Profundity through repetition in Harmonielehre

We haven't had an esoteric pick of the week for a while and it just so happens that the San Diego Symphony has selected one for us. They are performing Harmonielehre by John Adams this weekend at Symphony Hall.

Harmonielehre is German for “harmony study” or “harmony doctrine” and it can be considered Adams’s masterpiece. It is one of, if not the most, popular pieces of orchestral music written after World War II.

Adams has a minimal style that some find to be repetitive but that isn’t necessarily the case. Repeats in music are not new. It was conventional for Mozart and Beethoven to repeat themselves all the time. Every popular song repeats the chorus over and over. Repetition is a part of music.

Adams does more with the repeat than many of us are used to. He repeats music on purpose and not simply because of convention. I’m not sure of which philosophy Adams subscribes to himself but the idea of the eternal recurrence is thousands of years old and found in both Hindu and Egyptian traditions.

The wheel of samsara, or suffering, is the cycle of endless birth, life, and death. It repeats itself until the individual is able to see through the illusion of separateness.

Repetition could be the basis of almost everything. Day and night repeat as the earth spins. Months and seasons repeat as the earth circles the sun. Repetition is everywhere. To consider Adams’s music to be repetitive creates its profundity.

The conductor of this concert is is an Adams champion. Edo de Waart was the conductor of the premiere of Harmonielehre in 1985 with the San Francisco Symphony. De Waart could also be one of the conductors receiving consideration to be the next music director of the San Diego Symphony when maestro Ling steps away at the end of the 2016-17 season.

The concerts are Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, October 25 at 2 p.m.