A Nativity Story Filled With Percussion
John Adams’s performance of “El Niño” with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall on Sunday evening ended his extended weekend of concerts in New York, which began with a pair of Axiom programs devoted all, or mostly, to Mr. Adams’s work.
It was the finale of another informal series as well: Carnegie’s cycle of Christmas works, which began with performances of Handel’s “Messiah” and Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” by Les Violons du Roy.
In a way “El Niño” (2000) is the best suited to the business of telling the Nativity story; certainly it is more purely a Christmas work than the ubiquitous “Messiah,” of which only the first third leads to the birth of Jesus (and is mostly prophecy), with the rest better suited to Easter.
