aworks :: "new" american classical music

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /as we, transfixed, made history/

Wynne Delacoma previews the December performance of Doctor Atomic by the Lyric Opera:

It's fitting that Lyric is bringing "Doctor Atomic" to Chicago, the city where the first sustained nuclear reaction was achieved on Dec. 2, 1942. Working for months in secret in an abandoned squash court under the stands of the University of Chicago's Stagg Field, at 57th and Ellis, a team headed by Enrico Fermi created the technology that would move an atomic bomb from the realm of science fiction to reality.

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john von rhein: john adams and chicago. aworks: doctor atomic. de anza college: act 1, scene 1 - nixon in china

Doctor Atomic Symphony (2007). John Adams /what would varèse think?/

The BBC announcer comments at the end of the premiere of Doctor Atomic Symphony:

A highly charged score for a highly charged period in American history.

Based on one pass at listening to the BBC stream, compared to the opera, this version was only moderately charged and maybe not as weird as I imagined. I knew the electronic overtures had been dropped but it's possible I miss the odd staging as well.

Here's what I said a year ago about the opera:

I still haven't decided if the music of Doctor Atomic was something of merit or not. It was in Adams' Nixon in China, despite the composer saying he used the orchestra as if it were a "ukelele." A year later, the electronic sounds of Doctor Atomic remain the most memorable.

Prior aworks posts after seeing the opera and then seeing it again show my mixed reaction at the time. And here are some quotes about the influence of Edgard Varèse on Doctor Atomic.

Next up on that BBC stream, Norman Lebrecht interviews Peter Sellars and they talk about Sellars' early interest in snakes and marionettes, among other topics.

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aworks: doctor atomic

Doctor Atomic Symphony (2007). John Adams /proms premiere/

John Adams' symphonic version of his Doctor Atomic just premiered at a Proms concert. BBC (for now) has a stream. The piece is one hour, 27 minutes into the Prom 50 program but the Real Audio player allows you to scroll to that point.

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aworks: doctor atomic

Doctor Atomic Symphony (2005). /new sounds?/

After some thoughtful follow-up posts by Musical Perceptions and A View from the Podium, I'd like to amplify, er, ponder the electro-acoustic topic some more.

First, I'll accept the premise that "symphonic and chamber music is overwhelmingly acoustic music." Still, I think I'm ok if Cal Performances wants to electronically assist Zellerbach Hall, since depending on where one sits, it can be either barn- or cave-like. The smaller Hertz Hall on the other hand...

And when I named some canonic electronic art music, I deliberately excluded John Adams' orchestral works. Is Adams' use of synthesized sound in works like A Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Chamber Symphony, and El Dorado (the last two links nsfw -- annoying automatic clips) fundamentally good? Or will the approach ultimately be rendered archaic and dated? Kenneth Woods would presumably argue the latter but I'm not sure. Adams' orchestration appeals but is that because or despite the electronic sounds? I did enjoy the "noisy parts" of Doctor Atomic but his all-electronic CD demonstrates his need for acoustic instruments as part of the mix.

Note that Adams' upcoming Doctor Atomic Symphony, premiering in Saint Louis next year, appears to only use acoustic instruments.

By the way, here's the symphonic content derived from the opera:

Among the music incorporated and reworked into this 30-minute symphony are passages from the overture, Oppenheimer’s Baudelaire soliloquy, the electrical storm music, “Batter my heart”, and the culminating “Countdown” music.

aworks post on alarm will sound's rendition of an adams electronic track (focusing on the visual performance; i still don't know if i liked what i heard).
how come so many of these upcoming performances of adams' music are outside the u.s.?
detroit vs. st. louis in the world series again this year?

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /unreasonable expectations/

Some thoughts on opera and Doctor Atomic...

Soho the Dog comments on opera in general:

But opera is, for the most part, about inflating human emotions to gargantuan proportions: we thrill to see ourselves writ large, but it doesn't move us beyond the experience of this world.

And it's the gargantuan proportions that I find unappealing. For example, seeing Bernstein's small-scale Trouble in Tahiti was, in hindsight, a more satisfying experience than seeing Doctor Atomic. Which was the better "hearing" experience? Hard to say. One of the Soho the Dog's commenters suggests Bernstein's Mass as the best, albiet failed, attempt at the Great American Opera.

Then, Kinderkuchen criticizes John Adams' compositional skills for emphasizing relevance at the expense of humanity:

He just leaves out even the tiniest representation of human emotions.

While it's true the Doctor Atomic characters weren't particularly compelling, if the work wasn't  somehow relevant to contemporary life, I would have never attended. As another example, I didn't even bother to attend the Ligeti  opera in San Francisco several years ago even though he's a favored composer, probably because I expected it to be some stylized, Euro-oriented production. On the other hand, Philip Glass' Akhnaten in Oakland had the trick where the audience pretends to be on a contemporary Egyptian tour as you enter the theatre. This, plus imagining that George Bush is Akhnaten, in both ascent and fall, made for compelling drama (on top of excellent direction and performance).

I still haven't decided if the music of Doctor Atomic was something of merit or not. It was in Adams' Nixon in China, despite the composer saying he used the orchestra as if it were a "ukelele." A year later, the electronic sounds of Doctor Atomic remain the most memorable.

Finally, Kinderkuchen also mentions the pre-opera talk by Peter Sellars. I managed to see the John Adams-equivalent (twice). I have to say Adams' talk about the opera was witty, sophisticated and interesting, both in describing the inherent drama in the subject matter and in the challenges with creating the art. It's not clear the opera met those same standards...

The conclusion here is how I apparently expect opera to be relevant, emotional, intellectually engaging, musically rewarding and yet not overwhelming as a spectacle. Maybe my expectations are a bit too high, explaining why I only subscribed to the San Francisco Opera for a year. The live simulcast at Stanford next month of Rigoletto is an intriguing idea, though...

Doctor Atomic (2005). /dvd only?/

Via Kinderkuchen for the FBI, David Patrick Stearns writes on how opera is moving to DVD rather than CD. If for example, Nonesuch plans Doctor Atomic for DVD only (someday), wouldn't it have made sense to have a download-only audio version soon after the debut? Those NY/LA Phil downloads did well, after all.

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /pretend anonymity/

I'm reading New York magazine regarding some anonyomous message board. Hmm, what would I say if I were truly anonymous...

• I just have no interest in harmony. I can't hear it, I don't enjoy it when I recognize it, it's boring to read about, etc. Timbre on the other hand...
• I should feel grateful for MTT but I just don't. Is this my problem?
• Am I a consumerist because I've ripped over 17,000 tracks and still have many CDs to go?
• I haven't heard anything by Beethoven in two years.
• I own no Beatles CDs or MP3s, despite or because of heavy saturation from age four to age eighteen.
• In the MP3 era, I replay deeper into my collection and also hear much more by favorite artists and composers but probably less of any particular work. Fifteen years ago, for one month, I only listened to one Steve Reich CD and La Monte Young's Well-Tuned Piano, over and over and over...
• I'm secretly having positive feelings about "rankism."
• I just don't illegally download tracks. I tried Napster back in the day but even though hundreds of thousands of users were online, there were only maybe 20 John Adams tracks. I know of a contemporary music sharing community but I just wasn't interested. Wait, on second thought, I did download MP3s of the Radiohead concert I just attended. How cool is that? I'm sure I would have paid lots for Doctor Atomic MP3s after that opera. And anyway, are there contemporary opera bootleggers?
• Speaking of Doctor Atomic, I still think about specific music from the opera but not so much about the subject matter or the dramatic presentation of that subject matter.
• At some point, I need to come out of the closet and reveal the number of blogs I read/scan. As a side effect, I watch almost no television, gave up on Fanfare, American Record Guide, Gramophone, etc. I did just subscribe to The Wire though. I'm also a long-time Wired subscriber although their music coverage now borders on useless. I also subscribed to Goldmine -- apparently it's my guilty pleasure to read what generation jones-era bands like Supertramp and Journey are doing now even if U2/Bono make me nauseous. By the way, I can't see the Goldmine record ads without glasses. And I think I am more a baby boomer than a Gen X'er.
• As usual, interesting music at the Cabrillo Music Festival this year, but driving "over the hill" via Highway 17 to Santa Cruz is a pain.
• I've only listened to the new Thom Yorke album once and the new Radiohead songs are just ok. I still hold out hope for the former and the latter may sound better with real production values rather than as live bootlegs.
• I recently read The Real Frank Zappa Book, by Frank himself and a co-author. It was interesting and yet, profane and annoying. Just like his music.
• I'm finding similarities this summer in the music of Lou Harrison and Alan Hovhaness, but I'm starting to tire of all that trumpet melody from the latter. On the other hand, the trumpet player was the star of the DVD of Bruce Springsteen's recent Pete Seeger album.
• And speaking of musicologists/composers/fathers/step-mothers, I still wrestle with whether or not Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford Seeger should have both composed more versus their other activities.
• And most significantly, I broke the screen on my iPod because I left it in my pocket while playing volleyball.

Ok, I admit none of these would merit inclusion on PostSecret.

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /opera geniuses?/

Via Playbill, Opera News lists "The 25 Most Powerful Names In U.S. Opera." Listed as "the geniuses" were Peter Sellars, John Adams, and Julie Taymor. Are Peter and John truly extraordinary? I don't know; let's revisit this in twenty years. As for Julie, we'll know more this year when we hear Bono singing the Beatles' I Am the Walrus for an upcoming movie musical.

rgable's top 5 beatles songs: i am the walrus. i want to hold your hand. revolution 9. paperback writer. a day in the life.

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /hmm.../

SFMike photo blogs preparations for tomorrow's outdoor simulcast of SF Opera:

Though "Madama Butterfly" is not my favorite opera by a long shot, it's a good one to start with, and will be perfect for the public simulcast.

Kyle MacMillan, in an article about Jeffrey Kahane and John Adams, quotes Adams on his success in opera:

It totally surprises me, because I never went to opera, not even when I was in college," he said. "I basically don't go. I don't like most of the way it is presented or the way it is sung, and I don't like most of the operatic repertoire.

Doctor Atomic (2005). John Adams /joshua kosman/

Re-reading Joshua Kosman's review of Doctor Atomic, I disagree about the gestures but his summation is interesting:

In one late scene, the chorus sings about Vishnu, the preserver of the universe, in music lifted unapologetically from Orff's "Carmina Burana," while Sellars assigns them a series of Simon Says gestures that look peculiarly out of place. And after three hours of waiting for the bomb to drop, the audience is surely entitled to a more emphatic rendering than a quiet rumble and a few desultory lighting cues. But these are quibbles. "Doctor Atomic," whatever its faults, stands as a major addition to the operatic repertory of this new century, the first to be inaugurated with the specter of instant death very much around us.