Orchestral Maneuvers in the Pop: Elvis Costello and Ben Folds with the L.A. Philharmonic at The Hollywood Bowl

Matt McAllister

The notion of a world-class classical orchestra backing a pop music star is meant to be novel, a kind of merging of two worlds or even classes. What it’s really meant to do is provide the aforementioned orchestra with some exposure and an opportunity to attain some of the stars’ large, paying audience. If you haven’t noticed, classical orchestras haven’t seen a lot of this ostensibly “special” type of pairing over the last 40 years. As such, these gimmicky performances often fall flat: the drum sets’ rhythm is just a bit too square and the violins, no matter how well they perform or how inventive their accompaniment, always seem to sound like the musical equivalent of The Simpsons Disco Stu, likeable, but in many ways, dated.

However, not all of these live performance hybrids arrive so hackneyed and boring. On September 5th and 6th, the L.A. Philharmonic will pair up with Elvis Costello and Ben Folds. The two singer/songwriters’ work is especially suited for this kind of orchestral treatment, mostly because the very core of their work is elegant, spare and, well, simple.  There’s a bit of an inverted standard when it comes to what popular musical genres work with orchestras and which do not. The equation seems to be that the more florid and full the original popular work is, the less well it translates into orchestral accoutrements: Kiss and Van Halen, no; Elton John and Leonard Cohen, yes.

Costello and Folds are pop anomalies. They are subtle, quiet, acoustic and reflective songwriters – at a time of invariable loudness and homogeneous brashness within the popular musical world.  Because of this, it is very likely that their work can be successfully adapted by the L.A. Philharmonic without losing its sense of honesty and intimacy. Both of these artists have a gift for melodic invention and each of them often use carefully-crafted, clever lyrics, which serve to open the music to musical elaboration of the classical kind. Moreover, neither of these two are what one would call, well, young. There is a certain gravitas that these two have achieved by their sheer longevity and rich quality of their work.  And this, audiences will hear, can really make the orchestral accompaniment truly soar. Think about what an orchestra does during a particularly moving scene in a film; when the director wants to turn the story of a man into The Story of Man, he calls upon the orchestra largely to achieve this epic sensibility.

In their quiet songs with attractive melodies, sung by seasoned, eloquent artists that we’ve known for a long time, we can expect a performance and experience that is both accessible and familiar, but that is musically and emotionally elevated, made at once more universal and personal. That, I contend, is how an orchestra ought to be used. And that is how Mr. Costello and Folds use this one.

Elvis Costello and Ben Folds appear with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, September 5th and 6th at 8pm.  Tickets range from $13-$172.