Doctor Atomic goes Symphonic

Synopsis

Truth is often far stranger—and more poetic—than fiction.

Who knew that the father of America's atom bomb, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, was so taken with the 17th century British poet John Donne that he named his New Mexico test site "Trinity" after one of Donne's sonnets that begins "Batter my heart, three person'd God?"

That poem also became an aria sung by the title character in the John Adams opera titled "Doctor Atomic," dramatizing the first a-bomb test.

Following the opera's premiere, Adams was commissioned by conductor David Robertson to produce a symphony based on the score. Robertson was scheduled to premiere this "Doctor Atomic Symphony" with the St. Louis Symphony, but Adams found rendering down his three-hour opera into a shorter purely orchestral work much harder than anticipated.

"It was like being a filmmaker, with cans and cans of footage I'd shot, and I had to edit it in a meaningful way," said Adams.

Adams missed his deadline, so what was intended to be the work's second performance at the BBC Proms in London on today's date in 2007 turned into the world premiere of the "Doctor Atomic Symphony," with Adams himself conducting.

Robertson conducted the American premiere the following year, and said, "[The] 'Doctor Atomic Symphony' takes all the atmosphere, foreboding, excitement and concern that entering the atomic age was about and distills it into pure music without vocals—which is quite an achievement."

Music Played in Today's Program

John Adams (b. 1947) Doctor Atomic Symphony St. Louis Symphony;David Robertson Nonesuch 468220-2

On This Day

Births

• 1893 - French composer Lili Boulanger, in Paris; She was the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), the famous French composition teacher;

• 1927 - German composer Willhelm Killmayer, in Munich;

Deaths

• 1951 - British composer and writer Constant Lambert, age 45, in London;

Premieres

• 1966 - Creston: "Pavane Variations" at the La Jolla Music Festival in California;

Others

• 1800 - The U.S. Marine Band presented its first public concert in Washington, DC, "on a hill overlooking the Potomac," near the future site of the Lincoln Memorial.