Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Since the blue in “the pale blue dot” — Carl Sagan’s cosmic pinpointing of our home planet — is Earth’s global ocean, Claude Debussy’s “La mer” was a natural choice for PostClassical Ensemble’s Nov. 19 performance in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.
In his introductory remarks, National Geographic Explorer in Residence Enric Sala called “The Pale Blue Dot: A Musical Voyage Inspired by Nature” a “carousel of emotions.” Sala, who founded and leads Pristine Seas, which helps to create marine reserves, co-curated the 90-minute program with Dynamic Planet CEO Kristin Rechberger. Among other roles, Dynamic Planet oversees the Revive Our Ocean collective, an international network of organizations involved in coastal marine protection.
A program note by Sala and Rechberger asked: “Is there hope for the natural world? Is there hope for us?” Their answer: “We believe so.”
Debussy composed what he described as “three symphonic sketches for orchestra” (translated from the French) over two years, 1903 to 1905. They are loosely programmatic, titled “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea,” “Play of the Waves” and “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea.” Altogether, the piece lasts under half an hour.
The three movements of “La mer” functioned as thematic markers for “The Pale Blue Dot,” which proceeded from Harmony to Destruction to Rebirth. The first movement came early in the program, the second was performed at the end of Harmony and the third was part of the Finale, next to last.
During most of the pieces on the program, moving images — from the films (see below) or of nature scenes, often underwater — filled the large screen behind the ensemble. The “La mer” movements were illustrated only by the detail of Hokusai’s famous print, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” from the cover of the work’s first edition.
The 27-member ensemble (not counting accordionist Simone Baron) played a chamber orchestra arrangement of “La mer” by British conductor Joolz Gale. All eyes were on harpist Eric Sabatino at front left. As always, under the direction of co-founder Ángel Gil-Ordóñez, PostClassical’s nimbleness and intonation were superb.
But what was gained in clarity was unavoidably lost in majesty. At the American premiere in 1907, a critic unkindly wrote that “the composer’s ocean was a frog-pond” — and that was with a full orchestra (the Boston Symphony, no less).
Virgil Thomson’s compositions are rarely heard these days; he is mostly known as Gertrude Stein’s collaborator on two avant-garde operas and as the New York Herald-Tribune’s acerbic music critic. However, one of PostClassical’s recordings for Naxos is of Thomson’s scores for Pare Lorentz’s New Deal documentaries “The River,” about the Tennessee Valley Authority, and “The Plow That Broke the Plains,” about the Oklahoma Dust Bowl (the performances are also part of a DVD release of the two documentaries).
Cover of the first edition of Claude Debussy’s “La mer,” with a detail of Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”
Keyed to segments from the films, narrated live by actor Edward Gero, three excerpts from “The River” were part of Harmony and another was part of Destruction, followed by two from “The Plow That Broke the Plains.”
These excerpts were a showcase for PostClassical’s excellent woodwind and brass players, though the black-and-white footage with preachy, poetic text served mainly as a window into the 1930s. Thomson’s scores, especially that of “The Plow That Broke the Plains,” are compelling, despite occasional awkwardness in his alternating of indigenous/folk elements (such as tom-tom drums) with modernist passages.
A treat: three appearances by 14 members of the Children’s Chorus of Washington, costumed in red and black. Prepared by Artistic Director Margaret Nomura Clark, the all-female detachment sang two moody, rather modal selections from Howard Shore’s score for “The Lord of the Rings” films, “Rivendell” and “Lothlorien” (Harmony section); a choral arrangement of “Sous le dôme épais,” the flower duet from Léo Delibes’s opera “Lakmé”(Rebirth section); and, a partial sing-along that closed the program, D.C.-based composer Joel Phillip Friedman’s “tongue-in-cheek mashup” of the first movement of “La mer” with the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.”
As the Sala-Rechberger program note explained, “at National Geographic Pristine Seas we do have a little yellow submarine” (footage of boarding the Pristine Seas sub was shown).
What else was featured in this musical hodgepodge? Video of Weddell seals as the opening “piece” and “Morning Mood,” the first movement of Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite No. 1” — as much of a classical chestnut as the fourth movement, “In the Hall of the Mountain King.”