There is terrific news today about "Doctor Atomic," John Adams' opera
about J. Robert Oppenheimer, which he will soon *begin* composing. The
work will be created at a time when Adams is once again at his best,
possibly better than ever.
If he didn't write anything else, Adams' 25-minute symphonic work, "My
Father Knew Charles Ives," which will have its world premiere tonight
in Davies Hall, could well qualify him for a musical pantheon.
The San Francisco Symphony-commissioned work, dedicated to Michael Tilson
Thomas (who conducts performances here, and on the upcoming SFS European
tour), is what many don't expect in the 21st century: complex but simply
beautiful music. Unlike the tortures of most "new music" or the Pablum
of some "popular classical" approach, "My Father" offers blood and guts,
enchantment, and - most importantly - something that demands to be heard
repeatedly.
The work is a sincere, powerful tribute to both Ives and the Adams'
father (an amateur musician, who was the composer's first teacher), even
if it's spoken about with sophisticated sophistry and its very title is
a fib.
In a clever, but too-well-rehearsed bon mot, Adams describes the work
as "my own Proustian madeleine, with Yankee flavor." As to the title,
Adams' father never met Ives or knew his music.
Adams himself came across Ives later in life, through Bernstein's lectures.
And, while admiring Ives and conducting his works many times, Adams still
has some reservations about the composer he calls "the great American
impressionist."
"He is a parent who is not perfect," Adams said today. "There is some
waywardness about Ives, something unsatisfying in that wonderful, large
music." When the music stops, he said, even something as magnificent as
the Fourth Symphony, something is missing.
Adams' own "Ives piece" has no such shortcoming. It's the kind of music
that you keep hearing long after the musicians put their instruments
down, which of course is also true about Ives, but here nothing seems
to be missing, the experience is complete.
The first movement is "Concord" (of New Hampshire, not Massachusetts),
where Adams grew up, but it "sounds like" something out of the more
southern "Three Places in New England," complete with the trumpet evoking
"The Unanswered Question." Through an aural scrim by the violins, layers
of delicate-playful-joyous music come together in the background, an
Ivesian ghost parade passes by, against an orchestral shimmer reminiscent
of "Coq d'Or."
Multi-layered structure is maintained in the second movement, "The Lake,"
the sound of the oboe rising from the mist, strains of a music-hall piano
heard from far away (Adams' parents met in a music hall, where his father
played oboe and saxophone), and after the brass has some fun, enchanting
lyrical beauty dominates over mere intimations of dissonance.
"The Unanswered Question" reference (but not a direct quote) returns
even more prominently in "The Mountain," a glorious showcase for SFS
principal trumpet Glen Fischthal. Great, Respighian waves of sound yield
briefly to a kind of autobiographical reference - a quick minimalist
passage that somehow manages to belong with the rest of the work. The
music happily bounces away in an Ivesian multi-layered, Stravinsky-like
multi-rhythmic manner that pushes the audience back into the seats even
as the most riotous portion of Ives' Fourth.
Adams and MTT have worked together closely on the piece, the conductor
observing the composer's wishes, except in one instance. In the dance-hall
episode, MTT wanted the brass to stand up to play their solos, but Adams
thought "it looks too much like Lawrence Welk." In the event, the musicians
stood. Adams winced, but said nothing.
Michael Steinberg came out of retirement to write the program notes and
you don't want to miss the article, especially the bit about Thomas
Mann's son, the SFS violinist: http://tinyurl.com/aoo1.
Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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