John Luther Adams: Everything That Rises

Albumbeschreibung

There is no connection between the John Luther Adams discussed here, born in 1953, and the famous minimalist composer John Coolidge Adams, born in 1947. Presented here is John Luther Adams’ fourth string quartet Everything that Rises; for the record, the composer received the very prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2014 – a prize previously awarded to Copland, Ives, Hanson, Thompson, Menotti, Barber, Carter, Crumb, Rorem, Corigliano, Gould and many others. He himself describes his music style as ”profoundly influenced by the natural world. By listening deeply to the subtle resonances of the northern soundscape, I try to explore the territory of 'sonic geography', that region between place and culture, between environment and imagination.": a worthy programme, no doubt, and it’s true that listening to his Quartet conveys an impression of large open spaces, and the continuous use of intervals from the natural scale – i.e. notes as they are created by the natural harmonic resonance of sounding bodies, generating intervals rather removed from what we are used to with the well-tempered scale – successfully erases any reference to even the most avant-garde classical harmony. Furthermore, the piece plays in one go totaling about one hour rather than being split into tracks, which the partition doesn’t really allow, but a savvy label would have found a way around it, if only at arbitrary spots in the most strategic moments! Because such moments are numerous! The listener has therefore no choice but to listen from end to end and let themselves be hypnotised. © SM/Qobuz