James Feddeck continues 2019 with concerts in the United States, leading the Oregon Symphony Orchestra on February 23, 24, and 25 in Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

The performances open with John Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony (2007), a concert work fashioned using material from the 2005 opera. It offers a musical reading of the events surrounding the first full-scale nuclear bomb test, “Trinity” of the 1940s-era Manhattan Project. Orchestral sonorities describe the innovation and anxiety surrounding the test, as well as depictions of historic characters, for example, the gruffly-barking General Leslie Groves (represented via the trombone) and the solemn trumpet aria—J. Robert Oppenheimer’s soliloquy recitation of John Donne’s Divine Sonnet 14, “Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend…”.

Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration (1888-89), written when the composer was 25 years old, is the main work. It chronicles the reflections of an artist, and his soul’s yearning to life eternal. The listener experiences the recollections of life from dawn until dusk: the innocence of childhood, the struggles and attainment of worldly recognition, and finally, the ultimate transfiguration of the soul.

Also on the program is Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (1900-1901), performed with Marc-André Hamelin. This concerto was an act of self-salvation for the composer, as prior to this, Rachmaninov suffered from debilitating depression upon the poor reception of his First Symphony in 1897. The score is dedicated to his saving physician, Nikolai Vladimirovich Dahl, as a token of personal gratitude. This concerto is one of Rachmaninov’s most-loved and oft-played works, and is the backbone of Rachmaninov’s oeuvres.

For more information, please visit: Oregon Symphony Orchestra.