Adams: Harmonium

Day 317

John Adams: Harmonium

BBC National orchestra and chorus of Wales

Grant Llewellyn 

I’ve very little experience of Minimalist music. I’ve heard a few odd snippets here and there and did once play in a performance of the Philip Glass violin concerto but I’ve never been particularly interested in the whole minimalist ethos and haven’t really had any inclination to explore it. So I didn’t approach this large scale choral work by John Adams with any particularly enthusiasm.

Rather to my surprised I really enjoyed it. These is something quite hypnotic in the way that Adams uses repetitive figures to build up the texture and to create waves of sound. The choral writing is highly effective and builds up to some impressive climaxes. It must be very hard to sing this sort of music and to keep you place when bar after bar is exactly the same. Adams is very practical about this, indicating at several points where the conductor is required to give specific indications to the choir to ensure that they are all in the same place.

Orchestral this must be extremely tedious to play (I certainly found the constant repetition in the Glass concerto frustrating and that is quite restrained compared to this piece) and I don’t know how players retain their concentration. Perhaps it is all done through adrenaline and the sense of being part of those whole wound world.  I can imagine, however, that in the concert hall the waves of sound can be very exciting. 

The second of the three movement is much less exuberant than the outer movements though it is still based on reputation of small figures.  I found it really rather expressive and lyrical and it formed a good contrast with what came before and after it. 

I was at one time tempted to think that there was no real musical skill in minimalist music and that it almost wrote itself. This piece certainly was not like that. There was a real musical mind here at work with complete command of the material and a sense of how to shape long paragraphs of music. It still would not be my preferred choice of listening but I ended up with much more respect for Adams than I anticipated when I selected this for today’s listening.