By Siddarth Puri
Daily Bruin Reporter
Just as Madonna so eloquently noted that love needs to fly, a
new performance titled “All the World for Love,” shows
how love needs to be heard.
“All the World for Love,” a collaboration of music
and classic and contemporary poetry, makes its West Coast premiere
here at UCLA on Saturday. Presented by UCLA Live, “All the
World for Love” features the Takacs (pronounced Tahk-ahsh)
quartet ensemble on stage with former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert
Pinsky.
In its unique combination of verse and music, “All the
World for Love” features poetry and music centered on themes
of love. On its 15 city-tour, culminating at Lincoln Center, there
will be a post-performance discussion with the artists.
“The aim of the performance was to combine romantic poetry
with proper classical music,” said David Sefton, the director
of the show.
The performance weaves together poetry readings by Pinsky of the
works of John Donne, William Carlos Williams, Emily Dickinson,
William Butler Yeats and others, along with the Takacs
Quartet’s renditions of Janacek’s Quartet No.2
“Intimate Letters,” Barber’s
“Andagio” and Britten’s “Thirs
Quartet” based on Thomas Mann’s “Death in
Venice.” Throughout the performance though, both the poet and
the musicians explore love in all its permutations, from blissful
joy to heartbreak.
“Robert Pinsky and the Takacs Quartet discussed doing a
performance together for a while and decided on doing a project
that centered around love poetry and combined it with proper music
as a means of making a new sort of combination for
entertainment,” Sefton said.
While the performance doesn’t have audience involvement,
it is intended to touch the audience with the combination of poetry
and music.
“We want the audience walking away enjoying the
performance and thinking about the poetry they heard,” Sefton
said. “We also hope they even notice the different stages and
levels of love and can, perhaps, experience those as
well.”
The performers are world-renown for their accomplishments in
their respective fields. Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the U.S. from
1997-2000, serves as poetry editor of the online journal
“Slate.” When Pinsky isn’t teaching in the
graduate writing program at Boston University, he works as a
contributor to “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS.
He has also been recognized with a Pulitzer Prize nomination for
“The Figured Wheels: New and Collected Poems 1965-1995″
in 1996.
The Takacs Quartet, formed in 1975, is based in Boulder,
Colorado and features violinist Edward Dusinberre, violinist Karoly
Schranz, violinist Roger Tapping and cellist Adras Fejer. Their
recording of the Bartok cycle received the Gramophone
“Chamber Music Recording of the Year” award in 1998 and
was nominated for a Grammy in 1999.
The performance is organized by first having Pinsky read both
modern and classical poetry from various artists, and then the
theme of love is reinforced with classical music that eludes to
various forms it can take.
“So many times performances lack any real defining
emotional theme in their presentation, it’s refreshing to see
that this one has real definition that makes the performance what
it is and hopes to touch the audience in a way revolving around
this theme,” said Derek Jandu, a first year world arts and
cultures student.
By interpreting varied poetry and matching it with interpreting
music, “All the World for Love” hopes to create a
unique atmosphere for people to be able to tap into an untouched
emotional side where they can experience the plethora of ways that
love reveals itself.
While the performance lures the audience into a world defined by
love and its characteristics, Sefton adds that it also wants to
demonstrate how poetry and music play off each other to create an
atmosphere that explores different aspects of love through
different mediums “”mdash; from spoken words to rhythmical string
music.
“It’s impressive to see a group of people trying
something different in the realm of classical music,” said
Olivia McManus, a first year music theater student. “By
coupling words and music together, the performers weave different
worlds of entertainment and create something everyone can walk away
from feeling moved.”
THEATER: The performance of “All the
World for Love” will be Saturday, April 6th at 8 p.m. in
Royce Hall. Tickets are available at UCLA’s Central Ticket
Office. Student tickets are $14 and general admission is $20-$35.
For more information, call (310) 825-2101 or go to
www.uclalive.com.