United States Bang on a Can – ‘Long Play Festival’: Various players. Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, 3.5.2025. (DS)
Anthony Braxton – Composition 19
Despite having been written in the 1970s, Anthony Braxton’s Composition 19 (‘For 100 Tubas’ – or nearly) reads poignantly as a commentary on today’s human migration patterns, which have been hotly debated globally and disappointingly handled here in New York City. I would venture to say that Braxton’s work, as it was presented in Bang on a Can’s ‘Long Play Festival’, offers a peaceful and humanist view on the natural act of moving groups.
Four conductor-led groups of about fifteen tubas each migrated around the west field of Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn for approximately an hour. A sunny, breezy day brought hundreds of people out to listen, watch and move with them. Many normal Saturday parkgoers were clearly unaware of the plan to have a mass of tubas and listeners parading about. Children’s dinosaur-themed birthday parties continued, and couples remained on their blankets to chat intimately or continue reading. No one seemed disturbed by the bellowing sounds or metallic noodlings that were weaving around them. Those stationary and those in transit co-existed without conflict.
Though the work started and ended with all the tubas playing together in one spot, different portions of the piece required audience members to choose which pack to follow. This freedom created a sense of boundless generosity in the work and highlighted an element of distance that offered each listener a unique blend of sound depending on how they mapped their own movements or where amidst the four groups they chose to stand. It was a testament to the beauty that could come of open borders and a welcoming attitude towards moving peoples.
Each set of tubas played their own part of the score, sometimes clashingly so and at other times with synchronous or call-and-answer forms across the field. This ultra-expansive polyphonic composition mixed jazz, classical and contemporary improvisational elements. A simple paper score in each conductor’s hand was easy to glimpse. Some sections had instructions written in shapes and words while others had traditional notes on a staff, highlighting the spectrum of musical theory Braxton touched upon.
A gratifying aspect of the work was how one began to appreciate the tuba – a less understood brass instrument – in a new way. It is not just for deep lumbering sounds at the back edge of an orchestra. Rather, the tuba emanates delightful trills and sings wonderful triadic patterns that can leap in range. Nor is it just the loud instrument you hope your neighbor doesn’t have to practice – tubas (even a hundred of them) can create the most serene tones, evoking what I imagine sounds are like in the deepest of oceans.
Composition 19 does what all art can accomplish – change perspectives and offer unexpected interpretations. Even the tubas themselves were a symbolic gesture to the glorious variety that exists in our humanity. Some tubas were glistening gold, others worn to a deep brassiness and others ivory white. There were marching band tubas (sousaphones) that coil around the player’s body as well as classical tubas (subcontrabass) held firmly in the hands of their owners. This gathering of a single instrument was anything but homogenous, and it lent itself to being a vision of diversity – may humanity follow suit.
Daniele Sahr
Featured Image: Tuba players in Fort Greene Park for ‘Long Play Festival’ © Daniele Sahr