Adams Leads Modern Voyage

Genial and good-natured are not words most people associate withcontemporary classical music. But the mood couldn't have beencheerier during most of the concert by Ensemble Modern, a Germanchamber group conducted by composer John Adams Monday night atOrchestra Hall.

True, Wolfgang Rihm's "Gejagte Form (Hunted Form)" had thehard-edge dissonance and loud, angry clamor that defines new musicfor many listeners. But wit, good temper and exuberance marked thefive other works on the program: Edgard Varese's contemporaryclassic, "Octandre"; Adams' Chamber Symphony and his new"Scratchboard"; Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano Nos. 5-7arranged for orchestra by Yvar Mikhashoff, and excerpts from FrankZappa's "The Yellow Shark."

Nancarrow, an iconoclastic American composer who has lived fordecades in Mexico, takes the player piano very seriously. It is theinstrument for which he most often composes. But the quirky,infectious high spirits that seem built into the player piano seepthrough his studies.In Study No. 5, two (non-player) grand pianos on opposite sidesof the stage seem to be stammering and stuttering their way throughsomething faintly resembling Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm," while otherinstruments serenely wandered off in outlandish directions. Thesteady undercurrent in Study No. 6 was the lazy canter of a dopeyAmerican cowboy song. Hearing it against the genial tinkle of aceleste and bits and pieces of a lyrical flute melody, we felt thepresence of a very sophisticated cowpoke.In Adams' Chamber Symphony, composed in 1992, individualinstruments had an absentminded air. They played each in its ownuniverse, and their frequent clashes seemed amusingly accidental.Against fast, faintly queasy sawing from the strings in the firstmovement, the brass wandered up and down the scale as if they had allthe time in the world. In the second movement, a flute roamed inleisurely fashion, completely unintimidated by frantically pluckedviolins."Scratchboard" wore the source of its comic inspirationproudly. Adams wrote it, he said in the program notes, after hearingcartoon music waft in from a nearby room where his son was watchingTV. It was full of bouncy, repetitive patterns typical of Adams'minimalist style and driving, upbeat energy.Excerpts from Zappa's "The Yellow Shark" ended the concert on ahigh note. How a rock 'n' roller could produce a piece combining theoff-balance rhythms of Irish fiddling with the steady swagger ofburly, blustering marching band is both mysterious and exhilarating.