John Adams - Dr Atomic Symphony/Guide to Strange Places
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Music CD Cover
Artist: John AdamsBrand: ADAMS,JOHN
Conductor: David Robertson
Orchestra: St. Louis Symphony Orchestra
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2009-07-28
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
- I. The Laboratory
- II. Panic
- III. Trinity
- Guide to Strange Places
Free Music Notes for Dr Atomic Symphony/Guide to Strange Places
Free Music Review: Buy it for the Guide
Hit: 4 Stars
Maybe my ears are on wrong. Critics have raved about Doctor Atomic since it came out, and I thought this opera was a clunker. The Doctor Atomic Symphony, while (much) better, still isn't great. It's not really a "Symphony" -- it's a rehash of the best music in the opera. There's little to no development in themes; musical material just kind of comes and goes without care or concern. It might be in 3 (continuous) movements to make it seem like a symphony, but nothing unites the movements -- not even contrasts. This "Symphony" is more like a medley in 3 movements.
The liner notes try really hard to link the music to the opera (triads are atoms! brass chords are explosions!), but I thought the point of the Symphony is to let the music stand on its own?
Having ranted enough, the third movement, "Trinity", is an unexpected pleasure, probably because it focuses on limited material. Here, Adams takes the best aria from the opera and makes it loads better by replacing an overly dramatic singer (you know how opera singers can be...) with a doleful trumpet. It's Adams finally showing his unique genius that's missing from a good chunk of the opera.
Even though the headliner of the disc is the Symphony, I thought Guide to Strange Places stole the show. Why did it take so long to record?? At times there are hints of Messiaen's Turangalila, others parts point the way forward from his works from the late 1990's. Maybe the first few minutes are a perpetual motion as suggested in the liner notes, but the middle section slows down to reveal a cragged, slightly desolate landscape. It never regains that full steam from the introduction, and has that classic, slightly enigmatic ending that Adams writes in so many works, as if there's more to come, but never does.
I've always appreciated Adams's orchestral works more than his operas (with the exception of Nixon in China), so maybe I'm a little biased. I don't think these works are his best to date, but that's ok -- not every disc will be better than the last. The St. Louis Orchestra plays these works so crisply and cleanly, you wonder how they do it.
It's a very good CD. Any John Adams fan will be glad to have it.
Dr Atomic Symphony/Guide to Strange Places Poster
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams' Dr. Atomic Symphony, performed here by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under the direction of David Robertson, is a thrilling distillation of musical themes from Adams' 2005 opera Dr. Atomic. This 2007 work is a 25-minute white-knuckle ride that manages to convey all the drama, dread, tension and uncertainty that distinguished Adam's impressionistic examination of the life of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. It's a tale blending history, politics, science and ethics, centered around 'an anti-hero, laced with deep moral dilemmas,' as Atomic Symphony liner-notes writer Jeremy Denk puts It. It is a real-life saga in which the fate of humanity truly hangs in the balance. And it still does: as the New York Times noted, Dr. Atomic remains 'all too timely.'Classical Music CDs
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