Music Reviews : West Coast Premiere of Prina Work at MOCA

Friday night at the Ahmanson Theatre in the Museum of Contemporary Art, pianists Gaylord Mowrey and Lorna Eder performed the West Coast premiere of conceptual artist Stephen Prina’s 80-minute work, “Excerpts from the 9 Symphonies of L. van Beethoven, fur zwei Pianoforte zu vier Handen, Transcription pour Piano a 2 Mains, and fur Klavier zu 4 Handen.”

Dividing each of Beethoven’s symphonies into nine parts and juxtaposing the first part of Symphony No. 1, the second part of Symphony No. 2, and so on, Prina satirizes and revolutionizes the appreciation of great art while poking fun at the tedious business of transcribing and editing music. Although lacking sophisticated musical insights, the result was fun and never boring.

Creating a minimalistic arch form, Prina used pre-existent arrangements for two pianos for Symphonies No. 1, 5 and 9, for one piano/four hands for Symphonies No. 3 and 7 and Liszt’s arrangements for one piano for all the even-numbered symphonies. Beet- hoven’s tempos and dynamics were substituted by a gradual accelerando and crescendo beginning as slow and soft as possible to as fast and loud as possible by Symphony No. 5 and then back to as slow and soft as possible by the end of Symphony No. 9.

Mowrey and Eder performed with conviction, despite the difficulty of the arrangements. The slow movements of the middle symphonies, performed as fast and loud as possible, proved especially difficult for the pianists.