Unlike my exposure to Reich, I knew nothing about John Adams until I was in college. I remember the first piece I had a sample of was Harmonielehre, but I didn't associate it with John Adams until years later, after I had become very familiar with Shaker Loops and The Chairman Dances
If had to be labelled, Adams is considered a 'post-minimalist' or 'second generation minimalist', though, like any other minimalist-labelled composer, he dislikes the term. His early music (such as the above) have similar characteristics as that of Reich (the repetitive structure, the tall tonal haromnies), but I feel that his works have a different type of presence - Reich's use of the minimalist technique is an elongating of material and an attempt at merging foreground and background material together to create a sound space that is relaxing while still being rhythmically active. Adams's technique is more driven by having foreground material that pushes against the background material to create a more active rhythmic drive.
Adams's music, like Reich's, continues to evolve. His earlier works are not in the same genre as his recent Violin Concerto. While it has elements that are unmistakeably Adams, the Concerto is a departure from Adams's typical minimalist technique, especially by exploring a more pantonal spectrum.
And it's my favourite work of his. I had to analyze the second movement of the work for a class. Wow.
Some of his other works have been merely 'okay'. I'm not really into his work "Gnarly Buttons", and i've heard mixed reviews about his latest opera.
Earlier in the spring of 1999, Adams came to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra. He conducted his piece "Short Ride in a Fast Machine", and "Harmonium". He also conducted an Ives piece and a Britten piece. He's an absolutely incredible conductor. He also gave a pre-concert lecture, and it was amazing to hear him speak. He was very down to earth and talked to the audience as if he were talking to his best friend at a coffee shop.
A great review of the Violin Concerto can be found on the [Mozart Among Us] web site.
...what's fundamentally important
is that composers write the music that means something to themselves, and that they
don't try to tell other people what's right and what's wrong.
Stylistic things can come and go but
technology is here to stay... [but] I think it's very easy to get seduced down the path
of technology.
In [the US], the first problem is
that music education is so wretched. The state of California voted in 1979 to remove
music education from the public schools. So if you don't educate your own kid yourself,
there's no music... London has a big classical music audience... I mean, three times
coming into Heathrow, the guy that stamped my passport has known who I was! That makes
you feel wonderful and it would never happen in this country, never, not on your life.
...I'm basically an honest composer.
I'm doing what I want to do and I'm not doing it just to get an audience.
