![]() ![]() Providing electricity as an alternative to fossil fuel, turning in perpetual motion as the wheels on the limousines turned, propelling the music forward in time. Stately, gathering the moisture of coastal fog, home to myriad creatures, threatened by logging and fire. The images embedded in this performance explore that California dream in landscapes of both beauty and peril. The work itself was inspired by a dream of the composer’s in which, while driving on a California highway, two huge black limousines morph into grand pianos. Grand Pianola Music, at the time of its premiere, was a celebration of tonality that dared to turn its back on the dry and brittle atonality of the academic music world. ![]() Don’t be surprised if you’re humming that “gaudy tune” long after it’s over. The other way is to give in to the spirit of fun in which it was clearly written. The first is as a witness to one of the great crescendo creators of our time Adams has a remarkable knack for building tension over a long span, using every trick in his playbook. There are, at minimum, two ways to enjoy this piece. ![]() When Adams goes on to describe the final section as a “bombastic finale…with its flag-waving, gaudy tune rocking back and forth between the pianos amid ever-increasing cascades of B-flat major arpeggios,” he is not kidding. There are officially only two movements, but the first one has both a fast and a slow section, so in essence there are three movements altogether. Beethoven and Rachmaninoff soak in the same warm bath with Liberace, Wagner, the Supremes, Charles Ives, and John Philip Sousa.” This is how composer John Adams describes his Grand Pianola Music, and that goes a long way to describing this extravagant, tonal work, especially its over-the-top final movement. “The piece could only have been conceived by someone who had grown up surrounded by the detritus of mid-20th century recorded music. ![]()
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