Alarm Will Sound gave the world premiere performance of John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony last weekend at Stanford University, and the reviews continue to roll in. The San Francisco Chronicle, calls the new piece “vivacious,” writing that it “bursts with the technical prowess and cogent wit of the composer's finest efforts.” The Financial Times points to the group's prowess in pulling off the "dangerously exhilarating" piece with aplomb. The San Jose Mercury News praises "the crackerjack new-music ensemble."
As we reported earlier this week, Alarm Will Sound gave the world premiere performance of John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony last weekend at Stanford University, and the reviews continue to roll in.
Joshua Kosman, music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, calls the new piece “vivacious,” writing that it “bursts with the technical prowess and cogent wit of the composer's finest efforts.” And according to Kosman, the piece was “delivered with verve and precision” by Alarm Will Sound under Alan Pierson’s lead, as part of a larger program “notable for its imagination and variety.”
Writing in the Financial Times, Allan Ulrich also points to the group's prowess in pulling off the "dangerously exhilarating" piece with aplomb. Referencing Adams's own description of the piece as "akin to 'shaving with a dull razor,'" Ulrich says the group "emerged from the encounter without scrapes or nicks" and, notable for its "insouciant virtuosity," remains "a force to reckon with in contemporary American music."
For the complete Financial Times review, visit ft.com.
Richard Scheinin of the San Jose Mercury News adds his own praise for "the crackerjack new-music ensemble, which has played Adams's music for a number of years and knows its language and tricks." This came particularly in handy given the Son of Chamber Symphony's ties to its predecessor and its links to other works in the Adams repertoire as well:
It feeds off the frenetic quality of the earlier piece ... but it has leaner, cleaner textures and gets funkier than the first Chamber Symphony, while also drawing on the gently strumming and thrumming effects (think Naive and Sentimental Music) and pulsing tonal dances (think The Chairman Dances and Nixon in China) of other Adams works ... [I]t's one of those solid Adams pieces (think John's Alleged Book of Dances or Scratchband) that are filled with humor and bite.
The program also included works by Nancarrow, Ligeti, Birtwistle ("the thorniest of modern rhythm-writers"); Josquin and Ciconia ("rhythm tricksters of the Renaissance"); and Aphex Twin and Mochipet ("ingeniously rearranged"). For Scheinin, the entire program was one of "rhythmic and coloristic virtuosity" by the "dazzlingly virtuosic group" and its artistic director, Pierson ("a wizard").
To read Scheinin's review, visit mercurynews.com.
