aworks :: "new" american classical music

Chamber Symphony (1992). John Adams /monotonized by choice?/

Dennis Báthory-Kitsz writes about classical music and the lack of cultural choices in rural areas versus the preponderance of opportunity in urban areas:

The concert -- no matter what its content -- is that gold or diamond, blue candy, glittering stone, red dress. If there are many diamonds or blue candies or glittering stones or red dresses, our eyes fail to see and we are monotonized by choice.

Am I allowed to say this is how I felt at the Alarm Will Sound concert of John Adams music in Berkeley earlier this year? So much so I couldn't even finish blogging about it even though China Gates is a delightful piece (even if the Chamber Symphony is not).

And yet, after several years of shuffle mode and before that years of "by album" mode, I now often listen to MP3s sorted by artist or composer. I can't consecutively listen to all 217 Copland tracks (or 169 of Radiohead) but even in much smaller increments, the approach leads to a more coherent experience. But having the ability to select something else when finally bored is liberating.

I still plan to attend next year's Alarm Will Sound concert of the music of Conlon Nancarrow.

aworks: alarm will sound trip report one two three four five six seven eight
current listening: gidon kremer playing brahms violin concerto (no, really)

Chamber Symphony (1992). John Adams /tradition/

"Monk" Hucbald rants about newness and provocation as musical goals and expects composers to be rigorous with respect to prior music:

The composers who I consider to be the greatest - Perotinus, Palestrina, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Taneiev - were walking, talking, and composing musical summations of everything that came before them. By those standards, the overwhelmingly vast majority of contemporary composers who are lionized and spoken of in hushed and reverent tones... don't know dick.

Do composers like Phill Niblock or La Monte Young consider themselves part of the tradition? Do they even care? Intriguingly, composer Oliver Knussen echoed Hucbald, albeit more positively, in an interview this week with Joshau Kosman:

"The richest tonal music being written today -- which is by John Adams, David Del Tredici and others -- is by composers with the most sophisticated awareness of what preceded them. They have worked through that in a very rigorous way, and I would like to think I have been similarly rigorous in working through the things that have made me what I am today --  the architectural aspect of Britten's music, or the detailing and formal structure in a composer like Berg, or the unbelievable careful patterning in Ligeti and Boulez."

  I chose as title for this post Adams' Chamber Symphony. In that particular work, I find Adams' mashing together of Schoenberg and cartoon music an unsatisfying trick, even if it shows his assimilation of 20th century music.

Update: Ok, I was projecting my own interests. I agree Adams is obviously influenced by 19th century music. For example, a commenter points out he orchestrated Liszt (although countered by a Busoni piece), and was influenced by Sibelius and Wagner. Maybe Adams is truly a neo-traditionalist. Still, hearing Shaker Loops twenty years ago planted the seeds for my current apathy re: European classical music after Bach and before Busoni -- The Black Gondola, which I greatly admire, notwithstanding. And certainly, I never expected Schubert's music to lose its emotional power, but there you go...

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Chamber Symphony (1992). John Adams

Allan Kozinn reviews a young performers workshop at Carnegie led by John Adams, including a performance of his Chamber Symphony:

Another hint of Mr. Adams's Minimalist past made a cameo appearance in the Chamber Symphony - this time an insistent figure, in the style of Philip Glass, at the start of the finale. But the layers of dissonance and fast-changing rhythmic complexity were not of that world; in fact, there were moments when the piece had more in common with Stravinsky than with either Glass or Schoenberg, whose Chamber Symphony was, to some extent, Mr. Adams's model. The student ensemble played the piece brilliantly.

I'm still on my John Adams music sabbatical but I don't remember the start of the finale. I did attend the US premiere of the piece.

Here's a PDF of the application for the workshop (which shows up in my browser at 267% magnification, starting with the composer's eyes).

Adams on his work: Written for 15 instruments and lasting 22 minutes, the Chamber Symphony bears   a suspicious resemblance to its eponymous predecessor, the Opus 9 of Arnold Schoenberg. The choice of instruments is roughly the same as Schoenberg's, although mine includes parts for synthesizer, percussion (a trap set), trumpet and trombone.

By the way, David Toub defends Schoenberg: That said, I feel bad for Schoenberg.

Update: In attendance, Marcus Maroney: I'm surprised that John Adams' Chamber Symphony is so popular with audiences.  It's a wild, complex, dense, dissonant piece that offers little repose throughout its 20-something minutes.

and John Perkins: Although none of the pieces played rank among my favorite of Adams' work, the second movement to Road Movies did remind me of one of the reasons I like him so much. At his best, he is capable of a modern lyricism and power that, while being entirely easy to digest, also has weight and bears repeated listenings.
 

Chamber Symphony (1992). John Adams

Donald Rosenberg reviews a concert by  Franz Welser-MÖst and the Cleveland Orchestra.  Among the selections, John Adams' Chamber Symphony. Rosenberg says the minimalism is "monotonous" although the performance is "dazzling."