Composer: John Adams
Performer: Doric String Quartet
Orchestra: Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Conductor: Peter Oundjian
Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Chandos
Size: 1.21 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Absolute Jest
01. Beginning
02. Presto
03. Lo stesso tempo
04. Meno mosso
05. Vivacissimo
06. Prestissimo
Naive and Sentimental Music
07. I. Naïve and Sentimental Music
08. II. Mother of the Man
09. III. Chain to the Rhythm
As part of his final year as Music Director and following a two-season celebration of the Orchestra’s 125th anniversary, Peter Oundjian and the RSNO here present their second recording of music by John Adams, with the exceptional participation of the Doric String Quartet. Written for a large orchestra including six percussionists, keyboard sampler, and amplified steel-string guitar, Naive and Sentimental Music is a sweepingly symphonic masterpiece, full of contrasts and clashes. It reflects the dichotomy between ‘naive’ and ‘sentimental’ poetry as analysed by Friedrich Schiller in his 1795 essay Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, as well as the ‘bipolar’ musical life of Esa-Pekka Salonen, the dedicatee of this piece, who conducted the first performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1999. Absolute Jest is a large-scale scherzo for amplified string quartet and orchestra, heavily inspired by the music of Beethoven, which Adams has always deeply admired. The quartet of soloists, a late addition to the score, emphasises the echoes of Beethoven’s music (mainly his string quartets) and facilitates a ‘hyperspace rate’ of virtuosity, which the Doric String Quartet here perfectly demonstrates.