Dr. Atomic and the Rach 2 form an impressive outing by the Oregon Symphony

Marc-Andre Hamelin

Saturday February 23 saw the OSO present an intense and weighty concert featuring the Dr. Atomic Symphony, distilled from the opera of the same name by composer John Adams, the Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor by Rachmaninoff, and Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration.*

The evening opened with symphony based on Adams's opera, which deals with the emotions of Robert J. Oppenheimer in the days preceding the first test of an atomic weapon on human history, deep in the New Mexico desert. In Adams's own words the work "is kind of explosive, as if it were Oppenheimer's plutonium sphere just about to go supercritical." The disturbing cacophony from the first notes onward set the tone for this deeply serious work.  The tremendous percussion section of the OSO had their work cut out for them in this piece, with tuned gongs, thunder sheet, tam tams and crotales among the instruments featured prominently, not to mention the incredibly demanding part written for the timpani, and the section executed everything masterfully. The double basses grumbled like a disgruntled animal, and contributed to an unsettling feeling of being on the ragged edge of something terrifying, unavoidable and yet somehow profoundly alluring.  The OSO explored the fascinating, syncopated sound world fearlessly, and the haunting trumpet in the final act gave voice to the tortured mind of Oppenheimer contemplating the awesome power of the destructive device he has wrought.

Marc-Andre Hamelin was the soloist for the Rachmaninoff piano concerto. The chordal passages at the opening were bold and beautiful, but his arpeggios, while precise, felt a bit understated. Dream-like scalar passages were unfortunately marred by the orchestra being slightly out of sync with the soloist, by a narrow but consistently noticeable margin, especially in the cadences. At other times the voice of the piano was simply subsumed by the orchestra.

In the Adagio, the duets between piano and various woodwinds were delightful, like a breathless lullaby. The long, slow solo part was followed by strings playing molto cantabile for all they were worth, swooning and soaring.  Hamelin was brilliant, hanging on every isolated note and phrase, infusing them with deep meaning.  He attacked the final movement with a jocular staccatissimo, playing with a tinkling, vibraphone-like quality. For all his deft and delicate touch he still brought the thunder for the showy Rach fireworks display, and the orchestra did a much better job of getting out of the soloists way in the finale.

*Due to illness I was unable to stay and review the Strauss, which comprised the second half of the evening.

Innovative Programming and Stellar Artistry at the Oregon Symphony

Marc-André Hamelin

An interesting, if not too surprising, phenomenon of note at Oregon Symphony concerts (as is true at any major symphony I'm sure) is the 'post-hit desertion.' That is to say, if the big, famous, popular work (you know, a Rachmaninov 3 piano concerto or a Dvořák Cello Concerto in B Minor) is played in the first half, then a certain portion of the audience tends to...disappear before the less popular work(s) of the second half. Maestro Kalmar addressed the very fact that the OSO was flipping the traditional concert order on its head by playing the big symphony first, then the concerto and overture-like works last. So as it was, everyone who wanted to hear Ravel's Bolero had the great pleasure of sitting through the marvelous, lesser-known offerings by Dutilleux, Messaien, and  (arguably) Franz Liszt.

Opening with Henri Dutilleux's Symphony No. 1 was a bold stroke for the OSO, and it worked out well. The at-first-barely audible string pizzicato, and its subsequent ingenious passing between sections was deftly handled. The work as a whole was marked by radical contrasts; long, slow singing sections interrupted by thunderous crashes from percussion or brass, and then a sudden, quiet reversion into subtlety. It demanded intensely rhythmic ensemble playing to navigate the tempestuous, moody texture, and a focused approach was necessary to keep interesting the sometimes abstruse tonal (or atonal) musical languages of this mid 20th century piece. The OSO certainly had the skills to navigate all those challenges.

Olivier Messaien's Oiseaux exotiques  (Exotic Birds) was a startling change. Consisting of winds, percussion and piano, it was patterned after the songs of 18 birds from around the world. Messaien, a bird-lover himself, could clearly articulate not only the bird song but convey images of hopping, dancing, flitting and strange avian rituals that only a bird-enthusiast and accomplished composer could so convey. Pianist Marc-André Hamelin had an interesting role: pouncing, plunking, thundering and whispering delicacy were all called for. The dizzying amount of coordination between the percussion and winds, especially at such a sustained and rapid-fire pace, was amazing to behold. Precision, rapt concentration and lightning execution were all present in this stunning, boiling euphony.

The second half opened with Liszt's Todtentanz for Piano and Orchestra.  The opening, menacing theme, at which death seems to stride the world, immense and unchallenged, gave way to scintillating brilliance on the part of Hamelin. Suddenly he displays a jolly, crisp and brilliant staccato, firing away exacting glissandi one after another. He then plays with such cantabile tenderness in the quasi-fugal portion, a feeling like retiring into death's cool embrace. The astonishing amount of technical accomplishment alone, to say nothing of his artistry--Hamelin had every bit of the chops and then some; for much of this piece he was a one-man orchestra.

Ravel's Bolero was the grand finale. The bassoon in particular rendered the theme splendid and saucy. It was great fun to see an army of violinists and violists holding their axes like small guitars, plucking away. The piccoli had some difficulty with the doublings, but it was a small blemish. Kudos to the snare drummer and his rock-solid rhythm, the only player to hit every single beat from the first to the last. The percussion section and winds in particular were spectacular all evening; it is a joy to listen to such top-notch performers night after night with the OSO.