4/17/20

 

John Adams (1947- )

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I have had an affinity for minimalist composers for quite some time since I started composing. After being introduced to the works of John Adams, he quickly became one of favorites. Adams is a prolific American composer who has won 5 Grammy Awards as well as a Pulitzer Prize for Music for his 2002 piece which was a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, On the Transmigration of Souls (which is my favorite piece by him, rivaled perhaps only by today’s piece, Short Ride in a Fast Machine). His style is better described by the term post-minimalism (rather than pure minimalism), utilizing minimalist techniques in faster paced, more dramatic ways. In addition to numerous orchestral works, Adams has also composed several operas, including Nixon in China (1987), The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), and Doctor Atomic (2005). If you have access to the Metropolitan Opera On Demand, I would highly recommend checking out performances of those works - all three of those which I have mentioned are based around major events in US history and show John Adam’s masterful writing for orchestra and voices. No matter which pieces of Adam’s that you decide to look into, you will be met with a brilliant picture of how minimalist composers before him gave way to a very intriguing, mathematical, and digestible style of composition that continues to develop in contemporary music today.

In listening to the music of John Adams, it should become clear how the term minimalism encompasses a large mass of musical literature (and not just music like Arvo Pärt’s, which was the most recent post in which I discussed minimalism). The minimalist music written by Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams is, generally speaking, very rhythmically driven. Rhythmic drive serves as the foundation for texture, the guiding principal of this style which abandons the normal harmonic speed of classical music. This technique aids in composers’ abilities to draw the listener’s attention to the smallest detail - a slight change in rhythm, a shift in harmony, or maybe the introduction of a new instrument. In a sense, minimalist music can take the musical information of a single phrase in a Romantic era sonata and expand it into a 30-minute work, delicately articulating every harmonic inflection and textural change. To further articulate this point consider this analogy: if a symphony written by Ludwig van Beethoven is the depiction of a rural countryside, then an orchestral work written by a minimalist composer would be a depiction (which could even be on the same size canvas) of a single blade of grass, yet still equally as articulate.

This brings me to the style of post-minimalism and today’s piece. Short Ride in a Fast Machine is almost certainly the most aptly named piece which I have selected to talk about in a blog post. The orchestral fanfare is only 4-5 minutes long, but don’t let its brevity deceive you into thinking that the work isn’t challenging for the orchestra. Fun, yes, but certainly not easy. The piece begins with a brisk tempo and perhaps the best wood block soli known to the orchestral repertoire. From there, the keyboards and clarinets enter to establish the main tonal center of the piece, followed only a few beats later by crisp notes from the trumpets. From there, more and more instruments get added to the texture, thickening the orchestration to allow the piece to naturally build with time. In this piece, seconds are the difference between complications of rhythm (and at times, also harmony), and that is why it has to be considered post-minimalist. So much textural and rhythmic variation forces the listener to exist on an inflatable tube being pulled by a speedboat rather than swimming gently with the current (which would pure minimalism). This complexity is part of the fun of the piece - the high brass on triplet patterns (starting about a minute in) or the low winds and strings on duple patterns (starting just under two minutes in) excites the listener and draws their attention away from the slow harmonic development that is occurring in the high winds and strings. Which brings me right back to why I claimed that this piece was so aptly named: not only does it move through minimalist techniques at a brisk pace, it feels like it too! Metric modulations and rhythmic mutations whizzing by would normally occur in a minimalist piece at a digestible pace, but here we are being pulled along in some fast roller coaster that John Adams has concocted for us. The piece moves forward relentlessly, but also with a clear goal in sight, and in the last minute, Adams finally rewards us with a clear melody. Chaos opens up to reveal the trumpets soaring above the orchestra (with the horns in counterpoint) for a time before the orchestra cuts out entirely to reveal the brass referencing the beginning and the entire orchestra coming back in on one final glorious N - IV/N - I cadence.

As a brass player, I do have a bone to pick with John Adams (because as I’m sure many people would agree, the brass parts hurt my mouth just looking at them), but I also must forgive him in light of how fun the piece is to listen to. Short Ride in a Fast Machine is the antithesis of On the Transmigration of Souls, but both pieces show Adam’s complete understanding and mastery of not just minimalism, but also conventional harmony and the rich history of music in the western canon. His music is admirable for how it combines style and accessibility in a way that expands upon the composers before him and points to a new direction of music. John Adams remains one of the most influential living composers to contemporary music, and also to my own recent years as a composer myself - I hope to find new ways of marrying minimalism with other styles of music in my own writing. So, whether or not Adam’s music appeals to you, I encourage you to consider how unique his musical voice is. With that, my final piece of advice for this piece is to hold on to something!

Carlos MeyersComment