John Adams and Carl Orff, Together at Last at the SF Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony is presenting a world premiere piano concerto by John Adams this weekend followed by Carl Orff's "dramatic cantata" Carmina Burana. Presaging the odd juxtaposition, the concert started with the 1906 The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives. It's a strange little piece that consists of a lovely, meditative tune for strings, interrupted intermittently by a plaintive off-stage horn asking the question and a quartet of flutes squabbling dissonantly with the answer. It was a great joy hearing principal trumpeter Mark Inouye again (above) after an extended sabbatical.

Two years ago, the SF Symphony and the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performed John Adams's second piano concerto from 2018 entitled Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? It was a sensational performance of a manic, hard-driving piece and it so impressed the composer that he offered to write a new piano concerto for Ólafsson, which he entitled After The Fall. (Photo by Brandon Patoc)

Thursday was the world premiere of the 30-minute concerto and it was quite a contrast to the fiendish Devil and his Tunes. There were the usual Adams kaleidescope of rapidly changing time signatures and motoric rhythms, but the overall impression was of a colorful gentleness. The piece starts out softly, sounding a bit like Ravel with many sparkling sounds in the orchestra, and the piano makes its way through quite a journey in three uninterrupted movements, ending as softly as it began. For a good, detailed description of the music, check out Lisa Hirsch at the San Francisco Classical Voice website. (Photo above is pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and guest conductor David Robertson.)

It was easy to get lost listening to a dense piece of music for the first time so I looked into buying a cheap ticket for one of the two remaining performances on Saturday or Sunday, but the nosebleed second tier seats which usually cost about $30-$50 were instead being offered for the dynamic pricing amount of $225. (Photo of conductor David Robertson, composer John Adams, and pianist Víkingur Ólafsson is by Brandon Patoc)

This was not because the entire world was clamoring to see an important world premiere by John Adams, but because of the massive popularity of Carmina Burana, Carl Orff's 1936 hour-long camtata about fortune, nature, drinking, love, and sex. I had seen the work in 2012 at Davies Hall in a staged version by Opera Parallele's Brian Staufenbiel with the San Francisco Choral Society, but this was the first time hearing the crude, melodic, crowd-pleaser full blast with the entire SF Symphony and Chorus along with the SF Girls' Chorus and a trio of starry soloists.

Soloists soprano Susanna Phillips and baritone Will Liverman were both excellent, as was the orchestra under David Robertson. (Photo by Brandon Patoc)

Tenor Arnold Livingston Geis (above right) hammed it up as the dying swan, which was entirely appropriate, and William Liverman (above left) had such a beautiful baritone voice that it was good to hear he'll be returning to the city this summer for SF Opera's production of La Boheme.

Soprano Susanna Phillips was luxury casting in a small role where she basically sings whether or not she should lose her virginity or remain a proper maiden. (She eventually chooses the former option.)

The real star of the evening was the SF Symphony Chorus, which finally reached a financial settlement with penny-pinching management after an anonymous donor put up $1 million to pay the 32 professional singers who are the core of the ensemble. They sounded great, even though I never want to hear the opening and closing song, O Fortuna, ever again in this lifetime.