Film Score Daily: The Matrix Live

Several weeks ago I was fortunate enough to attend the North American premiere of THE MATRIX LIVE, a symphony performance-to-film of the music to the groundbreaking film. Conducting the Houston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus was Matrix composer Don Davis. I was very excited about this special concert coming to my hometown from the time I heard about it many months ago. Although it has been performed live several times in Europe before this, it had not been conducted by Davis himself, so this performance had that something extra.

I not only like the film The Matrix a great deal, I have always had great admiration for the fascinating postmodern score written by Davis. Here was a rare chance to hear it played live by a major symphony orchestra with the composer conducting and with the music in the forefront rather than in the background.

I was so impressed with the concert that I thought I’d share my impressions of the evening here. Granted it has been a couple of weeks so the details may not be as fresh in my mind, but the overall experience is burned forever in my memory. So follow me into the concert hall. Ticket please!

Upon entering the concert hall I knew right off the bat that this concert was going to be a bit different than any other I have attended here over the decades. Patrons were greeted at the door by ticket takers wearing black wrap around sunglasses. “Whoa!”, I was entering Matrixville it seems! I reached my seat near the middle and about 3 quarters of the way back on the orchestra level. The stage was completely filled with the large orchestra and a 32 person choir on risers behind it. Above the choir was a large screen set up for the night’s showing. A nice touch was added to this setup by using a row of green spot lights firing up on both side walls of the stage. In front of this on the side walls of the hall, large green gobos were projected resembling a rough “matrix” of woven cloth...or a giant green rice chex! These touches of “Matrix green” were setting the mood before a single note had been played.

Don Davis strode to the podium to great applause, acknowledged the near capacity crowd and turned around to the orchestra who were all clad in Matrix black clothes like Davis himself. The lights turned down low and after the room had settled, he started the program with his first downbeat. From the agitated rumblings of the strings and piano, quickly arose the minor to major chord shift that is the very recognizable calling card of the score. During this time the images of the production company logos began to appear seemingly out of nowhere on the screen and you could really feel the excitement for what lay ahead.

The first thing that was noticeable beyond the sheer power of the orchestral sound, was the full ambient sound of the strings which you can only truly hear and feel in a live, non amplified concert hall performance. I’m always overwhelmed by this sound when it has been a while since I’ve been in the concert hall after listening to music only on CD and LP for any length of time. There is just no substitute for the unadulterated sound of a live symphony orchestra.

The first startling moment came for me when the strings began playing harmonics. That icy sound is one of my favorite sounds produced by an orchestra, especially when used in film music for its inherent dramatic effect. When hearing it live it always gives me goose bumps. Watching those violin bows glacially moving upwards gave it a real visceral quality and amplified its chilling effect. From here on, the performance elicited one great moment after another as it accompanied the scenes on the screen.

There were other notable things about the performance that got my attention as the concert progressed. The piano part seemed more prominent than in the recording adding a more percussive richness to the overall sound. In fact the entire percussion section provided a real electric quality to the performance. In particular the bass drum player had a big night, becoming something of an ever present “soloist”. Whether delivering a room rumbling roll or punctuating the dramatic moment with the sound of a hammer blow (often in league with the anvil).The physical and aural effects of the drum made quite an impact, time and time again. I couldn’t help but think that the bass drum player, after having performed so physically throughout, may have needed to ice his arm down after the performance much like a major league baseball pitcher!

And of course there was the ever present minor/major chord bi-play, with the horns generally sounding the minor chord and the trumpets the major chord. Since these sections of instruments were on different sides of the orchestra, it made for a nice spatial effect of question and answer from one side to the other in an something of an antiphonal manor.

The huge walls of sound and the virtuosic playing of the orchestra made for one awe inspiring musical moment after another. The quieter passages, with their sustained upper register string lines, seemed even more effective when contrasted to the bigger orchestral moments. This was exciting, complex music being played in an urgent fashion much of the time and it really heightened the impact of the film immeasurably.

The concert ended surprisingly when the end credits rolled. Instead of using Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up” and Marilyn Manson’s “Rock is Dead”, which were used in the film, Davis conducted the orchestra in a concert arrangement suite of musical selections from the film. In response to a question in a Houston Chronicle interview with Davis concerning whether there were any changes made to the music for the performance: “The one significant change is in the final scene, when Neo is on the phone talking to the machines, then hangs up and flies away. In the film, you hear the Rage Against the Machine song Wake Up. During filming, the directors weren't certain they'd get the rights to use the song, so I wrote music for the scene. As it turned out, we were able to use the song, so my music wasn't used. For this presentation, we felt it made more sense to close with the music I'd written.”

This was the one time that the orchestra was able to perform without competition from dialog, sound effects or visual imagery, so it played out almost like an encore to end the concert. The audience was very appreciative of this, clapping loudly as it started. This perfectly capped off all that came before giving a nice finality to the musical proceedings.

A huge standing ovation was given to Davis as he took his closing bows. The audience seemed to want to show its appreciation to him not only for the performance, but more specifically to acknowledge him as the composer of the work. For me at least, it was easily one of the top 5 most memorable symphony concerts I’ve ever been to and one I will not soon forget!

A few notes about the mechanics of the performance. Don Davis often conducted to a monitor with optical click track which was placed just above his music stand. This allowed him to synch the music to the film just like in a recording session. There were times however when it wasn’t used in sections that did not need such precise timing so he was able to conduct more freely in those spots. He was even able to not conduct at all during the aleatoric atonal passages. These were sections where the orchestra really shined when compared to the recording. The power and virtuosity of the trumpets was just amazing to hear.

The chorus was very fairly small, most likely due to the inability to erect the usual large risers which would interfere with the placement of the projection screen above. Also, I would think that it probably wasn’t worth putting in a huge choir for the very few minutes they actually perform during the work. The solution it seems was to go with a small chorus and amplify it. Amplification was absolutely necessary for the boy soprano, who I felt was the only real weak element in the concert. He was not miked up enough, and what I did hear sounded too breathy and rough, not the pure, crystal clear sound that is the hallmark of a boy soprano. Still, overall the ensemble performed admirably in the sometimes complex, and new to their programming, music.

Video of the week:

Be seeing you...