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.

Oregon Symphony plays Beethoven and themes inspired by ancient masters

Sunday November 19 saw the Oregon Symphony perform a night of Beethoven music and music inspired by the master, under the direction of guest conductor Johannes Debus, and featuring guest ensemble the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

The Viennese master's Symphony No. 2 in D Major comprised the first half of the concert. Its appropriately stentorian opening was followed by suitable delicacy when called for; the sort of work that is the OSO's bread and butter. In the Larghetto the strings groaned and breathed like a single great mellifluous organ, and later in the fourth movement they managed rapid acrobatics nicely. There were some good sounds here, but the overall interpretation felt a bit restrained, perhaps missing something personal that a straightforward work like this really needs in order to feel fresh.

John Adams enormous Absolute Jest from 2012 began the second half. This work consisted of a series of quotations of Beethoven (mostly the late string quartets) that were reworked (often intensely reworked harmonically) and stretched into an elaborate set of variations. In the form of a concerto for string quartet, the St. Lawrence String Quartet did the heavy lifting here. Following an extensive preview of some themes from the monumental Op 131 quartets, the group challenged the audience to find the 8 other Beethoven themes used throughout the work (Sidenote: I was able to identify a few, but nowhere near all 8. Intense Beethovenians would do much better at it than I.)  In the Presto, the work produced a disquieting sensation when a spritely scherzo by the quartet was played over a see of dissonant, vaguely ominous chordal motives from the orchestra. The piece at times became a confusing welter--alarming warbling exclamations from horns clomping around like the footsteps of some immense monster, blatting and burbling away in brutal syncopation.

The string quartet deserves high praise: this was an incredibly difficult rendering of incredibly difficult underlying music, and their lively, precise and enthusiastic interpretation was quite something. A tricky piece indeed to hold together--such was the character of the piece it felt close to careering off the rails at times but of course never did. Without particularly enjoying the overall effect, I felt profound respect for both Adams, the OSO and the St. Lawrence String Quartet at not shying away from a difficult challenge.

Paul Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis of Carl Maria von Weber closed out the evening. The strings had a fascinating, insect-like sul ponticello scritching and the winds managed a difficult fughetta seamlessly. It was difficult to top off an afternoon of fireworks like this with a suitable bang, yet somehow the March at the end of the work achieved it. The concert was a bit of bold programming; it was fascinating to hear modernizations in such drastically different styles by composers of the high classical era.

Dr. Atomic - pretentious opera?

John Adam's "Dr Atomic" has garnerd accolades from many critics, but some think that it is a pretentious work. Ron Rosenbaum laid the opera's lyrics to waste in his critique on Slate. Composer and critic Greg Sandow has followed that blast with a salvo of his own.

Here's an exerpt from Sandow's article:

"When I saw it, I thought I'd sensed exactly what the problem is. The piece, for me, carries a constant subtext about its own significance. "This is strong, important art." All that, of course, is reinforced by the opera's presence at the Met, by its subject, by Adams' reputation, and by the New Yorker printing part of Adams' newly published memoir, to coincide with the production. But beyond all that, the piece itself seems to say that it's important.

Which meant, for me, that it felt pretentious, especially since (and here's where I most strongly agree with Rosenbaum) it doesn't say very much. In fact, it's very safe. It shows us something that's well-known, and much discussed -- the shock of the first atomic bomb, the feeling that something dangerous had been unleashed, and the doubts of Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the effort to create the bomb. None of this is new, to put it mildly, and the opera had nothing new to say about it. Oppenheimer is distressed. Well, we knew that, and no matter how powerfully he sings about that at the end of the first act -- to the text of a John Donne poem which, like much of the libretto, only tangentially touches what was going on -- we still haven't learned or even felt anything that we (as a society) haven't gone through many times before."

As part of my upcoming trip to New York City as part of the NEA Arts Jounalism Institute, I'll get to see "Dr. Atomic" for myself. I've sung two of Adams' works in the past ("Harmonium" and "On the Transmigration of Souls") and have heard two versions of his opera "Nixon in China." So, I'm looking for to experiencing the Met production.