John Adams’ New Piano Concerto Is a Dreamlike Thrill Ride at Davies

One of my favorite moments in John Adams’ 2008 autobiography Hallelujah Junction comes when Adams, as a teenager on the East Coast, decides to sit next to Duke Ellington on his piano bench — while Ellington is in the middle of a concert. I love the brashness of this act; it is borne not of rudeness but a pure, unfiltered enthusiasm, with which I am very familiar. Adams studies Ellington’s fingers on the keys, and his subtle communication signals to the rest of the band, getting a close-up of a master at work.

During Thursday night’s world premiere with the San Francisco Symphony of Adams’ extraordinary new piano concerto, After the Fall, I kept returning to that image, of a young Adams soaking up game from an American genius, fascinated with jazz and its possibilities. Adams has unlocked those possibilities time and time again, incorporating syncopation from swing-era dance bands into his works, alongside ingredients from Nancarrow, Webern and others.

With After the Fall, performed Thursday night with David Robertson conducting and Víkingur Ólafsson at the piano, that melding becomes so natural as to almost be imperceptible, fully assimilated into Adams’ singular musical language. It’s a remarkable composition, one which unties all the knots of his previous piano concerto (2020’s beautiful and dense Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?). A recording of it cannot come soon enough.

After opening with cascading notes on harp and celeste reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo score, Thursday’s world premiere at Davies Symphony Hall of After the Fall presented blissful, clustered melodies on the piano, and the type of sharp jabs that Ellington once delivered on his piano from the brass and woodwinds.

I’ve never thought of Adams’ music as film soundtrack fodder, but After the Fall is laden with imagery — fields, flight, turbulence, pursuit, heartbeat. The serene second movement is a slow float through mild gales of wind. To my liking, it could have been even more quiet, and Ólafsson’s touch lighter, leading up to a pivot in which the orchestra thunders in. More pianissimo beforehand would add contrast, instead of the passages Silly-Puttying into each other.

But oh! That third movement! Jazz soloists “quote” from other standards as a tradition, but it’s less common in classical music. I swear I heard a bit of the 1940s standard “Undecided” in the third movement, but then came an interpolation of Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” recontextualized in Adams’ landscape, like a skilled DJ blend that makes you ask, “Why hasn’t it been this way all along?”

If Ólafsson was having fun in the final minutes, a thrill ride increasing in intensity, his science-teacher demeanor didn’t betray it. But Robertson turned to Ólafsson multiple times with the joy of creation written upon his face. At the end, as a few harp notes faded, Ólafsson recoiled, leaning backward on the piano bench, like he’d just slayed something exquisite. It took three curtain calls, with Adams himself eventually joining, to quell the sustained standing ovation that followed.

Preceding After the Fall in Thursday’s program was Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question, a piece as delicate as damp tissue paper. This pairing with Adams made sense. What came after the intermission did not.

People either love or hate Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. I am in the latter camp, but had never before heard it live. It was performed very well, and I now dislike it more. Forever associated with Nazis, to my ear, it’s essentially overpuffed emo poetry set to gaudy, ostentatious music ripped off to profitable effect in Hollywood. Bereft of ambiguity or nuance, it is the orchestral equivalent of a Hawk Tuah podcast episode. Lyrically, its primary message seems to be “sex is cool.”

With apologies to the symphony chorus led by Jenny Wong, the wonderful soloists (Will Liverman, Susanna Phillips and Arnold Livingston Geis) and the San Francisco Girls Chorus — and acknowledging the enthusiasm of my fellow concertgoers throughout the hall — it moved me not a bit.

John Adams’ ‘After the Fall’ and Carl Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’ repeat on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 18 and 19, at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Details here.