John ADAMS (b. 1947)
Doctor Atomic Symphony [24:20]
Short Ride in a Fast Machine [4:00]
Harmonielehre [41:27]
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Peter Oundjian
rec. Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, February and April 2013
CHANDOS CHSA5129 SACD [70:15]
This and an American Piano Concertos disc flow directly out of two concerts
in the 2012-13 RSNO season, dubbed “American Festival”. They
featured most of the works on the two discs, though in separate programmes:
Harmonielehre was paired with the Gershwin piano concerto, for
example, with Jon Kimura Parker rather than Xiayin Wang. I listened to
both discs as a pair because, for me, they bear memories of the concerts,
but they both work brilliantly on their own and I found them revelatory,
exhilarating and immensely enjoyable.
For me the real revelation of the two concerts was a deeper immersion
in the music of John Adams, whose work I had known slightly beforehand
but who I came to admire much more profoundly after those concerts; all
the more so after hearing this disc.
Harmonielehre knocked me sideways the first time I heard it, and
in my
review of that concert I went so far as to call it a “pulverising
masterpiece”, something I haven’t changed my mind about. It’s
a brilliant work, and an important one for the composer himself, who wrote
it having come out of a profound period of writer’s block. In it
he seems to face up to the legacy of Schoenberg - the title comes from
that composer’s 1911 theoretical text - and to move beyond parodying
it to engage with his significance more deeply.
The only other performance of Harmonielehre I’d come across
on disc was the recent one from Michael Tilson Thomas in San Francisco,
but already I would rank this one higher on both a performance and a technical
level. The sheer scale of the RSNO playing here is extraordinary, from
those gigantic repeated chords that open the work through to the blazing
peroration that ends it. It’s the subtlety and versatility of the
orchestra’s approach that is most impressive, though. Once that
thumping opening has subsided they give way to playing of such twinkling,
fluttering contrast that is at once beautiful and disconcerting. At the
six-minute mark, when Adams’ grand, lyrical string theme enters,
you are tempted to lie back and wallow in the quality of the texture that
the music provides … and thank God for the Chandos engineers who
made it all possible. The violins’ subsequent meanderings seem to
head for the heavens, and the transition into the jangling busyness that
ends the movement is masterful. It isn’t just the quality of the
playing that is impressive but also the quality of the recorded sound
which is exceptional, even by Chandos standards. The big climaxes sound
great, but even more impressive is the transparency that they manage to
evoke for the interior textures, so that everything from the piccolo solo
to the vast battery of percussion comes across clear as a bell …
sometimes literally. That’s especially important in the twinkling,
sparkling world of the last movement, depicting Adams’ dream of
his daughter floating among the heavenly bodies of the night sky. It’s
a magical, dreamy soundscape, that revs itself up towards a powerfully
driven conclusion that comes into much sharper focus as the final pages
kick in. The second movement, The Anfortas Wound, has a very different
feel to it, much more experimental and questioning, a bit like the role
that Neptune plays in Holst’s Planets, and it is here
that Adams comes closest to the atonal world of Schoenberg that previously
he seemed to be doing his best to avoid. Nevertheless, the trumpet solo
that bears the brunt of the music, and which leads into the anguished
climax, is well played and brilliantly integrated into the orchestral
texture.
I find the angular jabbing of Doctor Atomic a little less appealing,
and the Symphony itself doesn’t hang together as well as does Harmonielehre
which was, after all, written specifically for the concert hall whereas
Doctor Atomic is put together from Adams’ opera. The orchestral
texture is every bit as impressive, though. The horn solo at the mid-point
of the second movement is extraordinary, as is the trumpet in the finale,
and Adams’ trademark rhythmic pulses that dominate the final movement
come across very well, precise and biting without becoming too insistent.
The clockwork mania of Short Ride goes very well and makes for
a fun but strong filler. It’s a shame that the disc is let down
by such a terrible cover, though. Who on earth thought that this would
encourage people to buy it?
That quibble aside, this and the piano concerto disc provide an interesting
and potentially important memento of Oundjian’s first year with
the RSNO. More than that we get really excellent performances worthy to
stand comparison with any others.
Simon Thompson
Really excellent; worthy to stand comparison with any others.
Previous review: Steve
Arloff
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