“Buffalo Nation” thrills, then pauses for lecture

Jerome Kitzke’s sonic imagination stampedes through Buffalo Nation, which Present Music premiered Saturday at Indian Community School, in Franklin.

A sound effects chorus — “The Herd” — stomps, snorts, sighs, bangs stones together, hums, shouts, ululates, sings, mutters, claps, chest-pounds and otherwise generates the most fascinating array of sounds. Some of them are atmospheric and general, but Kitzke assigns most of them specific rhythms. Some are tricky, and most must coordinate closely with the 16-piece orchestra, baritone soloist Kurt Ollmann and the spoken words of four actors. The young choristers, all but one from Pius XI High School, attacked their racket with bracing gusto and remarkable precision. Kevin Stalheim’s clear, confident conducting helped them a lot.

The piece is essentially tonal, with triads you can identify. But Kitzke goes anywhere and everywhere in the course of 75 minutes. When he wants tone clusters to underscore the choral Indian war cries and ululations, he has both his pianist and his (Hammond!) organist mash the keys. When life on the plains begins to splinter under Euro-American encroachment, hints of bitonality spring up in the seven instrumental “rondos” that hold the sprawling collection of songs and recitations together. Sometimes, the music has a bit of gospel feel. Some bits hint at Minimalism. Some have enormous rhythmic momentum, others are hypnotically static. Each of the seven sections features a song for baritone, some of them chant-like, some with lovely melodies. The overarching dome of Kitzke’s vivid, unique sound world unites all these far-flung musical districts.

Buffalo Nation tells the serious story of the 19th-century annihilation of the American buffalo and with it the near annihilation of Native Americans. Librettist Kathleen Masterson tells it with a blend of lovely original poetry, primarily for the songs; interviews with Lakota Sioux Charlotte Black Elk; quotations from participants back in the day; and quotations from modern environmentalists. Stacey Steers’ animations and other projected images and footage also get the points across.

This information is important and too few Americans understand it. I see why Kitzke and Masterson loaded on the history. But from an aesthetic point of view, they go too far. About two thirds of the way through, a Ken Burns documentary breaks amid what had been a sort of cantata. The music came pretty much to a halt during Alison Mary Forbes, Lisa Golda, Joel Kopischke and Norman Moses’ re-enactment of an interview with Black Elk. And quotations from a couple of eastern academics leading the effort to establish a big swath of plains as a reserve for a free-roving herd became pretty tedious.

Note that I agree with their point; an “American Serengeti” on the Great Plains, on lands that have become marginal for conventional farming, is a great idea. But I’m not sure that such extensive prosaic argument belongs in a piece of music. The extensive quotations drag on the overall musical momentum without quite sealing the deal in terms of political/environmental argument (projections of rainfall/aquifier-degradation maps notwithstanding).

A reasoned argument is one thing, and a piece of music is another. Buffalo Nation wants to be both, and its two sides diminish each other to an extent. In its present form, Buffalo Nation is a good piece with some great stuff in it. But it’s not quite the great piece that it could be, with the benefit of a little editing.

Present Music’s Buffalo Nation will move to the Lincoln Center for the Arts, 820 E. Knapp St., for a performance at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 15, at Lincoln Center for the Arts, 820 E. Knapp St. For tickets and further information, call Present Music, 414 271-0711, or visit the group’s website.