City Noir

Last updated

City Noir is a symphonic work by the composer John Adams. A primary inspiration for the piece is the work of historian Kevin Starr on urban California in the late 1940s and early 1950s. [1] The composer characterizes the work as "jazz-inflected symphonic music", citing the French composer Darius Milhaud as originator of this trend. [1] It has a duration of 35 minutes, features solos for alto saxophone, trumpet, trombone, horn, viola, and double bass, and has three movements:

Contents

  1. The City and its Double
  2. The Song is for You
  3. Boulevard Night [1]

The piece was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, the London Symphony Orchestra in association with Cité de la Musique, the Zaterdag Matinee and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. [2] It received its first public performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic on October 8, 2009, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, with Carrie Dennis (viola), Timothy McAllister (alto saxophone), William Lane (horn), Donald Green (trumpet), and James Miller (trombone) playing the prominent solo parts. [1] This concert was filmed and subsequently televised internationally and released on DVD and digital download by Deutsche Grammophon. [3]

Critical reception

Anthony Tommasini, reviewing the world premiere, stated that "Mr. Adams has become a master at piling up materials in thick yet lucid layers. Moment to moment the music is riveting. Yet here as in some other Adams scores, I found it hard to discern the structural spans and architecture". [4]

Following its European premiere in March 2010, Richard Morrison praised the work as "infused with the seething energies, menace and melodrama of one particular cinematic genre — the film noir. The restlessness, the sardonic relish of urban angst familiar from the hard-bitten tales of Hammett and Chandler seeps through it like a dark stain". [5] In regard to the same performance, Nick Kimberley wrote that the piece is "suffused with longing for a past in which big, bold gestures and firm-footed melody were the order of the day. And yet so affectionate is Adams’s manipulation of his musical memories that City Noir emerges as a dazzling showpiece. It may look resolutely backwards but it knows where it’s going". [6]

In 2019, The Guardian ranked City Noir the 24th greatest work of art music since 2000, with Andrew Clements describing it as a "vivid portrait of Los Angeles [...] that references a host of American idioms without ever getting too specific. It’s not his finest orchestral work by any means (those came last century), but an effective, extrovert showpiece." [7]

Instrumentation

The work is scored for the following instrumentation. [1]

Related Research Articles

The Los Angeles Philharmonic, officially known in shorthand as LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel is the current music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen is conductor laureate, Zubin Mehta is conductor emeritus, and Susanna Mälkki is principal guest conductor. John Adams is the orchestra's current composer-in-residence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark-Anthony Turnage</span> English composer (born 1960)

Mark-Anthony Turnage CBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esa-Pekka Salonen</span> Finnish orchestral conductor and composer

Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Stucky</span> American composer

Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustavo Dudamel</span> Venezuelan conductor and violinist (born 1981)

Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Paris Opera. He is scheduled to become music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026.

<i>Symphonic Dances</i> (Rachmaninoff) 1940 orchestral suite composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff

Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, is an orchestral suite in three movements completed in October 1940 by Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is his final major composition, and his only piece written in its entirety while living in the United States.

In Seven Days: Concerto for Piano with Moving Image is a piano concerto by the British composer Thomas Adès. The work was commissioned by the Southbank Centre and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was given its world premiere by the pianist Nicolas Hodges and London Sinfonietta under Adès at the Royal Festival Hall on April 28, 2008. An optional video accompaniment was created for performance with the piece by Adès's then partner Tal Rosner.

Naive and Sentimental Music is a symphonic work by American composer John Adams. The title of the work alludes to an essay by Friedrich Schiller, On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry, that contrasts a creative personality that creates art for its own sake versus one conscious of other purposes, such as art’s place in history. The composer cites both the slowly developing harmonies of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony and the atmosphere of the Sonoma coastline as inspirations for the work. The piece was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Ensemble Modern, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It received its first public performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen on February 19, 1999. A recording by Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic was subsequently released by Nonesuch Records.

James Matheson is an American composer. His works have been commissioned and performed by the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Borromeo String Quartet, Carnegie Hall and the St. Lawrence String Quartet. In December 2011, he received the Charles Ives Living from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an award providing him with $100,000 for two years (2012-2014). Previously, he received the Academy’s Goddard Lieberson Fellowship in 2008 and Hinrichsen Award in 2002. He has also received awards from the Civitella Ranieri, Bogliasco and Sage Foundations, ASCAP, and the Robbins Prize. He was executive director of the MATA Festival of New Music in New York from 2005-2007 and has been a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. Since September 2009, he has been the director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Composer Fellowship Program.

Symphony No. 4 is an orchestral composition in two movements by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, for which Rouse was then composer-in-residence. The piece was completed June 30, 2013 and was premiered on June 5, 2014, in Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Alan Gilbert.

Timothy McAllister is an American classical saxophonist and music educator, who, as of 2014, is Professor of Saxophone at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

The Symphony by the American composer Steven Stucky is a four-movement symphony for orchestra. The work was jointly commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was composed from January through July 2012 and premiered September 28, 2012 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, with conductor Gustavo Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The work had its New York City premiere November 29, 2012, with Alan Gilbert leading the New York Philharmonic.

The Piano Concerto is a concerto for solo piano and orchestra in three movements by the Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. The work was jointly commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, the BBC, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, and Radio France. It was premiered February 1, 2007 in Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, with Salonen conducting the pianist Yefim Bronfman and the New York Philharmonic. Salonen dedicated the piece to Yefim Bronfman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Norman</span> American composer (born 1979)

Andrew Norman is an American composer of contemporary classical music whose texturally complex music is influenced by architecture and the visual arts. His string trio The Companion Guide to Rome (2010), was a runner-up for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music. While composer-in-residence for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, he first gained international attention for the orchestral work Play (2013), which was nominated for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and won the 2017 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. He received another Grammy nomination for the orchestral work Sustain (2018), a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Other noted works include the fantasy for piano and orchestra Split (2015) and the opera A Trip to the Moon (2017). Since 2020, Norman has been on the composition faculty of the Juilliard School.

True Fire is a song cycle for solo baritone and orchestra by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. The work was jointly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France. It was first performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on May 14, 2015, by the baritone Gerald Finley and Los Angeles Philharmonic under the conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The piece is dedicated to Gerald Finley.

Scheherazade.2 is a dramatic symphony for solo violin and orchestra by the American composer John Adams. The work was jointly commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw & the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It was written specifically for the violinist Leila Josefowicz, who performed its world premiere with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert at Avery Fisher Hall on March 26, 2015.

Polaris: Voyage for Orchestra is an orchestral composition by the British composer Thomas Adès. The work was co-commissioned by the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas for the opening of the New World Center. The New World Symphony was joined in commission by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Barbican Centre, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. It was given its world premiere by Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony at the New World Center in Miami Beach on January 26, 2011.

The Cello Concerto is a composition for cello and orchestra by the Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. The work was co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Barbican Centre, and the Elbphilharmonie. It was completed in 2017 and was first performed by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Salonen on March 9, 2017. The piece is dedicated to Yo-Yo Ma.

Metacosmos is a symphonic poem by the Icelandic composer Anna S. Þorvaldsdóttir. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic with support from the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music. It was first performed by the New York Philharmonic under the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen on April 4, 2018.

<i>Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?</i> Piano concerto by John Adams

Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? is a piano concerto by the American composer John Adams. Its title is taken from a saying attributed to Martin Luther. The work was premiered on March 7, 2019 by Yuja Wang and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. A recording, made by Wang, Dudamel, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in November 2019, was released digitally by Deutsche Grammophon on April 17, 2020. The piece is Adams' third piano concerto, after Eros Piano (1989) and Century Rolls (1997).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Adams, John. "City Noir" Archived 2010-01-26 at the Wayback Machine , 2010
  2. ↑ Barbican Music Event Detail Archived 2010-03-16 at the Wayback Machine , 2010.
  3. ↑ Swed, Mark. "Music review: L.A. Phil embraces a new generation with Dudamel", Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, October 9, 2009.
  4. ↑ Tommasini, Anthony. "Conductor Begins His Tenure With Force", The New York Times, New York, October 9, 2009.
  5. ↑ Morrison, Richard. "LSO/Adams at the Barbican", The Times, London, March 15, 2010.
  6. ↑ Kimberley, Nick. "John Adams's screen test triumph" Archived 2010-04-15 at the Wayback Machine , London Evening Standard, London, March 12, 2010.
  7. ↑ Clements, Andrew; Maddocks, Fiona; Lewis, John; Molleson, Kate; Service, Tom; Jeal, Erica; Ashley, Tim (2019-09-12). "The best classical music works of the 21st century". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2020-06-12.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.