John Adams and Me
- October 7, 2005
- By Michael Kaulkin
- Category Shmategory
- 0 comments
It is gradually dawning on me how lucky I am to be able to see Doctor Atomic next week. I’m usually a bit of a homebody, and almost didn’t bother planning to go, but fortunately I snapped out of it, and I’m now suitably psyched. This seems like a good time to revisit some of the Adams pieces that were such an obsession for me in the past. Since I’m assuming I’ll write something about it after I see it, I thought I’d say something now about what my frame of reference is. (Otherwise, we would have a ridiculously long post.) [See Doctor Atomic posted 10/14]
Right now, I’m listening to Nixon in China, which I spent many, many hours with a long time ago, over a period of several years. It has now been years since I’ve taken this CD off the shelf. (The big “landing-of-Airforce-One” passage was enhanced somewhat by the fact that the Blue Angels were flying over my house, causing a terrifying roar that only a real writer could describe.) Upon casual listening, I have some new reservations about the piece as theater (which I’ll get into in a later post after seeing Doctor Atomic), but I have to say I’m enjoying the sweeping melodic lines and lush harmonies as much as ever.
I discovered John Adams when I was around twenty, a very formative time, and no composer’s music played a bigger role in shaping my aesthetic than his. In the late 80′s I sang in the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, a symphonic chorus frequently used by the Philadelphia Orchestra in those days. In 1988 we undertook John Adams’ choral masterpiece Harmonium (not with the Philly Orchestra, but on our own program), and I was never the same after that. Since I was singing the piece, I had the opportunity to study the score in minute detail over a period of a few months. I found the pulsating rhythms and luscious pan-diatonic harmonies irresistable, and I learned a great deal from the piece’s very clever orchestration. (The idea of doubling violin harmonics with light crotale attacks is one that I continue to rip off to this day.)
In the course of studying Harmonium I also got to know his other pieces as of that time, including Harmonielehre, Grand Pianola Music, Shaker Loops, etc. I loved listening to his music so much that a lot of what I call “Adams Shtick” inevitably crept into my own style, and remained there for many years. On some level, it’s still there, I’m sure. It was purely an aesthetic thing. In other words, I never had the patience to pull off some of the “minimalist” aspects of his forms, but I did soak up something of his harmonic and rhythmic language. Or, maybe I had those predilections to begin with, and he just showed me how to achieve them.
Adams’s music has evolved very steadily and naturally over the years, which I admire very much. I’m pleased that he has finally been able to shake the association with minimalism, which was always beside the point, really. Amidst the very attractive pan-diatonic harmonies he favored early on, his own brand of chromaticism began to emerge as early as Harmonielehre (1984-ish, right?), and the use of it seemed to increase incrementally. It’s little more prominent in certain parts of Nixon in China, and even more so in The Death of Klinghoffer, etc.
In 1992, I returned from three years abroad, when I did not follow Adams at all. The first new piece of his I heard was Chamber Symphony, and by this time his style seemed to have changed at the cellular level — no more Adams Shtick. It wasn’t my cup of tea any more, so I gradually stopped paying attention. More recently, I’ve discovered that I do enjoy his Violin Concerto very much, as well as Na�ve and Sentimental Dances. I went to the premiere of El Ni�o, which I remember enjoying, but I found it unmemorable, except to say that the staging was a bit much. El Ni�o actually was quite generous with the old Adams Shtick, and I was grateful for that, mostly out of nostalgia. It was like running into an old friend.
Putting aside my reduced interest in his more recent pieces, which is purely a matter of personal taste and just getting on with my life, I do think John Adams truly deserves his place in American classical music life, and I’m grateful for his influence on me when I was younger. After living in San Francisco for about 6 years, I did finally get a chance to meet him a few times. The first time was about five years ago at a San Francisco Symphony rehearsal where I was lucky enough to watch him rehearse Harmonium. I had the opportunity to tell him about his role in my musical background and all that. He was very gracious and down to earth, and he seemed glad to hear it.
