Congratulations on John Adams' fortieth birthday. Ok, that was twenty years ago but at least it was documented in a KPFA radio show (now available on archive.org) where Charles Amirkhanian interviewed the composer. I've listened to the first hour so far and I have several comments:
- Twenty years later, I'll say the novelty of the "digital compact disc" has worn off, and it is quaint to hear the two gentleman discuss the tradeoffs between CD and LP.
- This was recorded while Adams was writing Nixon in China, and it's not clear they knew the impact of what was about to happen.
- The always erudite composer was in the middle of reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and was hinting at parallels with the U.S. Several decades later, here's hoping he is still wrong.
- Uh, the parallels between Tromba Lontana and Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question never occurred to me. Adams also comments how he was trying to orchestrally reproduce the delay effects of tape and electronics.
Wikipedia: Tromba Lontana (lit. "distant trumpet") is a piece written by American minimalist composer John Adams in 1986. The piece was composed for the Houston Symphony in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Texas' declaration of independence from Mexico. It contains the muted voices of two trumpets, as if expressing the ghosts of the past.
I now have an ear-worm of the trumpets in said piece. This replaces Radiohead's A Punch Up at a Wedding that has been repeating off and on in my head since Tuesday.
Thom Yorke: The thing I remember most about America is that it's silly. That can be quite a relief at times.
Comments