MUSIC OF JOHN ADAMS.
The Music of John Adams.
John Adams is widely regarded as one of the most exciting and interesting composers alive today. It is useful for anyone when first listening to his music to have some kind of elementary guide, a few pointers, to the features and motifs they might expect to hear and which his music contains.
Overwhelmingly it is inventive, original and dazzling in so many respects. It is characterised by pulsating rhythms, often hypnotic and deeply insistent, sometimes explosive and frenetic in their intensity. Such features may be found interspliced between or alternating with slower, quieter, cosmic and more meditative passages quite reminiscent of Mahler or Debussy. These can be quite sombre passages with colourful, atonal and chromatic chords reminiscent of Schoenberg and Messiaen.
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
One of his early compositions, Shaker Loops, shows that he discovered at an early stage in his musical journey how insistent rhythms, building up to a crescendo in speed and volume, or just buzzing quietly away in the background, can be successfully used to generate emotional tension and expectation in a piece of music. For some, his work undoubtedly reflects his native America in all its richness, diversity, speed and glamour: it is lively, well paced, energetic and bold as well as engaging.
His works greatly repay closer listening, whereupon they unveil themselves as dense and complex landscapes or collages of sound, riddled with many tones and colours, harmonies that seem to range over and insatiably explore every human feeling and aspiration. They seem resonant with hidden meanings and to touch and elicit unknown emotions. Yet, even with repeated listening and enjoyment, the exact meaning, inspiration, themes or symbolism nested in his music can remain stubbornly elusive. This does not matter for me as I like his music very much, but for some it might detract from their enjoyment. It might be viewed as way too eclectic and a meaningless mish-mash of musical styles. In this he resembles Charles Ives. Some of his work does seem material randomly chucked together into a musical patchwork; musical landscapes lacking any discernible binding theme. To me, these landscapes are exciting and exhilarating, so this problem does not arise, but I can see why it might seem that way to others.
The fast rhythmical sections of his works frequently reach frenetic, frenzied climaxes of explosive emotional force. Tension climbs, fades, returns, and then builds again before convulsing in a massive outpouring of percussion, brass and woodwind; he seems especially fond of horn, flute and trumpets. Such fast passages frequently alternate with oceanic whirlpools of celestial calm, swirling Debussyesque passages that lead into another fast section of tension-building contrapuntal rhythms accelerating again into another frenzied climax. These are certainly two of the dominant features of his prolific orchestral output: pounding rhythms, slow interstellar reflective passages both often peppered with dainty flourishes for flute and piccolo. These latter are easy to miss but are a real treat. They appear unexpectedly and resemble fluttering birdsong-like cadences either for flute and piccolo, or sometimes both. They delicately decorate the loud pounding of percussion and brass.
When it comes to instrumentation, certain key points about Adams' music do stand out quite clearly, even on first listening. He uses unusual instruments like glockenspiel and xylophone, as well as harp and several minor percussion instruments. These all establish unusual sounds in the background of his music. He also uses soaring trumpets to splendid effect, vaguely reminiscent of Renaissance music. Much of his music is dominated not by strings, perhaps surprisingly, but by woodwind and brass. He especially enjoys employing a most luminous and enticing blend of percussion, woodwind and brass and especially muted French horn, piccolo and trumpets, which creates a subtly dampened, but emblazoning effect in many of his pieces. Such remarkable blends of sound usually make an appearance somewhere in most of his compositions.
Most of his orchestral genius undoubtedly goes to the woodwind, brass and percussion, which is hardly surprising when you consider that he originally trained as a clarinettist. The strings make very minor appearances except in the slow, meditative Debussyesque sections. Even when the strings do make an appearance they are ever chased by and gilded with the dancing, fluttering and enchanting highlights of piccolo and flute, usually as swift, random-sounding arpeggiated cadences. His compositional modus operandi seems to be to create an attractive and exciting musical world from the elements described, a musical world filled with pounding rhythms and calm celestial motifs as well as heavy use of brass, woodwind and percussion. That just sums him up very accurately.
Finally, the popularity of his music probably stems from its openness, its excitement, the dynamic way it connects with the listener in a very direct fashion and the way he somehow uses chromatic material but yet makes it exciting and very rhythmical. These give it a fizz and energy that much other minimalist and chromatic music lacks. Rarely does he dip down into sombre or lugubrious obscure stuff that puts many listeners off. His music is therefore immediate, fresh and accessible to all listeners. It is approachable and transparent music.
Nixon in China.