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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is a repackaging and rerelease at a bargain price of a highly enjoyable disc originally released in 1994. The music is played with enthusiam and feeling by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle.
Anyone who appreciates the more creative side of minimalism, and late romantic/early twentieth music should like this.
In Harmonielehre Adams opens his pulsating minimalist style up to the insights of late romantic music, achieving by the third (final)movement a beguiling luminous synthesis. This piece has a good range of expression and tempo and is a fine well rounded work.
I didn't find the Chairman dances to be up to the same standard: Adams' trademark PULSE is sustained throughout and it does get a bit wearing.
The disc has a great conclusion in the fanfare 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine', which begins optimistically before intimations of impending disaster and a devil may care finale. Such a pity that live performances in the U.K have repeatedly been cancelled as they have ended up coming just after disasters which would make the title appear too bad taste. Hear it Here!
Anyone who appreciates the more creative side of minimalism, and late romantic/early twentieth music should like this.
In Harmonielehre Adams opens his pulsating minimalist style up to the insights of late romantic music, achieving by the third (final)movement a beguiling luminous synthesis. This piece has a good range of expression and tempo and is a fine well rounded work.
I didn't find the Chairman dances to be up to the same standard: Adams' trademark PULSE is sustained throughout and it does get a bit wearing.
The disc has a great conclusion in the fanfare 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine', which begins optimistically before intimations of impending disaster and a devil may care finale. Such a pity that live performances in the U.K have repeatedly been cancelled as they have ended up coming just after disasters which would make the title appear too bad taste. Hear it Here!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This recording was a one of Simon Rattle's great successes during his CBSO years - there were plenty others of course. The programme is similar to Edo de Waart's Nonesuch recording, sharing the two fanfares and "The Chairman Dances". There is ample reason to have both because the other works mark both of these recordings out. The Edo de Waart recording has the luminous, vibrant and all too rarely performed "Common Tones in Simple Time" whilst the Rattle has "Harmonielehre". Both performances lead the competition and both works are major creations.
"Harmonielehre" takes its title from a book by Arnold Schoenberg and reflects its late romantic background. John Adams's relationship to the music and ideas of Shoenberg are quite enigmatic - his own Chamber Symphony quotes explicitly from Schoenberg's own First Chamber Symphony and adds rhythmic bite and cartoon antics.
The pounding opening of "Harmonielehre" is particularly exciting and more "early Stravinsky meets minimalism" but after a few minutes the music melts into yearning romantic music before returning to the dynamism of its opening. The slow movement is almost excusively late romantic in language with an anguished climax and Mahlerian sigh fromt he high strings. The finale starts with a luminous innocence but key tensions build up to a huge climax that resolves the work in pounding and exultant fashion. This tension between keys is reminiscent of the latter stages in finale of Nielsen's 5th Symphony and every bit as satisfying.
"The Chairman Dances" is more extrovert in this setting than in its original operatic source "Nixon in China". Here it is a big orchestral dance showpiece with glitz and schmaltz plus a big nod to Ravel. When the music is at its most animated there is a background syncopation that sounds like it has been lifted from Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements (there the similarity between the two ends). Overall it is indeed repetitive and could work better with a few minutes knocked off.
The two fnafares contrast each other with "Trombana Lontana" softly pulsing with enigmatic string harmonies and distant trumpets a giving a slightly disturbing mood. "A Short Ride in a Fast Machines" provides an intentionally hectoring pulse and the orchestra hurtling and swaying from side to side. It sounds like a first try out for ideas that appear in his larger scale "Fearful Symmetries" where an insistent beat is accompanied by harmonies that don't modulate as gently as in most minimalist music - like a longer ride, at full throttle in a rickety Lada with startling gear changes. It's a shame there wasn't room here for that work.
Even so, there are no weak performances and Harmonielehre makes it worth the price alone. EMI have, indeed reissued this at a budget price so, if you're interested this is a great place to get to know John Adams's most scintillating work. Highly recommended.
"Harmonielehre" takes its title from a book by Arnold Schoenberg and reflects its late romantic background. John Adams's relationship to the music and ideas of Shoenberg are quite enigmatic - his own Chamber Symphony quotes explicitly from Schoenberg's own First Chamber Symphony and adds rhythmic bite and cartoon antics.
The pounding opening of "Harmonielehre" is particularly exciting and more "early Stravinsky meets minimalism" but after a few minutes the music melts into yearning romantic music before returning to the dynamism of its opening. The slow movement is almost excusively late romantic in language with an anguished climax and Mahlerian sigh fromt he high strings. The finale starts with a luminous innocence but key tensions build up to a huge climax that resolves the work in pounding and exultant fashion. This tension between keys is reminiscent of the latter stages in finale of Nielsen's 5th Symphony and every bit as satisfying.
"The Chairman Dances" is more extrovert in this setting than in its original operatic source "Nixon in China". Here it is a big orchestral dance showpiece with glitz and schmaltz plus a big nod to Ravel. When the music is at its most animated there is a background syncopation that sounds like it has been lifted from Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements (there the similarity between the two ends). Overall it is indeed repetitive and could work better with a few minutes knocked off.
The two fnafares contrast each other with "Trombana Lontana" softly pulsing with enigmatic string harmonies and distant trumpets a giving a slightly disturbing mood. "A Short Ride in a Fast Machines" provides an intentionally hectoring pulse and the orchestra hurtling and swaying from side to side. It sounds like a first try out for ideas that appear in his larger scale "Fearful Symmetries" where an insistent beat is accompanied by harmonies that don't modulate as gently as in most minimalist music - like a longer ride, at full throttle in a rickety Lada with startling gear changes. It's a shame there wasn't room here for that work.
Even so, there are no weak performances and Harmonielehre makes it worth the price alone. EMI have, indeed reissued this at a budget price so, if you're interested this is a great place to get to know John Adams's most scintillating work. Highly recommended.
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