Adams: Harmonielehre, Doctor Atomic Symphony & Short Ride in a Fast Machine Peter Oundjian

• Justin Adams (b. 1947): Doctor Atomic Symphony:
• 1Adams: Doctor Atomic Symphony: I. The Laboratory02:05
• 2Adams: Doctor Atomic Symphony: II. Panic14:55
• 3Adams: Doctor Atomic Symphony: III. Trinity07:32
• Short Ride in a Fast Machine:
• 4Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine04:13
• Harmonielehre:
• 5Adams: Harmonielehre: I. Untitled17:30
• 6Adams: Harmonielehre: II. The Anfortas Wound12:30
• 7Adams: Harmonielehre: III. Meister Eckhardt and Quackie11:27
• Total Runtime01:10:12

Info for Adams: Harmonielehre, Doctor Atomic Symphony & Short Ride in a Fast Machine

In this new release Peter Oundjian and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra tackle two seminal works by the American composer John Adams. Harmonielehre, a symphony in all but name, is an expansive, richly expressive, and often breathtaking work. It takes its title from a 1911 text by Arnold Schoenberg on harmonic theory and evokes the lush soundworld of that composer’s early tonal period. Also heard throughout the score are echoes of Mahler, Wagner, Strauss, Sibelius, Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky. The piece also takes inspiration from some of Adams’s own strange and surreal dreams. The Doctor Atomic Symphony, based on Adams’s controversial opera Doctor Atomic, focuses on the character of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer as preparations are made for the first test of the atomic bomb.

Although played without a break, the symphony falls into three distinct sections: ‘The Laboratory’, ‘Panic’, and ‘Trinity’. The symphony’s concluding section takes its title from the name given to the bomb test site by Oppenheimer himself, with reference to a deeply spiritual John Donne sonnet. This poem is set to music at the end of Act I of the opera and here in the symphony the aria’s intense vocal line is performed by solo trumpet. Also featured on the disc is John Adams’s energetic fanfare Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

"the RSNO under Peter Oundjian manage very effectively to project this single sweep of sound from beginning to end. Brass and percussion stand out for all the right reasons...but it's really a sense of collective unity imparted by the orchestra during the loud sections that is most impressive." (Gramophone Magazine)

"The music is played with huge élan by the RSNO...The results are highly charged and exciting performances of three works that place Adams at the very forefront of American contemporary classical music and deservedly so." (MusicWeb International)

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Peter Oundjian, conductor

Peter Oundjian
A dynamic presence in the conducting world, Peter Oundjian is renowned for his probing musicality, collaborative spirit, and engaging personality.

The 2018-19 season includes debuts with the Indianapolis and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, and return engagements with the St. Louis, Baltimore, Atlanta, Utah, Colorado, and New World Symphonies as well as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. He completes his second season as Artistic Advisor of the Colorado Music Festival.

2017-18 marked Oundjian's fourteenth and final season as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). His appointment in 2004 reinvigorated the orchestra with recordings, tours, and acclaimed innovative programming, as well as extensive audience growth, significantly strengthening the ensemble's presence in the world. In 2014, he led the TSO on a tour of Europe, which included a sold-out performance at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and the first performance of a North American orchestra at Reykjavík's Harpa Hall. In the 16-17 season, Oundjian led the TSO on a major tour of Israel and Europe.

From 2012 to 2018, Oundjian was Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO). Under his baton, the orchestra toured China, the USA, and across Europe. Together they recorded extensively for Sony and Chandos, and presented Britten's monumental War Requiem at the 2018 BBC Proms.

Few conductors bring such musicianship and engagement to the world's great podiums-from Berlin, Amsterdam, and Tel Aviv, to New York, Chicago, and Sydney. He has also appeared at some of the great annual gatherings of music and music-lovers: from the BBC Proms and the Prague Spring Festival, to the Edinburgh Festival and The Philadelphia Orchestra's Mozart Festival, where he was Artistic Director from 2003 to 2005.

Oundjian was Principal Guest Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 2010 and Artistic Director of the Caramoor International Music Festival in New York from 1997 to 2007. Since 1981, he has been a visiting professor at the Yale School of Music, and earned the university's Sanford Medal for distinguished service to music in 2013.

Booklet for Adams: Harmonielehre, Doctor Atomic Symphony & Short Ride in a Fast Machine