Adams and Glass
Minimalism Jukebox
Adams and Glass
John Adams, the chief curator of the “Minimalism Jukebox” concerts at the LA Phil during March, was in town over the weekend to conduct his “Harmonielehre” and excerpts from Philip Glass’s opera “Akhnaten”. The LA Master Chorale performed with the orchestra. My God the Master Chorale sounded great. Grant Gershon, their director, had thoroughly prepared them. Sadly, the opera excerpts seemed like a waste of outstanding resources. The piece sounded like it could work as a film track to Stargate. (I love that movie!) but it didn’t hold much interest as concert performance of opera music. That’s a problematic proposition anyway, but it can work. Take the LA Phil concert performances of Tristan last year.
But the Glass - how many times can you hear two chords moving by third relations before you want to crawl out of your skin? Inside my head I was pleading, OK, I get it, give me a surprise or two. There was a counter-tenor solo that was the most successful piece of the excerpts, sung beautifully by Daniel Bubeck (Akhnaten) and played with finesse. But the rest was either silly or self-conscious or both. Yet the Master Chorale sounded great singing it and the orchestra played well. It just didn’t add up to much.
I like Glass’s film scores to “Koyaanisqatsi”, “Kundun”, “The Thin Blue Line” and “The Hours”. Akhenaton is dull.
Glass has a great quote in the program notes. He says, “I sometimes say that, for a composer, the first thing to do is to find your voice and the second is to get rid of it. Mostly I try to get rid of it.”
Yet, as substantial as this quote is, I just couldn’t buy into it after hearing “Akhnaten”. It sounds like so many other Glass pieces. He is repeating formulaic musical elements. The piece hangs on to tired stylistic mannerisms associated with his established ‘voice’.
The Glass excerpts came off the worse next to the Adams. The pairing of them showed just how pallid the material of the Glass is compared with the material of Harmonielehre. The latter has more reach and depth, colorful use of the orchestra, a sense of big form, finer detail.
I realize that Glass is writing theatrical music and that this is music meant for the stage. I appreciate that there is a difference between theatrical and dramatic music. But sadly Glass’s music fell short on both counts.
In his program note to Harmonielehre, Adams refers to his attempt to wed minimalism with late Romanticism as a “conceit that could only be attempted once”. That comment distances him from this “strange work” (his quote) since he feels the need to make a mild apology for its sentiments and ambition. He also places it within a post-modern contextual reaction to Schoenberg et al but without any self-conscious irony (as for example we hear in Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles for example, though Adams doesn’t mention that work).
I remember when I first heard the work many years ago I did not like it because of its non-purist minimalist aesthetic and its obvious Mahler/Sibelius connections. Now I like it for those reasons. But at the concert I was nagged by a persistent thought as I was listening. The piece invited me to reflect on those great works to which it owes so much, Mahler 10, Sibelius 4 for example. It was a kind of lens through which I could hear those works in a contemporary context, but Adam’s piece simply didn’t have the direct punch that those works have. It has a kind of indirect, slightly diluted punch, and as much as it tries to be comfortable with fin de siecle gesture and harmony, it never quite transcends. That’s what was nagging me – as a work it establishes its referential sources, shares in their symphonic glory, and develops itself with craft and skill. But it doesn’t transcend. It doesn’t propel itself into a self-sustained orbit as promised by the dream that was behind those opening chords of the piece.
It is certainly an ambitious, smart and expressive piece. He goes for the bold gesture, the long line, the big climax. I am a huge fan of Adams and his music. But this particular piece is - in the end - like a big beautiful breath of life support into a patient on the table rather than a birth of something new and original.
Adams and Glass
John Adams, the chief curator of the “Minimalism Jukebox” concerts at the LA Phil during March, was in town over the weekend to conduct his “Harmonielehre” and excerpts from Philip Glass’s opera “Akhnaten”. The LA Master Chorale performed with the orchestra. My God the Master Chorale sounded great. Grant Gershon, their director, had thoroughly prepared them. Sadly, the opera excerpts seemed like a waste of outstanding resources. The piece sounded like it could work as a film track to Stargate. (I love that movie!) but it didn’t hold much interest as concert performance of opera music. That’s a problematic proposition anyway, but it can work. Take the LA Phil concert performances of Tristan last year.
But the Glass - how many times can you hear two chords moving by third relations before you want to crawl out of your skin? Inside my head I was pleading, OK, I get it, give me a surprise or two. There was a counter-tenor solo that was the most successful piece of the excerpts, sung beautifully by Daniel Bubeck (Akhnaten) and played with finesse. But the rest was either silly or self-conscious or both. Yet the Master Chorale sounded great singing it and the orchestra played well. It just didn’t add up to much.
I like Glass’s film scores to “Koyaanisqatsi”, “Kundun”, “The Thin Blue Line” and “The Hours”. Akhenaton is dull.
Glass has a great quote in the program notes. He says, “I sometimes say that, for a composer, the first thing to do is to find your voice and the second is to get rid of it. Mostly I try to get rid of it.”
Yet, as substantial as this quote is, I just couldn’t buy into it after hearing “Akhnaten”. It sounds like so many other Glass pieces. He is repeating formulaic musical elements. The piece hangs on to tired stylistic mannerisms associated with his established ‘voice’.
The Glass excerpts came off the worse next to the Adams. The pairing of them showed just how pallid the material of the Glass is compared with the material of Harmonielehre. The latter has more reach and depth, colorful use of the orchestra, a sense of big form, finer detail.
I realize that Glass is writing theatrical music and that this is music meant for the stage. I appreciate that there is a difference between theatrical and dramatic music. But sadly Glass’s music fell short on both counts.
In his program note to Harmonielehre, Adams refers to his attempt to wed minimalism with late Romanticism as a “conceit that could only be attempted once”. That comment distances him from this “strange work” (his quote) since he feels the need to make a mild apology for its sentiments and ambition. He also places it within a post-modern contextual reaction to Schoenberg et al but without any self-conscious irony (as for example we hear in Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles for example, though Adams doesn’t mention that work).
I remember when I first heard the work many years ago I did not like it because of its non-purist minimalist aesthetic and its obvious Mahler/Sibelius connections. Now I like it for those reasons. But at the concert I was nagged by a persistent thought as I was listening. The piece invited me to reflect on those great works to which it owes so much, Mahler 10, Sibelius 4 for example. It was a kind of lens through which I could hear those works in a contemporary context, but Adam’s piece simply didn’t have the direct punch that those works have. It has a kind of indirect, slightly diluted punch, and as much as it tries to be comfortable with fin de siecle gesture and harmony, it never quite transcends. That’s what was nagging me – as a work it establishes its referential sources, shares in their symphonic glory, and develops itself with craft and skill. But it doesn’t transcend. It doesn’t propel itself into a self-sustained orbit as promised by the dream that was behind those opening chords of the piece.
It is certainly an ambitious, smart and expressive piece. He goes for the bold gesture, the long line, the big climax. I am a huge fan of Adams and his music. But this particular piece is - in the end - like a big beautiful breath of life support into a patient on the table rather than a birth of something new and original.
posted by Martin at 7:28 PM
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