David Robertson, conducting the world premiere of John Adams’ piano concerto “After the Fall” in Davies Symphony Corridor this week, is taken by how the esteemed Bay Space composer was influenced by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson’s interpretations of Bach’s music.
Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson is understood for vivid interpretations of Baroque and modern music. (Courtesy Markus Jans)
“The thing I find fascinating, as this will be the third of the piano concertos I have done, is I can see how the idea of writing for a particular soloist is very much something that helps Adams generate his ideas and inspirations,” Robertson says. “What’s fabulous about this piece is the way in which John was inspired by Vikingur’s beautiful playing of Bach.”
Commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony and premiering on Thursday (and in addition in live shows on Saturday and Sunday with “Carmina burana”), “After the Fall” is Adams’ fourth piano concerto—1989’s Eros Piano” was first—and the third Robertson has performed, after 1997’s “Century Rolls” and 2019’s “Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?” which has been carried out by Robertson’s spouse, Orli Shaham.
Olafsson, whose “Johann Sebastian Bach” received BBC Music Journal’s 2019 Album of the Yr, can also be lauded for interpretations of up to date items (together with Philip Glass’ works), whereas Robertson, famend for conducting works by Adams, has an equally period-sweeping repertory.
Robertson says he bought hooked on Adams’ music in 1981 when he first heard 1978’s “Shaker Loops,” which was written for string septet. When he contacted Adams about organizing a live performance, Adams advised him he was engaged on an opera about Richard Nixon. The 2 have had a working relationship since Adams’ “Nixon in China” premiered in 1987.
“Once you know as many works by a composer as I do with John’s, there are all sorts of things that strike you as familiar—like the voice of a composer—something that is uniquely theirs that you recognize immediately, even when they are on untrodden grounds, so to speak,” Robertson says.
In “After the Fall,” Adams has included outstanding roles for 2 harps and celesta, which Robertson says lends the work a floating, ethereal sound. And he compares the composition’s three actions to a highway journey: “The sections you hear are not quite as clearly delineated, so it’s much more the kind of form best described by a journey through various landscapes in your car. You’re driving and it looks like the environment around you isn’t changing, and then half an hour later you notice that in fact there’s been a subtle change where you would never mistake it for what you had been in half an hour earlier.”
Robertson provides that the affect of Bach within the Adams work is palpable in some ways with out being an imitation: “You’ll hear things like John is almost quoting Bach and in certain places it’s almost like a seventh Brandenburg Concerto, especially in the interplay between the musicians in the orchestra and on the keyboard. It’s brought in a way that’s very organic to the piece where it could seem like pastiche in other contexts. There is a clear reference to the early music and almost seminal quality of Bach’s music, from where so much Western music has flowed. It’s quite fascinating to see just how deep the roots of Bach go, and so this piece is one of the offshoots.”
John Adams’ newest work commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony is a piano concerto referred to as “After the Fall.” (Courtesy Deborah O’Grady)
As a lot as Robertson is an professional on Adams’ music, there is a component recommended by the title “After the Fall” he feels makes the brand new composition revelatory.
“The main thing you hear as a connection musically to the title is the huge number of fallen phrases the piece has—they’re all over the place —and in that sense of something falling there’s obviously the idea of gravity, and what is floatation, the pull of gravity, and the central force that’s bringing these things to the ground,” Robertson says. “It’s got things in quite a way Adams hasn’t expressed before, which I’m really looking forward to exploring.”
Along with “After the Fall,” this week’s live shows embody Charles Ives’ dialogue-among-instruments piece “The Unanswered Question” and Carl Orff’s medieval-like cantata “Carmina burana” with soprano Susanna Phillips, tenor Arnold Livingston Geis, baritone Will Liverman, the San Francisco Women Refrain and the San Francisco Symphony Refrain.
San Francisco Symphony performs “Carmina burana” and John Adams “After the Fall” at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 16 and Jan. 18 and a couple of p.m. Jan. 19 at Davies Symphony Corridor, 201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. For tickets ($175-$275), name (415) 864-6000 or go to sfsymphony.org.
