«Fearful Symmetries» for orchestra (1988) Orchestre philharmonique de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon conducted by René Bosc Recorded in Montpellier between 1996-1998
When I saw the NYC Ballet perform this piece at Lincoln Center, I had tears in my eyes it was so overwhelmingly beautiful. The ballet was choreographed by Peter Martin.
I *immediately* hunted down and purchased a CD of this amazing recording. Thank you so much for posting it. Fearful Symmetries has always made me think of a giant clockwork machine threatening to go haywire but just about staying together to the end. This recording’s so wonderfully detailed - the infernal machine has hundreds and hundreds more moving parts I’ve never heard before!
"Fearful symmetries" ought to bring this to mind: Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright, In the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetries?
It's the same composition of orchestra he used for "The Chairman Dances," which is a suite from "Nixon in China"--he said he fell so much in love with that grouping of instruments he wanted to keep writing for it even after he had finished with "Nixon" and "The Chairman dances." Throughout you often keep hearing the chugging rhythm associated through "Nixon" with Chairman Mao.
When I was first really listening to John Adams, which was just a few years ago, I happened to hear a live radio interview. It was a good interview but I remember thinking, "Hmm, this guy seems a bit arrogant". Well the more I heard his music over the next several months, I remember thinking, "Hmm, this guy's a total, for real, genius!" LOL. So many other composers seem hit & miss (which is just Fine. I couldn't compose 3 measures) but John Adams is consistently brilliant.
I agree with you, his music is simply unique, because he truly can be called the founder of American minimalism, and this has long been recognized by everyone in music. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, for us every composer is a new book, it has to be read and re-read
John Adams' breakthrough piece Phrygian Gates came almost twenty years after La Monte Young kicked off the American minimalist scene in downtown New York in the early 60's with his 'Compositions 1960.' If anyone is the father of American minimalist music, its him. However, that being said, I would agree that recent minimalist music can be attributed to Adams continuous exploration into the genre and he has greatly improved on what Glass, Reich and Young did back in the early and late 60's so thanks for the upload!
Sometimes we have to part the genius from the man. This is true about Wagner, who was an arrogant, egoistic and ungrateful person and an antisemite - and also a plagiarist - and nevertheless, he was definitely a genius. I don't know if John Adams is arrogant, but in my opinion, what he did with "The death of Leon Klinghoffer" is a shame because he did put the terrorists and their victims on an equal footing; so I cannot like the man, but I do like and appreciate the composer.
In his book, Hallelujah Junction, Adams compared himself to Brahms: He didn't originate all that much, but he combined and reconciled the contributions of others, and summed up his era. He's also said that while he started out as a by-the-book Minimalist, he later came to view Minimalism more as a road back to the tonal symphonic tradition, as a way to create new music that built on the past, but had a new aesthetic, sounded new, and didn't just reiterate history.
yeah it's funny, he may come off as arrogant precisely because he places so much focus on how he relates to the larger continuum of classical composers. In his book you can tell he is a real chip on his shoulder about his more Avant-garde contemporaries (but is simultaneously self-conscious about it, which pushed him to more adventurous music in the early 90s), as well as a real desire to be thought of as the greatest American composer (he goes on at some length about the flaws of Ives and Copland). On the other hand, it may be exactly because he places so much consideration on this kind of stuff, that he's held him self to such a high standard, and consistently put that works that are both sophisticated and populist. He has built quite the career, though I still like Ives, Copland, and Reich more (oops!).
"a little bit jazzy, no?" Yes. In fact it reminds me of an outside jazz piece I played spontaneously, on tape, with a drummer buddy and sax player years ago. Definite swing-jazz feeling. That in itself would set this piece apart from most "classical" composers who typically eschew consistent and prolonged playing of the beat. I really enjoy this style of modern music.
This music conjures up steam locomotives pulling long heavy trains at speed. I know it's a hackneyed anology. It works so well against paced locomotives. When Union Pacific finally get 4041 back in steam, John Adams would do a lot worse than composing music to set the spectacle off.
