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The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer.

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The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer. Edited by Thomas May. Pompton Plains, NJ: Amadeus Press, 2006. [xviii, 455 p. ISBN 1-57467-132-4. $27.95.] Bibliographical references, indexes.

John Adams continues to impress me as one of the most distinctive American composers born after 1945. His earliest works to gain national attention--including the solo piano work Phrygian Gates; the opulent choral-orchestral score, Harmonium; and the near-uncategorizable Grand Pianola Music, for winds and brass, two solo pianos, and three solo female voices--gave a fine account of twenty-something minimalism with its clearly defined harmonic goals and dramatic arcs, both well suited for the concert hall. But not long afterward, Adams began to describe himself as a minimalist who had become bored with minimalism, and expanded the content of his music in nearly every respect. Transitional works such as Harmonielehre (1984) and Nixon in China (1985) continued his dialogue with tonality and Neoromantic grandeur that characterized his earlier orchestral work, but also indicated signs of greater formal and harmonic ambiguity. In the important Violin Concerto (1993) and other works, Adams expanded the rhythmic complexity of his music through dazzling polyrhythms. He also seemed increasingly in control of an ever-expanding harmonic idiom, which has become capable of sustaining diverse expressive possibilities in the more recent Naive and Sentimental Music (1997-98) and El Nino (1999-2000). Adams has celebrated the presence of technology in his music; perhaps the most fascinating example is the combination of orchestral sounds with pre-recorded speech and...

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