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Music: John Adams/BBC SO
By David Murray, Fiinancial Times Critic
Published: August 24 2004 18:12 |
Last updated: August 24 2004 18:12
John Adams/BBC SO BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London

John Adams is not only one of America's cleverest composers but a sharp conductor too. In both those functions, he treated us to one of the summer's most intriguing Proms, with the BBC Symphony, a highly gifted young soprano and a man who plays a six-string electric violin. He began with Percy Grainger's tintinnabulating arrangement of Ravel's “La Vallée des cloches” (from his Miroirs suite), which Ravel himself might have done if he had had scores of bells at his disposal. Then the Canadian Colin McPhee's Balinese- influenced Tabuh-tabuhan the only work of his we ever hear, but always delightful; and “Songs of Ragtime and Reminiscence” (including three by Charles Ives, scrupulously orchestrated by Adams), sung with great flair by Audra McDonald.

McDonald figured centrally in the two new Adams pieces after the interval, both of them European premieres. The first was “Easter Eve 1945”, a big, dark and thoughtful aria from his forthcoming opera Doctor Atomic: much like the nocturnal monologues in the last act of his Nixon in China, beautifully voiced by McDonald. We missed not a word of the text, a poem by the late Muriel Rukeyser.

The second, much longer work was The Dharma at Big Sur, in effect a rhapsody for Tracy Silverman's electric violin and large orchestra excluding all woodwinds except two bass clarinets. That strange violin can dip deep into the viola-range, and big glissando slides go well on it; Adams takes full advantage. Silverman is an exquisitely musical player (and I don't suppose there are many competitors on his instrument). The Dharma concludes with a huge, sustained, radiant B-major chord, swelling inexorably while the soloist delivers his final rapturous thoughts.

The Dharma goes on a bit, but so did Jack Kerouac (whose spirit it invokes). Some will not mind; others may think too little happens. Well: it's another Adams “experiment”, like practically everything this composer writes.

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