Approximately halfway through Sunday afternoon’s performance of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Falling Out of Time” at Symphony Hall, I realized the synopsis I’d been given in the program book didn’t match what was playing out on the stage. One segment that was described in the synopsis’s second half showed up early on. The order of two other segments was reversed. Maybe there was a printing error, I thought; looking later at the 2020 recording of the piece, I realized that the synopsis matched that and not the live version I saw. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t important. The stuff of “Falling Out of Time” is deep grief, and who could chart a straightforward path through grief?
The 80-minute piece is adapted from the poetic novel of the same name by Israeli author David Grossman, who wrote the book after the death of his 20-year-old son. In the piece, a father (the Man) whose son has died in an unnamed place and time period feels compelled to walk “there, to him,” and he becomes a sort of macabre Pied Piper as more mourners follow in his meandering wake. Finally he accepts that “a timeless border stands between here and there … this is to be human.” He allows himself to truly grieve the loss, and he hears the voice of a child — maybe his son and maybe not — singing.
Golijov, who was born to Eastern European Jewish parents in Argentina and now lives in the Boston area, was for a time one of the most visibly prolific living composers on the scene. However, for much of the 2010s he released almost no new music. “Falling Out of Time,” a commission from Silkroad Ensemble, signaled his return in 2019 when it premiered at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Several more performances were planned for 2020, but when “Falling Out of Time” finally hit the road last year, it met a world newly familiar with loss.
The composer has always been a genre-blender, and the musicians’ polyglot nature plays well with his strengths. Sunday’s production combined a traditional string quartet setup with a rock band trio (bass, guitar, drum set) with a few additional instruments. Kayhan Kalhor’s kamancheh (a bowed Middle Eastern/Central Asian viol) added a hollow and haunted sound to the string section, brass player Dan Brantigan created surreal animalistic noises and bugle calls on the trumpet and flugelhorn, and electric guitarist Jeremy Flower did double duty with a modular synthesizer that added distinctively science-fiction elements to the soundscape.
The wide array of influences made the piece feel of the moment yet not constrained by it; I heard bits that sounded like Jewish folk music and liturgical chanting, American blues, medieval hymns, even the psychedelic rock of “Dark Side of the Moon”-era Pink Floyd. (Tell me I wasn’t the only one who heard what might have been an homage to “The Great Gig in the Sky” near the end? Venezuelan jazz singer Biella da Costa’s smoky, wordless wails were immaculate.)
Most of the instrumentalists and vocalists featured on Silkroad’s 2020 album reprised their roles at Sunday’s performance, which was presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in association with Celebrity Series of Boston. There is clearly some flexibility in the piece’s instrumentation; for example, pipa (Chinese lute) player Wu Man was not present for this performance, but harpist Megan Conley joined in.
That said, it’s tough to imagine many groups besides Silkroad doing justice to this musically and culturally intricate score. Da Costa, a Golijov collaborator for over 20 years, gave staggering emotional depth and dimension to the role of the grieving mother (the Woman). The central role of the bereaved father called for greater vocal and dramatic range than Israeli singer Yoni Rechter, who was not on the original recording, gave it. It’s almost impossible to imagine anyone as the piece’s narrator, the Centaur, other than Nora Fischer, a vocalist whose theatrical mien gave her the spellbinding presence of an omniscient oracle.
The semi-staged production didn’t get too elaborate with sets, props, or costumes. According to the synopsis, the Centaur is supposed to be half human and half desk, which no one would have known by looking at Fischer. However, the visual projections by Camilla Tassi, based on the arresting work of English painter and sculptor Mary Frank, effectively created a world apart from the mundane, perfect for the piece’s dreamlike narrative of archetypes.
FALLING OUT OF TIME
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in association with Celebrity Series of Boston. Symphony Hall. April 30. www.celebrityseries.org
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at az.madonna@globe.com. Follow her @knitandlisten.