Philharmonia Orchestra (featuring Víkingur Ólafsson) Plays Mahler, Adams & Clyne (22nd Sept 2022)

Heady stuff from the Philharmonia, as they kick off their new season with a Mahler symphony.  Some lightness first though in a piece composed by London-born, New York based Anna Clyne for the 2013 Proms, twisting and twirling through evocations of masquerade balls gone by for a nicely frothy five minutes.

 

The Philharmonia Orchestra are then joined by pianist Víkingur Ólafsson to play Must The Devil Have All The Tunes?, John Adams' funk-infused piano concerto from 2018.  To sign off before the interval, Ólafsson encores with a gorgeous Rameau piece.  The second half of the concert is then given over to Mahler's hour-plus 5th Symphony in all its sombre-to-life-affirming glory, to complete a slightly odd on paper but very enjoyable programme, brilliantly played.

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pw: sgtg

John Adams at SGTG:
Shaker Loops (orchestral version)
Shaker Loops (original version) / Light Over Water
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
The Chairman Dances (live 2020)
Road Movies, Hallelujah Junction etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

Naive And Sentinmental Music (live 2019)

Harmonielehre (live 2022)

John Adams - Harmonielehre (BBC SSO & RSNO, 9th February 2022)

A live concert broadcast from back in February, and a joining of forces to mark the Association of British Concert Orchestras' 2022 conference in Glasgow.  The hundred-plus combined might of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra renders John Adams' mid-80s work in fine detail, but first up is a UK premiere.  Samy Moussa's Elysium is inspired by views of the afterlife in classical Greece, and shimmers into view before building in grandeur.

The solo spotlight for the programme falls on 19-year old Spanish violinist María Dueñas, who lives up to her "rising superstar" billing in a great rendering of Shostakovich's 1st Violin Concerto.  After the interval, the double-orchestra gives its full energy to John Adams' wondrous Harmoniehlehre.  Taking fresh inspiration from imagery in his dreams, Romantic music and harmonic exploration, Adam's three-section work from 1985 barrels along in unforgettable style.

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pw: sgtg

 

Samy Moussa at SGTG:

A Globe Itself Infolding 

 

Dmitri Shostakovich at SGTG:

Symphony No. 15 (live 2017, scroll past main post)

Symphony No. 15 (live 2022) 

John Adams at SGTG:
Shaker Loops (orchestral version)
Shaker Loops (original version) / Light Over Water
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
The Chairman Dances (live 2020)
Road Movies, Hallelujah Junction etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

Naive And Sentinmental Music (live 2019)

John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Augusta Read Thomas (BBC Symphony Orchestra 2019)

Great concert recording from May of last year, with Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro taking on the BBC SSO in three works by American composers, with two UK premieres in its first half.  The concert has its ideal curtain-raiser in Radiant Circles by Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964, New York), with its luminous harmonies gradually spiralling into a brass fanfare.

Next up is Osvaldo Golijov's (b. 1960, La Plata, Argentina) bewitching cantata Oceana.  Taking its text from Pablo Neruda, the work incorporates Latin American influences (especially in the guitars), inspiration from Bach, and evokes the rolling ocean in its lead voice and massed choral forces.  Falling away to ritual incantations at its end, it's a memorable journey that made me want to explore Golijov further.

Lastly, the main event of the concert is John Adams' symphonic work Naive And Sentimental Music.  The first movement takes a simple melody over strummed chords and gradually works it into something complex and stunning in its scope.  The second, Mother Of The Man, is a slow movement inspired by a Busoni berceuse, before the explosive finale Chain To The Rhythm takes a trademark minimalist pulse and builds on it.  Wonderful stuff, superbly rendered.

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pw: sgtg

John Adams at SGTG:
Shaker Loops (orchestral version)
Shaker Loops (original version) / Light Over Water
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
The Chairman Dances (live 2020)
Road Movies, Hallelujah Junction etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

Bang On A Can All-Stars / BBC Concert Orchestra - Bang On! (recorded live, 28 Feb 2020)

A fantastic concert given last Friday at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in which the BBC Concert Orchestra were paired with the Bang On A Can All-Stars.  The group's parent organisation Bang On A Can, founded in the late 80s, have performed works by Reich, Riley, Glass and many others, as well as a famous full-album cover of Brian Eno's Music For Airports.

John Adams' The Chairman Dances proves to be the perfect curtain-raiser for the show, played just by the BBC Concert Orchestra with great swing and verve - find the original recording here.  The main event concludes the first half of the concert, with the orchestra backing the All-Stars in the European premiere of Julia Wolfe's (one of the BOAC founders) Flower Power.  Written as a tribute to 1960s counterculture, it starts in woozy drones that reminded me a bit of Fausto Romitelli, before kicking into gear and embarking on a stunning journey through rock and psychedelia, dramatic orchestral evocations of protest and social upheaval, some gorgeous reflective passages and much more.

The group and orchestra play separately in the second half, with Bang On A Can All-Stars up first.  They play Horses Of Instruction, a work written for them in 1994 by a composer I only discovered last year, Steve Martland.  Like Martland's Babi Yar on that album, the influences of muscular, driving rock and Martland's teacher Louis Andriessen are both very much in evidence, but this work is much less dark in tone.  Made me think of a more melodic version of 90s King Crimson at times.  To close, the strings of the orchestra perform Philip Glass' Symphony No. 3.  I've largely avoided symphonic Glass over the years, but for all the received wisdom of this facet of his ouevre being interminable stodge, it was an enjoyable listen and a nice reflective comedown to end such a spectacular concert. Highly recommended, especially the Julia Wolfe centrepiece.

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pw: sgtg

John Adams - Shaker Loops/Light Over Water (1987 compi, rec. 1979 & 1983)

Early Adams at his hypnotic best, starting in 1979 with his well-known Shaker Loops in its original score for string septet.  Starting life as a piece called Wavemaker, intended to evoke a ripple effect on a body of water, it was retitled both in reference to the shaking effect of the strings and the ecstatic dancing of the Shaker sect.  Compare & contrast with the through-composed (the original here has a modular score), orchestrated version that had its recorded premiere under Edo DeWaart - links below.

This compilation pairs the original Shaker Loops with a 1983 dance commission, for Lucinda Childs' Available Light.  The music, which Adams titled Light Over Water, was originally released on its own LP in 1985, and to my ears is the Adams work that sounds closest to Philip Glass.  Much of this is due to the kind of music the dance work required, in a continuous arch rather than in small discrete movements. 

Adams also used synths as the primary instruments, then fleshed out the 46-minute piece with judicious use of a brass septet, to act as "the music's shadow".  For a much more in-depth discussion of Light Over Water, and Adams' relationship to electronic music, there's a great piece by Ingram Marshall here.  Adams might have found this a daunting commission, and wasn't a huge fan of working electronically, but the results were sublime.  Highly recommended.

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pw: sgtg

John Adams at SGTG:
The orchestral version of Shaker Loops
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
Road Movies, etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

John Adams - Grand Pianola Music / Steve Reich - Vermont Counterpoint, Eight Lines (1985)

Adams & Reich always complement each other well on disc, so here's a great recording from the 80s, originally issued on LP in 1984 without Vermont Counterpoint, then as an expanded CD a year later.  The main work is John Adams' 32-minute Grand Pianola Music, composed in 1981.  The creative spark was a dream Adams had, of being pursued on the interstate by black limousines transforming into pianos.  It does chug along with the lightness of an atmospheric dreamscape, assisted by wordless female voices.  The more forceful third movement gives it a dramatic conclusion.

Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint was commissioned in 1982 by flautist Ransom Wilson, who plays it here.  When performed live, the piece can either be played by eleven flutes or a soloist with a tape backing, the parts weaving in and out of each other to create another dreamlike atmosphere.  Closing this collection is Eight Lines, which was a slightly rewritten version of Octet from Reich's time at ECM (see links below).  The main difference is that Eight Lines doubles the string quartet to make performance easier; this is a fine version, but I think I prefer the original, maybe just from familiarity.

Original CD cover, 1985

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pw: sgtg

John Adams at SGTG:
The Chairman Dances, etc
Road Movies, etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)
Steve Reich at SGTG:
Drumming, Six Pianos etc
Octet etc
Tehilim
Sextet/Six Marimbas + bonus concert feat. Music For 18 Musicians
Adams & Reich:
Variations/Shaker Loops

John Adams - The Chairman Dances, etc (1987)

If you enjoyed the John Adams piano post last month, here's some of his classics for orchestra/chamber ensembles.  This album was released as a trailer for Adams' opera Nixon In China, which would get a full album release the following year.  The title piece here remains the most famous excerpt from the opera, and chugs along nicely with its foxtrot and cabaret influences representing the dance between Mao and his wife.

The rest of this collection gives a nice overview of Adams' work from the mid 70s onward, with the gentle Christian Zeal & Activity being the oldest.  With the melancholy atmosphere and overlay of snippets from a preacher's sermon, it somewhat evokes Gavin Bryars' Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet.  Next up are 'Two Fanfares for Orchestra' from 1986, the first being the sedate pulse of Tromba Lontana and the second the more upbeat and well-known Short Ride In A Fast Machine.  Lastly, Common Tones In Simple Time (1980) stretches out for a nicely hypnotic 20 minutes, and makes plain the influence of Steve Reich on Adams' compositional style.

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pw: sgtg 

John Adams - Road Movies (2004)

Some of the most sublime minimalist piano music ever written, in one handy package that spans 24 years of John Adams' composing career.  That timespan makes for a collection in which familiar, widely-interpreted pieces sit alongside two that made their recording debut here, but it all feels nicely consistent and album-like.

The three-part title piece, from 1995, adds violin to the piano for a nice 15-minute road trip that rolls along rural highways at first, takes a slower look at the landscape then kicks up into an even higher gear.  The "40% Swing" subtitle of Part III comes from a MIDI sequencer setting that Adams found akin to ragtime or Benny Goodman-esque jazz.

After that, everything is pure piano, starting with Hallelujah Junction (1996) for two pianos.  The first two parts might now for some be indelibly associated with Luca Guadagnino's magnificent adaptation of Call Me By Your Name (and certainly, that was my introduction to the piece, buying this album soon after), but Adams' original inspiration was the name of a truckstop on the California-Nevada border.  Whatever it evokes, from the joyful bell-like opening onwards, it's a thing of pure loveliness, even with a bit of a knotty ending.  That hectic finale is taken even further in American Berserk (2001).  What remains is a fresh look at the legendary "Gates" from 1977, both China and Phrygian, both clearly and expertly rendered by Nicholas Hodges and Rolf Hind, and sounding as spectacular as ever.

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previously posted at SGTG: Shaker Loops

Steve Reich - Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards / John Adams - Shaker Loops (rel. 1984)

Steve Reich seems to be everywhere at the moment – I’m certainly not complaining! – so as my own tribute during this, his 80th birthday month, here’s his earliest commissioned orchestral work, Variations For Winds, Strings And Keyboards (1979) in its premiere recording from 1983.

Very much a natural progression from Octet and Music for a Large Ensemble, which were composed around the same time, Variations takes a long, winding melody played on the winds and organ, and periodically anchors it with impressive harmonies in the brass.  Reich’s most ambitious piece of writing yet, it was composed for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra but was first trialled in a scaled-down chamber orchestra setting.  The February 1980 premiere of that version, by Reich’s ensemble was broadcast along with an interview on Charles Amirkhanian’s KPFA Radio programme Other Minds – the whole broadcast recording is available at ubuweb , or if you’d just like to hear the recording of the piece in its original incarnation, dl here.

The accompanying work on this 1984 CD was the orchestral version of John Adams’ Shaker Loops (1978), another key work in the US minimalist canon alongside much of Reich and Glass.  The name comes partly from the inspiration of  the repetitive tape loop music of early Reich, partly from the tremulous, trilling sounds in the strings, and partly from imagining a Shaker church dancing in pursuit of spiritual ecstasy.  The four movements go through a variety of moods and speeds, and the whole work is essential listening in its genre.

A final thought  about this CD itself – that’s got to be one of my favourite classical album covers ever; the modern symmetry of that building suits the musical contents perfectly.  Anyone know where the picture was taken? If the building’s still there?

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