John Adams - City Noir; Fearful Symmetries (Marin Alsop)

Information

Composer: John Adams

1. City Noir: I. The City and its Double -
2. City Noir: II. The Song is for You
3. City Noir: III. Boulevard Night
4. Fearful Symmetries
5. Girls of the Golden West: Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Marin Alsop, conductor

Date: 2024

Label: Naxos

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Review

You wouldn’t want to be going out at night in Los Angeles after listening to Adams’s City noir. Dark, menacing and brooding during the first movement, punctuated by eerie silences in the second and threatening to spiral out of control by the end of the third, City noir is hardly an idyllic representation of Americana.

To be sure, lyrical moments do occasionally cut through Adams’s dystopian homage to city life. Soaring, sweeping string lines rise from the first movement’s thick fog, while the supine second movement is languid and bittersweet. City noir’s murky ambience is also offset by energetic, episodic jazz-like cameos that shine a light, big band-style, on various solo instruments within the orchestra: alto saxophone, double bass and drum kit in the opening movement, more saxophone and trombone in the second, and vibraphone and trumpet in the third.

Marin Alsop treats these concertante-like interjections in a different way to the sweeping build-ups and sudden breakdowns one often experiences in Adams’s orchestral music. Instead, we are presented with a more layered, terraced approach. Both are exploited to great effect during the work’s powerful finale, where Alsop pushes the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra to the very edge of chaos in a cliffhanger-like ending. Alsop imparts more drive and intensity in the first movement, too, although there’s very little to separate this excellent recording from the equally impressive St Louis Symphony under David Robertson.

After the high drama of City noir, there appears to be very little to fear in Adams’s Fearful Symmetries. Composed in 1988, this whimsical, pulse-heavy work continues where The Chairman Dances left off, while the quirky, overture-style Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance provides a colourful musical re-enactment of a description taken from the San Francisco Whig newspaper in 1853 of Lola’s dance. Dedicated to Alsop, who seems to grasp the full measure of Adams’s music with every performance, the composer was so taken by his spider dance that he subsequently incorporated it into his opera Girls of the Golden West (see page 88).

— Pwyll ap Siôn

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John Adams (born 15 February 1947) is an American composer and conductor. Educated at Harvard, he initially embraced modernism before developing a distinctive style that blends minimalism with expressive, eclectic influences. Based in San Francisco, Adams gained recognition through orchestral works such as Harmonium, Harmonielehre and Short Ride in a Fast Machine. He is also a major operatic composer, with works including Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic, often addressing historical and political themes. His music has earned many honors, including Grammy and Pulitzer Prizes.

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Marin Alsop (born 16 October 1956) is an American conductor best known as the first woman to lead a major American orchestra, serving as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2021. Alsop has also held leading posts with orchestras in the U.S., Europe and Brazil. Raised by musician parents, she trained as a violinist at Juilliard before turning to conducting, studying with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. Renowned for championing American and contemporary music, she has earned numerous awards, including Gramophone's Artist of the Year (2003) and a MacArthur Fellowship.

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