Since I was not entirely clear on the concept when I first learned of it, I suppose it's only fair to return to the subject of Troyjam (now having been the schooled by the composer and his wife apparently, in the comments section, and this Washington Post review of the performance). Bottom line: A positive experience.
When orchestras commission newworks for children's concerts, the results are often cutesy, pandering or forced. Happily, Michael Daugherty and Anne Carson's "Troyjam," presented by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, is, instead, something you see all too seldom: a piece of quality work, with strong music and beautiful language, conceived for children. Whether it will actually appeal to children is another question, but one hopes that other orchestras will pick it up and give everyone a chance to find out.
The strength begins with the libretto by Anne Carson, a gifted poet who has created here a luminous assemblage of words. The piece depicts a Trojan War fought with instruments rather than weapons. Most children today may not know what the Trojan War is, and some of Carson's language is almost certainly over their heads ("Another empty evening slumps against the wall of Achilles' heart . . . Night is gristle. He chews it, he ponders. Who will ever end this stupid war if he does not?" or "All the flutes on Hektor's back are picking up the tune, as if a bunch of gods with tiny silver lips were loose inside his quiver"). But the story is reasonably clear, and I would argue, possibly impractically, that exposing children to words of this caliber is a good thing.
Daugherty's music sets lines equally clear and strong, delivered in small doses that leave you wanting more, highlighting the different sections of the orchestra without being for a moment didactic. It is not an inconsiderable feat to create small fragments of music that are catchy and illustrative without smacking of a cartoon soundtrack; Daugherty creates a couple of strong themes, builds the piece around them, and then lets the orchestra have its head, all too briefly, in a narration-free sequence of no more than a few minutes at the end.
The concert as a whole was designed to introduce kids to the various sections of the orchestra, with the help of Mike Rowe, the host of the TV show "Dirty Jobs," who between numbers went among the players to talk about the dirty aspects of what they did (Violinists use hair from a horse's bottom! The brass release spit from their valves!). However, the jokes were not necessarily clear enough for kids to understand them; it was never explained, for example, that horsehair is a component of a violin bow, so the humor went right over some small heads.
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