Andrew Norman
“Play” for orchestra Andrew Norman “Play” for orchestra

“Man only plays when he is in the full sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays,” Friedrich Schiller already knew. Play, the realm of creativity, is not among the activities necessary for human survival. But beyond rationality, it fosters independent thought. According to the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga, culture began with the homo ludens, the playing human.

Andrew Norman’s Play points to this broader dimension of the term. Especially in the context of music, however, a work must of course also be “played” by the performers. And so the orchestra itself – a kind of hyper‑instrument – is the principal protagonist. The idea of transferring models of game theory to musical processes is not new: an early example is the Musikalisches Würfelspiel (Musical dice game) attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, where composition is shaped by the random throw of dice. At the height of so‑called aleatoric music (derived from the Latin alea = dice) in the 1950s and 1960s, performers could choose freely – or according to certain ordering principles – from the notated material. In his orchestral work Strategie (1962), described as a “musical game”, Iannis Xenakis had two orchestral groups compete against one another, according to models of probability theory.

Andrew Norman’s Play is less theory‑heavy, but is packed with highly virtuosic and exciting moves. The award‑winning American composer writes music full of kinetic energy and searing brilliance. What fascinates Norman about an orchestra is “how its many moving parts and people can play with or against or apart from one another”. In several passages, the musicians are granted interpretative freedom. Sometimes this concerns only small details: “Crazy random tremolo”, reads one performance instruction. Elsewhere the conductor is told: “Precise rhythmic execution by all players would be nice, but is not strictly necessary for the gesture. Let the players take care of themselves, and the intended effect of scattered pointillism will emerge no matter what they do.” Later there are sections that are not conducted at all. The musicians have to coordinate among themselves. And it is not always the conductor who gives the cue – the signal for the next entry.

Play is divided into three levels. Outwardly, Norman thus approaches the traditional three‑movement structure. The term “level” alludes to the structure of video games, in which the next stage can only be reached once the previous one has been successfully completed. Obsession and addictive behaviour resonate in the video‑game‑inspired restlessness and the sculptural mobiles. “While the world ‘play’ certainly connotes fun and whimsy and a child-like exuberance, it can also hint at a darker side of interpersonal relationships,” Norman explains: “at manipulation, control, deceit, and the many forms of master-to-puppet dynamics one could possibly extrapolate from the composer-conductor-orchestra-audience chain of communication.” Norman aims to break open this hierarchical order in playful fashion. “The physical act of playing” is to be staged as a “potent theatrical element”. Motion and stillness are a physical component of the score: “Remain frozen until you play in Level 3, or for as long as you can physically hold your position,” reads one instruction. In this way, it is the performers themselves who shape the narrative structure of Play, both gesturally and musically.