools of thought, it seemed as if they embraced the woodwinds approach for the first
three movements, whose binary forms possess an increasing presence of these
instruments, which along with their minor keys make these first three movements sound
more solemn. The second half of movements from Bartk has a distinctly faster tempo
than the first half, as well as a major key signature, which makes the themes in the binary
form sound comparatively brighter. Even the fourth movement (moderato) was played
faster than the third movement, a wider ambitus, and the inclusion of mostly strings for
the primary theme, followed by a secondary theme composed of winds made the
audience listen much more attentively in order to not miss any part. Finally for the last
part of the song cycle RCE made the decision to mesh the fifth and sixth movements
together with a minimally sized break in between. This was initially surprising to me, but

after listening to other versions it seems to not be too uncommon as both movements are
set to similar tempos, the fifth movement ends in D major and the sixth starts in D major
before transitioning to A major, and what seemed like a battle between the strings and the
winds in the fifth movement was ultimately won out by the winds in the sixth movement.
Their victory was then proclaimed with the use of higher winds moving up and down the
staff as if gloating.
Jonah Philions piece had two distinct sections to it in that the first half featured
the strings and winds playing the themes in what appeared to be binary form while the
second half featured his improvised solo on the tenor saxophone. The first half of the
piece seemed to have four small subsections with binary form themes that center first
around the higher winds, followed by the strings wrestling control, which is then deposed
by the lower winds, and then finally the strings regain control with a significant amount
of basso continuo leading into the solo. I got the distinct feeling that these four parts were
meant to display some sort of conflict and heightening of tension in order to add meaning
to the title of the song. Decoherence is a process in quantum mechanics where particles or
objects in a quantum state shift to a single, classical physics state. This happens
frequently with small particles that may occupy multiple states at once, such as a particle
having both a +1/2 charge and a -1/2 charge to it. Unfortunately these particles are so
small that it is extremely difficult to observe them and it is not known how this quantum
state comes about. Thus instead of describing individual particles or bits, it is easier to
describe the entire system as a whole as being in a quantum state, or that its presence in
multiple states at once is almost like a fluctuation between different qualities. In order to
study quantum systems, physicists will seek to change a quantum state perhaps by

sending an electromagnetic wave at the system in question, and then observe the effects
on it. The system will respond to the wave in different ways over time (due to it initially
being in multiple states at once) and the observations can be modeled as a wave function
similar to a sine curve. Physicists can use this wave-function model to find the amplitude
and then the probability that a system is in a particular state at a given time. Finally as the
system is being observed, the observations it produces result in the wave model flattening
out and approaching a certain value. This entire process of decoherence seemed
particularly interesting to me as Jonah Philions solo seemed to emulate a system with a
chaotic nature and the use of improvisation was to demonstrate that no one, including the
ensemble trying to play matching chords, or Jonah himself knew exactly what the song
would sound like next. After the building of tension in the first half, his solo went on for
about two minutes before finally dying out and the orchestral accompaniment playing a
couple bars of a single chord to demonstrate how the chaos had been resolved. I thought
that in terms of raw creativity this was certainly something to behold, as it departed from
nearly all performances that I have heard by an ensemble or orchestra or would expect to
hear. In this I feel that the hidden gem of the concert was this original composition due to
its pure inventive attitude as opposed to merely an innovative attitude that occupied the
other two pieces.

Bibliography:
1. "Bla Bartk." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
2. "Romanian Folk Dances." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
3. Romanian Folk Dances - Bla Bartk (Orchestra Version). Perf. Chamber Orchestra
Mechelen. Romanian Folk Dances - Bla Bartk (Orchestra Version). Mechels
Kamerorkest, 4 Oct. 2011. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.