Adams: My Father Knew Charles Ives • Harmonielehre
ARTISTS: Nashville Symphony Orchestra; Giancarlo Guerrero (conductor)
COMPOSER: John Adams
LABEL: Naxos | 8559854 (UPC: 636943985427)
GRAMMY® CATEGORIES SUBMITTED INTO:
Orchestral Performance
Engineered Album, Classical
Producer of the Year, Classical
Pulitzer and Erasmus Prize-winning composer John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of American music. His works stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. Adams describes My Father Knew Charles Ives as “an homage and encomium to a composer whose influence on me has been huge.” Harmonielehre was a deliberate move by Adams to expand his musical language beyond Minimalism, keeping its energetic pulse but embracing the rich tonal resources of the past to create a work that has accrued an aura of timelessness. Six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrero is music director of the Nashville Symphony and the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic in Poland, as well as principal guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal. He has championed contemporary American music through numerous commissions, recordings and performances with the Nashville Symphony, presenting eleven world premieres of works by Jonathan Leshnoff, Michael Daugherty, Terry Riley, and others. As part of this commitment, he helped guide the creation of Nashville Symphony’s Composer Lab & Workshop initiative.
Performers
Giancarlo Guerrero
Six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrero is music director of the Nashville Symphony and the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic in Poland, as well as principal guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal. He has championed contemporary American music through numerous commissions, recordings and performances with the Nashville Symphony, presenting eleven world premieres of works by Jonathan Leshnoff, Michael Daugherty, Terry Riley, and others. As part of this commitment, he helped guide the creation of Nashville Symphony’s Composer Lab & Workshop initiative. In North America, Guerrero has appeared with the orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto, and the National Symphony Orchestra. He has developed a strong international profile working with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. An advocate for music education, he works with the Curtis Institute of Music, Colburn School, the National Youth Orchestra (NYO2) in New York, and the Nashville Symphony’s Accelerando program, which provides intensive music education to promising young students from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
For more information, visit https://www.giancarlo-guerrero.com/
Nashville Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1935, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), under music director JoAnn Falletta, is Buffalo’s leading cultural ambassador and presents more than 120 classics, pops and youth concerts each year. Since 1940, the orchestra’s permanent home has been Kleinhans Music Hall, a National Historic Landmark, designed by Eliel and Eero Saarinen.One of Tennessee’s largest and longest-running nonprofit performing arts organizations, the Nashville Symphony has been an integral part of the Music City sound since 1946. Led by music director Giancarlo Guerrero and president and CEO Alan D. Valentine, the 83-member ensemble performs more than 160 concerts annually, with a focus on contemporary American orchestral music through collaborations with composers including Jennifer Higdon, Terry Riley, Joan Tower, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Daugherty, John Harbison, Jonathan Leshnoff, and the late Christopher Rouse. The orchestra is equally renowned for its commissioning and recording projects with Nashville-based artists including bassist Edgar Meyer, banjoist Béla Fleck, singer-songwriter Ben Folds, electric bassist Victor Wooten, and composer Kip Winger. The Nashville Symphony is one of the most active recording orchestras in the US, with more than 40 releases, the majority on Naxos. Together, these recordings have earned a total of 25 GRAMMY® Award nominations and 13 GRAMMY® Awards, including two for Best Orchestral Performance. Schermerhorn Symphony Center is home to the Nashville Symphony and widely regarded as one of the finest concert halls in the US.
For more information, please visit: https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/
Press
Gramophone
“The drama of the first movement is captured in a wealth of orchestral detail less discernible in other recordings; shapes and contours are delineated with special care. The desolate angst of ‘The Anfortas Wound’ is vividly evoked, devolving finally into something like collapse, so that when the luminous realms of ‘Meister Eckhardt and Quackie’ are finally revealed, ever so gently, they fairly shimmer. If this Harmonielehre may not be the equal of Rattle/Birmingham in terms of power or of Nagano/Montreal in terms of finesse, its attention to detail and sheer affective impact are unassailable.Both the pairing of these two particular works and their singular performances make this a welcome addition to any Adams collection.” – Patrick Rucker
MusicWeb International
“From listening alone, then, this comes over as a sensational performance with playing and conducting of the utmost virtuosity. Every section of the orchestra seems to be in total command, a truly remarkable achievement given the complexity of the music.” – William Hedley
American Record Guide
“My Father Knew Charles Ives (2003) is a three-movement fantasy on Ives’s influence on Adams’s musical journey. Language is dreamy, with echoes of the music he grew up with—much like Ives. Composed with polytonal harmony as quiet background, the music floats along in an unconscious state, with distant memories of Adams’s childhood. He did not know Ives personally, but this is a memorable homage.Adams’s important post-minimalist Harmonielehre (1985) is a three-movement symphony opening with a rhythmic figure that will become motivic as the work unfolds.
Both of these knotty works are given meticulous performances.” – Allen Gimbel
David’s Review Corner
“Completed in 2003 it is in three pictures: Concord, The Lake and The Mountain, and moves some way from preconceived ideas regarding Minimalism, with repetition used judiciously, and moves to mainstream 20th century for the dramatic and highly charged finale. Conductor, Giancarlo Guerrero, is an impressive advocate, with the UK recording team completing a superb release.” - David DentonMy Father Knew Charles Ives and Harmonielehre make an excellent pairing on the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s new all-Adams album, led by music director Giancarlo Guerrero.
The Arts Fuse
“Guerrero and his orchestra don’t want for muscularity or energy: they offer plenty of both—and tempos are pretty snappy overall, as well.Given the easy availability of those earlier releases, the reason you’ll probably want this album, then, is for the Nashville players’ finely done My Father Knew Charles Ives.” - Jonathan Blumhofer