John Adams: The Dharma at Big Sur/My Father Knew Charles Ives
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Free Music Notes for John Adams: The Dharma at Big Sur/My Father Knew Charles Ives
Free Music Review: New sound to enjoy
Hit: 4 Stars
This John Adams CD is a great addition to my expanded 20th century collection. I am an avid listener of late 19th century and early 20th century and only occassionally move into the middle and latter part of the 20th. John Adams stretches my listening and brings a fresh perspective. I particularly enjoyed the Dharma at Big Sur portions. This recording is interesting music performed and recorded with great sonority and beauty.Free Music Review: Breakfast cereal vs. real accomplishment
Hit: 3 Stars
I don't think John Adams should be canonized so early. The idiom he's chosen to write in, tonal minimalism, has now survived long enough to show up early critics who accused it of repetitiveness, sterility, and kitsch. But the shadows of banality linger far too often over Adams and Glass, the most popular minimalists commercially speaking. I have no allegiance to atonality or the advanced modernism of, say, Ligeti and Lutoslawski, but on the other hand, I don't want chewable breakfast cereal that goes down easy and leaves a few minutes of sugqary aftertaste.
To my ears, the two works here are quite different in quality. Adams's concerto for electric violin, Dharma at Big Sur, sounds like musical wallpaper, its easy-to-swallow mellowness bordering on junk. My Father Knew Charles Ives, however, is an honest attempt to assimilate Ives, himself an expert in collage, into an updated collage. What's the point of a collage of a collage? On the surface it's a silly enterprise, a bit like cutting a Cubist painting up into small squares. But Adams displays great ingenuity throughout, and I'd say that he's hitting a note somewhat higher than John Corigliano, for example, with some prospects that this coloful, varied work will not date as badly as Corigliano's has. The full resources of a large orchestra are used, and the patchwork includes many Ivesian elements--marches, patriotic songs, mysterious faraway atmospherics--that still work in this reworking. Certainly there's no doubt that Adams has matured into a master of what he wants to accomplish, and if my ears tell me that one piece is piffle while the other is memorable, future audiences and critics will be the judge.
Free Music Review: A mixed bag
Hit: 3 Stars
I found this set a mixed bag. The first work - "The Dharma at Big Sur" - is a bit disappointing save for the massive ending, which is admittedly mind-blowing. The opening movement is a wash, a verrrrry long recitative-like statement for the soloist over some interesting harmonies, but all seeming almost like a too-long introduction to the second movement.
"My Father Knew Charles Ives", on the other hand, is quite a great piece. Attempts in American music have been made to be "like Ives" - incorporating twisted quotes of popular song, hymns, etc. at varying tempos and in varying keys - with extremely varying success. Most fail - Adams here reigns supreme. I like the fact that the piece brings back some of the insanity of the "Chamber Symphony", includes overwhelming climactic moments like "Naive and Sentimental Music" or the Violin Concerto, but also breaks new ground. This is clearly post-post-minimalist music from Adams and is exciting to hear.
The performances and recorded sound are universally excellent, with wide dynamic range and excellent clarity throughout the orchestra in both works. The soloist in Dharma is tastefully spotlit.
One drawback is that 2 CDs for these two pieces without some other filler material is a waste. We could certainly have used new recordings of some older (or even recent) Adams work to set these two in relief.