1. Become Desert	40:23

Seattle Symphony
Ludovic Morlot - conductor

John Luther Adams writes music that lacks any trace of human feeling. It is “process” music–cold, implacable, but often very beautiful in its way, as here. Become Ocean won a Pulitzer Prize, an award that debased itself significantly in recognizing John (not Luther) Adams’ vulgar, incoherent, opportunistic 9/11 tribute On the Transmigration of Souls. So the prize doesn’t mean much anymore, at least in music. The present work also has a message, evidently. As the composer puts it, “Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. Today, as the polar ice melts and sea level rises, we humans face the prospect that we may once again, quite literally, become ocean.”

Let me say straight out: there is nothing that I hate more than being preached at, especially by artists. Few groups are less qualified, as I trust the above silliness attests, and since untexted music is utterly incapable of expressing an idea as abstract as the consequences of global warming, never mind “become ocean”, Adams’ little homily only distracts the attention from what his music does in fact do, and do well. Become Ocean consists of 40 minutes of long, slow crescendos. The orchestra is divided into three parts (color coded à la Scriabin in live performance), each moving at its own pace, but you can’t really hear it that way because the basic slowness and uniformity of rhythm vitiates any sense of independent activity.

Harps and pianos embroider big, slow, dense chords as they approach and recede. There are several points at which dynamics and orchestral layers coincide to produce climaxes. The biggest of these occurs about five minutes before the end, revealing that try as he might, Adams has not been able to eliminate all trace of dramatic tension from his music. Impersonal it may be; random it most certainly is not. So this is what you have: an essay in harmony (sometimes consonant, sometimes dissonant), texture, and dynamics. It does not sound to me especially “watery”. It could just as easily be outer space, a desert, or any large, empty, undulating landscape. Eliminate the extra-musical subtext and take the piece on its own terms and the result is a sonic sculpture that is quite captivating and very easy to listen to.

The packaging and presentation are atrocious, so bad that they can’t go unmentioned. You actually get two discs, one a straight performance of the work, the other a DVD containing the work plus a bunch of still shots of water and ocean. It’s kind of like a video aquarium without the fish, and about as interesting. It cheapens the musical experience to a degree that you have to see to believe, which is perhaps why there’s not a word about it anywhere on the flimsy cardboard slipcase. The accompanying booklet contains nought but the personnel list of the Seattle Symphony. That’s it. Not a word about the composer, the work, or anything else of interest or relevance. It’s one thing to write a piece of music that is cold and monolithic, but quite another to treat the consumer with similar indifference.

The pretentiousness of the whole enterprise really is offensive–so typical of all that’s wrong with the performing arts musico-industrial complex today, with its smug self-regard purchased at the taxpayer’s expense. Surely the composer deserves better, never mind the excellent and hard-working musicians of the Seattle Symphony under the capable baton of Ludovic Morlot. In sum, I can recommend the music wholeheartedly, even if everything else about this irritating production makes me want to let these two discs Become Coasters. ---David Hurwitz, classicstoday.com

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 	Lines Made By Walking (2019) 	
1 	I - Up The Mountain 	8:01
2 	II - Along The Ridges 	10:10
3 	III - Down The Mountain 	12:17
	untouched (2016) 	
4 	I - Rising 	8:03
5 	II - Crossing 	8:14
6 	III - Falling 	8:15

The JACK Quartet:
Cello – Jay Campbell 
Viola – John Pickford
Violin – Austin Wulliman, Christopher Otto 

Composer John Luther Adams writes music of environmental inspiration, often of quite a direct sort. One might wonder how it translates to the medium of the string quartet, often thought of as abstract, but the format focuses the mind on the slightly shifting phases and intervals that are the meat of Adams' minimalist style. The first work here, Lines Made by Walking, is explicitly programmatic: it depicts scenes from a hike and thus consists of (musical) lines made by walking. It is, however, as spare in its mode of expression as any other minimalist composition, with falling musical figures in all three movements that flatten out a bit as the hiker reaches a ridgeline in the middle movement. The second work, untouched, has the more abstract movement titles "Rising," "Crossing," and "Falling"; the work explores open string sonorities and harmonics. In its slow evolutions, it is of a piece with Lines Made by Walking, and the listener without guidance might not guess which piece had a specific nature program. The JACK Quartet conveys the monumental quality of Adams' music well, and listeners who enjoy the string quartets of Philip Glass will likely take naturally to this pair. ---James Manheim, AllMusic Review

Adams writes about "Lines": “I’ve always been a walker. For much of my life I walked the mountains and tundra of Alaska. More recently it’s been the Mexican desert, the altiplano, quebradas, and mountain ridges of Chile, and the hills and canyons of Montana. Making my way across these landscapes at three miles an hour, I began to imagine music coming directly out of the contours of the land."

The composer writes about "untouched": “I stood on the tundra, holding a small Aeolian harp on top of my head, dancing with the wind, turning like a weathervane. Music seemed to flow out of the sky—across the strings, down through my body, and into the earth. From that beginning, I’ve discovered a broad harmonic and melodic palette derived from superimposing the harmonic series on itself at different intervals". ---discogs.com

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The Wind In High Places 
1 	Above Sunset Pass 	7:25
2 	Maclaren Sunset 	4:56
3 	Looking Toward Hope 	6:11

Canticles Of The Sky 
4 	Sky With Four Suns 	4:24
5 	Sky With Four Moons 	4:24
6 	Sky With Nameless Colors 	4:26
7 	Sky With Endless Stars 	4:32

8 	Dream Of The Canyon Wren 	7:41

The Northwestern Cello Ensemble (tracks: 4 to 7)
The JACK Quartet (tracks: 1 to 3, 8) 
Hans Jørgen Jensen - conductor (tracks: 4 to 7) 

The Wind in High Places: "I’ve long been enamored with the ethereal tones of Aeolian harps—instruments that draw their music directly from the wind. The Wind in High Places treats the string quartet as a large, sixteen-stringed harp. All the sounds in the piece are produced as natural harmonics or on open strings. Over the course of almost twenty minutes, the fingers of the musicians never touch the fingerboards of the instruments. If I could’ve found a way to make this music without them touching the instruments at all, I would have." (John Luther Adams)

Four Canticles of the Sky: "In the Arctic sky, the low angle of the sun and heavy ice crystals in the air often produce vivid halos, arcs, and sundogs. Sometimes these phenomena create the illusion of multiple suns. 'Sky with Four Suns' is a musical evocation of such an apparition, from sunrise to sunset. Similar visions also occur at night, which is the image behind 'Sky with Four Moons.' 'Sky with Nameless Colors' and 'Sky with Endless Stars' were inspired by the skies of the Sonoran Desert." (John Luther Adams)

Dream of the Canyon Wren: "For forty years the song of the hermit thrush has been for me the quintessential voice of my home in the boreal forest of Alaska. In recent years I’ve found a new home in the desert, where the song of the canyon wren evokes for me similar feelings of deep tranquility and longing." ---John Luther Adams, discogs.com

The music of Alaska-based John Luther Adams is minimal, but not minimalist, produced with a great economy of sound resources but showing definite shapes. This pair of string quartets and one piece for "cello choir" makes a good introduction to the music of this Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, whose works often show a strong connection to the natural world. The title work, The Wind in High Places, relies exclusively on harmonics and on tones played on open strings; the composer said he "treats the string quartet as a large, 16-stringed harp," adding unhelpfully that if he could have found a way to make the music without having the players touch the instruments, he would have. More effective than this rather gimmicky concept is Four Canticles of the Sky, the cello work, depicting sundogs and other celestial phenomena, and played here by the 45 cellos of the Northwestern University Cello Ensemble. These four short pieces use the dense polyphony involved to great effect, as does the final string quartet Dream of the Canyon Wren, introduced by a very unusual birdsong appoggiatura that is developed over the course of the work and sharply delineated by the members of the JACK Quartet. Despite its simplicity, the thematic material in Adams' music is not neutral, and listeners will tend to remember these pieces, especially the last two, long after they're heard. Recommended for anyone interested in new directions in contemporary chamber music. ---James Manheim, AllMusic Review

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