Sequenza21

Volker Bertelmann, otherwise known as “Hauschka,” grew up in Ferndorf, a small village in southern Austria. His latest album is named after the town and features tracks which capture the light, “floating” mood of his childhood rambles through the countryside. Next week, Wordless Music hosts the beginning of Hauschka’s US tour featuring pieces from the album.

Though his childhood was filled with music from attending church and song-filled family celebrations, he left home for Cologne to study medicine. But his piano playing, his desire to compose, and an early film-score commission convinced him to quit his studies and immerse himself in multi-media projects and, eventually, pop music. (Hauschka was at one point a rapper.)

In the 1990s, as he was developing an interest in electronic music, he came upon the idea (more or less himself) of trying to simulate “electronic” sounds by placing objects inside the piano: he did not enjoy performing on a laptop, which he found rigid. What started as an attempt to create a cimbalom-like timbre by placing pins on the hammers of a piano turned into the backbone of his compositional technique. Indeed, he was preparing pianos long before a musicologist friend introduced him to the music of John Cage.

Hauschka describes his music as moving between techno-like patterns and a classical melodic lyricism. Ferndorf is dreamy and reflective, with several pieces incrementally layering melodic gestures over ostinatos. Satie is also a clear influence. After his work with Ferndorf is done, Hauschka wishes to turn to a piano-dance album and maybe even an orchestra piece. He’s also meeting with film directors who have taken an interest in his work.

On October 8, 1963–only 45 years ago–the great soul singer Sam Cooke and his band tried to register at a motel in Shreveport, Louisiana and were arrested for disturbing the peace.  Not long after that, Cooke wrote this song.  No matter what your political feelings are, we have something to be proud of this fine morning.

On November 3rd, I sat down with David Lang at a cafe in Downtown Manhattan. I recorded the interview (on my iPod) intending to transcribe it, but the audio, while still marred by a lot of background noise, is actually listenable. Here it is:

Concerning the quality of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, currently playing at the Metropolitan Opera through November 13, I am of many minds. This may be due in no small part to the opera being of many minds itself. Doctor Atomic is about as good as any opera could be given that its creators do not seem to have a cogent idea of what drama is.

At first a documentary-style perspective on the events leading to the first atomic bomb test holds sway. In the first scene, the chorus and characters sing lines containing all the poetry of a Pentagon press briefing. (Adams’s program notes describe his and Peter Sellars’s scrupulousness in basing the libretto on language from primary sources.) But after the initial oddness, one gets used to hearing the chorus describe the structure of the bomb’s core and so forth. Then scene two arrives, and we’re in Puccini-land. Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer, in the intimacy of their bedroom, rhapsodize in florid soliloquies about their infinite, cosmic love for one another. In scene three, the opera begins to hit its stride by coming to favor panoramic montages over dramatic scenes. After intermission, Act II increases this trend: characters more often speak to us (or to no one) than to each other, and we wait and wait for the bomb to drop.

With so many different dramatic angles rubbing elbows–the documentary, the lyrical, the montage (and the first two do not disappear entirely in Act II)–awkward moments abound in Doctor Atomic. The beginning of the second scene is needlessly jarring; the discussion of General Groves’s diet in scene three does not belong here; the “earth-mother” lullaby (sung by the Oppenheimers’ Native-American nanny, Pasqualita) is portentous; after an inert debate about the possibility the bomb might ignite the atmosphere, Edward Teller, one of the scientists, offers everyone sun screen.  The entire second act fails to establish a common consciousness from which characters’ lines can emerge logically: instead, these lines often sound arbitrary and pretentious.  Kitty Oppenheimer is a character almost entirely without dramatic support from her surroundings: she seems out of place, despite some ravishing music; and even Doctor Atomic himself, despite his riveting John Donne aria that closes the first act, ends up being a weak center for the action.

But in the end Doctor Atomic is saved by the sheer talent of its composer. Adams’s score is absolutely fantastic. The tonality roves from chromatic to triadic with discretion and power; Adams’s command of rhythmic contrast–especially in how well the wildly exciting concluding countdown is prepared–is masterful; the orchestration is luscious and fluent; the vocal writing maneuvers deftly between the florid and the declamatory; the strident choral writing packs a wallop, especially in the Bhagavad Gita settings in the second act. And the entire musical component of the production, already at a high level, benefits from the inspired, committed conducting of Alan Gilbert, whose approaching tenure at the New York Philharmonic must be more eagerly anticipated than ever before.

Doctor Atomic‘s flaws are serious, and the second act in particular breaks down badly. But Adams’s power is at its zenith, and one continues to look forward to his coming creations.

We need somebody to do a pre-concert interview with Terry Riley and maybe review his Bang on a Can happening at Le Poisson Rouge on November 8.  Free tickets, of course.  Hands?