Summary/Review:
The video opens with up-close shots of the cellos that fade in and out. Soon we are thrown into a story of images set in a bar: a woman exhaling the smoke of a cigarette, drinking a glass of wine, and laughing. We see a man in obvious discomfort, with his head down and running his fingers through his hair. As a wine glass falls off the table, the man gets up and runs towards the woman, who is sitting with another man. We see the brief beginnings of a fight as the two men meet and start pushing while the underpinnings of staccato cellos crescendo to accompany the transition into the next scene.
The scene changes to a concert hall and the physical battle becomes a musical one. The two men sit in the centre of the hall, with red chairs strewn around them in a rough circle and face off using their weapon of choice: the cello. What’s interesting is how this is supposed to be a battle, a competition, but these two musicians use similar body positions and movements, including bowing patterns. More importantly, their musical lines are dependent upon one another, making this a seamless dance between the two parties rather than the aggressive battle it is presented as.
As the camera moves from up-close shots of their faces and hands to circling them from a distance, the two performers bring the dynamic of their playing down in unison, only to further emphasize the songs chours played in harmony between the two cellos. We see this connectivity even more as the melody lines begin to overlap one another. Instead of an echo, the repetition of the line encroaches on the previous phrase in an aural representation of the decreasing physical space between the fighters.
The players become more aggressive with the hairs from their bows flying around and their heads bent over the cellos, but the one performer pauses to spin his cello around before continuing, suggesting an element of dance and theatrics. Finally the chorus is repeated in a higher octave, with more intensity, and ends with the performers releasing the tension from the phrase.
The video returns to the bar scene where the performers are physically fighting. Only now the music underscoring their fighting is subdued: an anti-climactic pizzicato, as if the musical performance representing the fight was more interesting then the real fight. When the main theme returns, the performers are back in the hall with one playing the melody and the other a descant over top. The video finally ends at the bar where the woman intervenes and the fights ceases. The woman leaves the bar on her own, not interested in either men due to their behaviour.
Reflection:
So what implications does this type of video have for us as music educators? I think it takes out the idea of “genre” in music; that classical instruments can play non-traditional or pop tunes. Students may see what they do in music class and not make the connection to the music they experience in their own lives. Music that blurs the line of distinction can help educators create meaningful lessons that encourage students to see the value of music appreciation outside of the classroom.
I also think it shows how music can be more than a passive concept of “notes on a page”. Here music, along with pictures, tells a story, and that story can be understood without the limitations of language. This video can open up a whole idea of concepts for music as well as cross-curricular subjects like Media Literacy and Character Education. There are many relationships in this video, between the performers, the woman, and the music itself. It would be interesting to see how students observe, interpret, and connect to these relationships. I think anything we can do as educators to facilitate those connections for our students helps to create enriching, meaningful experiences in our music classrooms.
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