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LOG IN Forgot Login? Register General Discussion • Trading Post • Non-Film Score Discussion  Profile • Preferences • Community Rules • Help/Contact • Search Board Search Terms:  Search Within:  topics posts since 2019 2018 posts 2017 posts 2016 posts 2015 posts 2014 posts 2013 posts 2012 posts 2011 posts 2010 posts 2009 posts 2008 posts 2007 posts 2006 posts 2005 posts 2004 posts 2003 posts 2002 posts 2001 posts 2000 posts users  search tips  You must log in or register to post.   Go to page:  1 2      General Discussion: Adams: Nixon In China - any love?     1 2    NEXT   LAST   Last Post   Posted:   May 23, 2022 - 2:34 PM     By:   postcap   (Member) Any love for this minimalist opera? As a lifelong soundtrack guy, I simply cannot get enough of it. In particular, "Landing of the Spirit of '76" is simply mind-blowing, and comes the closest to another Adams favorite of mine, "Short Ride In A Fast Machine." There's Goldenthal here, and Goldsmith, and of course, Philip Glass (whose Akhnaten and Satyagraha are also quite wonderful, if a little *too* Glassy). Adams' score is brimming with melody and harmony, and the rhythms and instrumentation are endlessly inventive. It also helps that the libretto is at turns hilarious, absurd, and devastating. Seriously, if you love film music, you must seek out this opera. Disc 1, Track 4. You can thank me later.    Posted:   May 23, 2022 - 3:42 PM     By:   Justin Boggan   (Member) Cues referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE2GcXc3q3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TxFRsncH40    Posted:   May 23, 2022 - 4:02 PM     By:   Spinmeister   (Member) Absolutely. Favourite arias: "News has a kind of mystery…" timestamp 6:48: "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung":    Posted:   May 23, 2022 - 4:14 PM     By:   eriknelson   (Member) I vividly remember the world premiere, presented in 1987 by Houston Grand Opera. It was quite the event. One amusing anecdote... Henry Kissinger was in the audience. It didn't take long before he realized he wasn't being portrayed in a positive light. He walked out of the theatre in a huff.    Posted:   May 23, 2022 - 8:19 PM     By:   Joe Sikoryak   (Member) I love it too. And I have a special connection with Mr. Adams, because when I had hair, 15 years ago, I was mistaken for him several times at the gym and at concerts in San Francisco. (He lived nearby in Berkeley). I met him backstage after “Dr. Atomic” and introduced myself as his Doppleganger. He smiled and said “great. Would you like to go to Houston for me next week?” I didn’t take him up on his offer, but I did give him a couple of Leonard Rosenman CDs on the FSM label, because he was a fan of Lennie’s.    Posted:   May 24, 2022 - 4:31 PM     By:   stravinsky   (Member) You mention Goldenthal, Goldsmith & Glass but they didn't influence Adams. Rather Adams influenced others. You only have to listen to Don Davis' Matrix music or the rip off merchant Jonathan Dove who is heavily influenced by Adams. Craig Armstrong also took liberties when he plundered Adams with his score for The Great Gatsby. I honestly don't know how he got away with that without a lawsuit. I was lucky to be a small part of the Scottish Opera production of Nixon in China in Glasgow and Edinburgh as part of the 2019/2020 season. In fact the last show in Edinburgh was the final official performance for the company in the UK before lockdown. I sang Tenor in the Chorus and the music is well...punishing. Just very very difficult to memorise. Especially the Gambei chorus which was a near impossible Canon set on a revolving stage! We had similar challenges years earlier in 2005 when we tackled The Death of Klinghoffer. The Night Chorus from that Opera is thrilling but again very difficult to learn and commit to memory. I honestly don't think Adams really considers the almost unsingable difficulty of his music. Adams spin off The Chairman Dances is a favourite of mine. I know mainly his earlier output. He has written so much and he is the only one of the Minimalists who didn't burn himself out. He developed and transmogrified his style way beyond what Glass or Reich did. Both of those Composers had about two really good decades of composing from roughly 1970 - 1990. But operating within a very limited arsenal meant inevitably that the law of diminishing returns eventually governed their music. Especially in the case of Glass who has been writing mostly utter dreck for the past 25 years. For a very extreme and fascinating example of Adams purely Minimalist style try his "Common Tones in Simple Time" or "Grand Pianola Music" which I'm sure you know already. Harmonium for Choir and Orchestra is his Magnum Opus I'm sure you'll agree.    Posted:   May 24, 2022 - 9:40 PM     By:   EdG   (Member) I'm a fan of Adams's Shaker Loops. Great recording of that on Naxos.    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 3:25 AM     By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member) Interestingly enough, NIXON IN CHINA was the first composition by John Adams I heard of (and read of, in an Article, some time in the 90s), but while I know and have a lot of compositions by John Adams, I have not actually heard NIXON IN CHINA. So I will rectify it some time this weekend. I see that there are at least two competing recordings on Qobuz (one by Marin Alsop on Naxos, a conductor whose Barber recordings I highly value, and one by Edo de Waart on Nonesuch.) I can listen to them both streaming, but if I were to buy one.... well, the Naxos is on sale right now and only $6., so that's hard to resist for a 3CD full recording. :-)    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 6:35 AM     By:   Rozsaphile   (Member) The Houston premiere was later telecast on PBS. The scenes were interspersed with commentary by Walter Cronkite, who had been present during Nixon's visit. Comments like, "I remember how cold it was" were dubiously relevant to the music, as if the network didn't think a strange modern score could stand by itself. But I didn't mind. The commentary enhanced the sense of occasion. We captured the telecast on videotape and noticed later, when the discs came out, that some of the performers had flubbed a few of their lines. It just added top the special quality of the event.    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 7:51 AM     By:   stravinsky   (Member) Adams wrote only one original film score for an obscure documentary about the Swiss analyst Carl Jung. There are moments in this film where quotes from Jung are presented but there is no underscore. I feel that music was written but may have been dropped. Or maybe not written at all? Adams later gave his own score a drubbing saying his music had the quality of "stunning mediocrity". As far as I know this rare documentary was Adams' only original scoring assignment. The music sounds very similar to his Shaker Loops for Strings, although this score is orchestrated for a larger ensemble than just a String Septet. His existing music was used for a few films incl "I am Love" directed by Luca Guadagnino. Adams' music seemed completely wrong for this movie. I don't know what the Director was thinking of. I'm sure Adams must have been unhappy about usage of his pre-existing music in this way. It stuck out like a sore thumb. Adams' music for "Matter of Heart" is one his early works which has never been released on a commercial recording.    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 8:39 AM     By:   nuts_score   (Member) Yes, I'm sure John Adams must've been quite perturbed that his music was being licensed for use in films like I Am Love. I'm sure getting compensated additionally for his work is a situation he just abhors! So much so, he has allowed Guadagnino to use his music in nearly every project he has directed since I Am Love. Some of you folks drop some absolute corkers of assumptions. I have no choice but to laugh.    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 9:00 AM     By:   postcap   (Member) You mention Goldenthal, Goldsmith & Glass but they didn't influence Adams. Rather Adams influenced others. You only have to listen to Don Davis' Matrix music or the rip off merchant Jonathan Dove who is heavily influenced by Adams. Craig Armstrong also took liberties when he plundered Adams with his score for The Great Gatsby. I honestly don't know how he got away with that without a lawsuit. I was lucky to be a small part of the Scottish Opera production of Nixon in China in Glasgow and Edinburgh as part of the 2019/2020 season. In fact the last show in Edinburgh was the final official performance for the company in the UK before lockdown. I sang Tenor in the Chorus and the music is well...punishing. Just very very difficult to memorise. Especially the Gambei chorus which was a near impossible Canon set on a revolving stage! We had similar challenges years earlier in 2005 when we tackled The Death of Klinghoffer. The Night Chorus from that Opera is thrilling but again very difficult to learn and commit to memory. I honestly don't think Adams really considers the almost unsingable difficulty of his music. Adams spin off The Chairman Dances is a favourite of mine. I know mainly his earlier output. He has written so much and he is the only one of the Minimalists who didn't burn himself out. He developed and transmogrified his style way beyond what Glass or Reich did. Both of those Composers had about two really good decades of composing from roughly 1970 - 1990. But operating within a very limited arsenal meant inevitably that the law of diminishing returns eventually governed their music. Especially in the case of Glass who has been writing mostly utter dreck for the past 25 years. For a very extreme and fascinating example of Adams purely Minimalist style try his "Common Tones in Simple Time" or "Grand Pianola Music" which I'm sure you know already. Harmonium for Choir and Orchestra is his Magnum Opus I'm sure you'll agree. I find the Matrix scores such interesting case studies in versatility because I cannot think of another Don Davis score that sounds *anything* like those scores do. And it's not like they're just some temp track pastiche. They are bona fide minimalist masterpieces. After that you've got... House on Haunted Hill? Warriors of Virtue? JP3? Valentine? The Beast (an all-time favorite of mine)? I can only imagine the difficulty in performing Nixon. I saw Satyagraha several years ago here in LA and definitely witnessed several instances of singers forgetting how many times they had already sung a phrase, and how many more repetitions were yet to come. I also simply adore The Chairman Dances. Do you know the history of that particular piece? Why it was written in the first place? It feels like a kind of "suite" for Nixon in China. Common Tones in Simple Time is wonderful but - and I don't mean to sound like a dolt here - it meanders. A lot. I guess my question with this kind of music is, how is it supposed to be enjoyed? Glass has talked about the hypnotic, trance-like nature of repetition, which I get, but is that the extent of it? Is that how something like Common Tones is meant to be approached? Is there something deeper at work?    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 9:02 AM     By:   postcap   (Member) Interestingly enough, NIXON IN CHINA was the first composition by John Adams I heard of (and read of, in an Article, some time in the 90s), but while I know and have a lot of compositions by John Adams, I have not actually heard NIXON IN CHINA. So I will rectify it some time this weekend. I see that there are at least two competing recordings on Qobuz (one by Marin Alsop on Naxos, a conductor whose Barber recordings I highly value, and one by Edo de Waart on Nonesuch.) I can listen to them both streaming, but if I were to buy one.... well, the Naxos is on sale right now and only $6., so that's hard to resist for a 3CD full recording. :-) I highly recommend the Edo de Waart recording. It has the clearest-sounding instrumentation (and, IMO, the tightest performance) of the two.    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 9:33 AM     By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member) I highly recommend the Edo de Waart recording. It has the clearest-sounding instrumentation (and, IMO, the tightest performance) of the two. I already bought the Naxos and put it on my NAS, but I will listen to the Edo de Waart recording first.    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 5:02 PM     By:   stravinsky   (Member) I highly recommend the Edo de Waart recording. It has the clearest-sounding instrumentation (and, IMO, the tightest performance) of the two. I already bought the Naxos and put it on my NAS, but I will listen to the Edo de Waart recording first. Although the Naxos is alive recording it is every bit as good as the Nonesuch version. Its good to hear parts of the orchestration not apparent in the first recording.    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 5:16 PM     By:   stravinsky   (Member) You mention Goldenthal, Goldsmith & Glass but they didn't influence Adams. Rather Adams influenced others. You only have to listen to Don Davis' Matrix music or the rip off merchant Jonathan Dove who is heavily influenced by Adams. Craig Armstrong also took liberties when he plundered Adams with his score for The Great Gatsby. I honestly don't know how he got away with that without a lawsuit. I was lucky to be a small part of the Scottish Opera production of Nixon in China in Glasgow and Edinburgh as part of the 2019/2020 season. In fact the last show in Edinburgh was the final official performance for the company in the UK before lockdown. I sang Tenor in the Chorus and the music is well...punishing. Just very very difficult to memorise. Especially the Gambei chorus which was a near impossible Canon set on a revolving stage! We had similar challenges years earlier in 2005 when we tackled The Death of Klinghoffer. The Night Chorus from that Opera is thrilling but again very difficult to learn and commit to memory. I honestly don't think Adams really considers the almost unsingable difficulty of his music. Adams spin off The Chairman Dances is a favourite of mine. I know mainly his earlier output. He has written so much and he is the only one of the Minimalists who didn't burn himself out. He developed and transmogrified his style way beyond what Glass or Reich did. Both of those Composers had about two really good decades of composing from roughly 1970 - 1990. But operating within a very limited arsenal meant inevitably that the law of diminishing returns eventually governed their music. Especially in the case of Glass who has been writing mostly utter dreck for the past 25 years. For a very extreme and fascinating example of Adams purely Minimalist style try his "Common Tones in Simple Time" or "Grand Pianola Music" which I'm sure you know already. Harmonium for Choir and Orchestra is his Magnum Opus I'm sure you'll agree. I find the Matrix scores such interesting case studies in versatility because I cannot think of another Don Davis score that sounds *anything* like those scores do. And it's not like they're just some temp track pastiche. They are bona fide minimalist masterpieces. After that you've got... House on Haunted Hill? Warriors of Virtue? JP3? Valentine? The Beast (an all-time favorite of mine)? I can only imagine the difficulty in performing Nixon. I saw Satyagraha several years ago here in LA and definitely witnessed several instances of singers forgetting how many times they had already sung a phrase, and how many more repetitions were yet to come. I also simply adore The Chairman Dances. Do you know the history of that particular piece? Why it was written in the first place? It feels like a kind of "suite" for Nixon in China. Common Tones in Simple Time is wonderful but - and I don't mean to sound like a dolt here - it meanders. A lot. I guess my question with this kind of music is, how is it supposed to be enjoyed? Glass has talked about the hypnotic, trance-like nature of repetition, which I get, but is that the extent of it? Is that how something like Common Tones is meant to be approached? Is there something deeper at work? Adams described The Chairman Dances as an "Outake" from Act III of Nixon. I think he just got into the style so much that he couldn't stop writing. In fact he followed it up with Fearful Symmetries for Orchestra which is a further continuation of the Nixon style. Common Tones is all about shifting Timbres I think. Nothing much happens I admit but it's fascinatong music none the less. I compiled a short playlist called "Minimalism 1979" which could have been the year Minimalism was at its zenith. I include Adams Common Tones, Dance #1 by Glass and a beautiful arrangement of Reich's Variations for Winds, Strings & Keyboards for Accordion (!) Three entirely different voices then but music from the apogee of Minimalism. A short lived trend which briefly saved classical music from disappearing up its own arse. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GBesUN8udKGRkagkt1udc?si=19iyhZVtSQWjI3sX6IBLug&utm_source=copy-link    Posted:   May 25, 2022 - 5:17 PM     By:   stravinsky   (Member) Yes, I'm sure John Adams must've been quite perturbed that his music was being licensed for use in films like I Am Love. I'm sure getting compensated additionally for his work is a situation he just abhors! So much so, he has allowed Guadagnino to use his music in nearly every project he has directed since I Am Love. Some of you folks drop some absolute corkers of assumptions. I have no choice but to laugh. Doh I hadn't thought about that!    Posted:   May 29, 2022 - 1:06 PM     By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member) Well, I sampled both recordings, and I am now listening to the Edo de Waart recording on Nonesuch (what a reliable label in repertoire like this it once was), whose sonics seemed to be more rounded, whereas the Naxos seems a bit in your face (though that may work well for this music too). Very different recordings in any case, they seem to be both worthwhile.    Posted:   May 29, 2022 - 1:29 PM     By:   Smaug   (Member) Glass didn’t influence Adams?! That’s weird considering Adams’ acknowledgement of the influence as well as the music itself. Anyone with ears can tell Nixon is like 60% Glass. He built his success on that then moved on after 1990 to basically relive the 20th century by going down the abyss of meaningless complexity. Davis is also open about influences in The Matrix. It may not, like Nixon, be original in style - just as Star Wars isn’t original in style, but it’s excellently executed music. As for the person who said nothing that Davis wrote before or since sounds like The Matrix, you might check out his orchestral piece Critical Mass from 2000 that just got a release. Adams ended up Influencing a lot of Composers. Glass influenced not only a lot of composers but musicians in all sorts of fields. Minimalism (1965-75) was the last real “movement” in music. Now everything is post post post romantic post neoclassical post minimal. Anywau, who cares about influences? That seems like a rock music discussion. I don’t think I have met anyone outside the field of classical music who has ever heard of John Adams (the composer). He remains a medium sized fish in a small pond. As for Davis, I can understand not wanting to be pigeonholed but he was so good at that style. When John Williams found his style around age 45-50 (a kind of streamlined post-Korngold), he embraced it and wrote his legend. He found his musical identity. You mention Goldenthal, Goldsmith & Glass but they didn't influence Adams. Rather Adams influenced others. You only have to listen to Don Davis' Matrix music or the rip off merchant Jonathan Dove who is heavily influenced by Adams. Craig Armstrong also took liberties when he plundered Adams with his score for The Great Gatsby. I honestly don't know how he got away with that without a lawsuit. I was lucky to be a small part of the Scottish Opera production of Nixon in China in Glasgow and Edinburgh as part of the 2019/2020 season. In fact the last show in Edinburgh was the final official performance for the company in the UK before lockdown. I sang Tenor in the Chorus and the music is well...punishing. Just very very difficult to memorise. Especially the Gambei chorus which was a near impossible Canon set on a revolving stage! We had similar challenges years earlier in 2005 when we tackled The Death of Klinghoffer. The Night Chorus from that Opera is thrilling but again very difficult to learn and commit to memory. I honestly don't think Adams really considers the almost unsingable difficulty of his music. Adams spin off The Chairman Dances is a favourite of mine. I know mainly his earlier output. He has written so much and he is the only one of the Minimalists who didn't burn himself out. He developed and transmogrified his style way beyond what Glass or Reich did. Both of those Composers had about two really good decades of composing from roughly 1970 - 1990. But operating within a very limited arsenal meant inevitably that the law of diminishing returns eventually governed their music. Especially in the case of Glass who has been writing mostly utter dreck for the past 25 years. For a very extreme and fascinating example of Adams purely Minimalist style try his "Common Tones in Simple Time" or "Grand Pianola Music" which I'm sure you know already. Harmonium for Choir and Orchestra is his Magnum Opus I'm sure you'll agree.    Posted:   May 31, 2022 - 7:25 AM     By:   Jeff Bond   (Member) I love Nixon in China, Common Tunes in Simple Time (meander away!), Short Ride on a Fast Machine, Christian Zeal and Activity ("What's wrong with a withered hand?") and especially Adams' Shaker Loops, which to me creates a wonderful sci-fi energy, like nanotechnology at work--very much reminds me of things I like about Goldsmith's music although I'm sure there was absolutely no cross-fertilization there. Adams is very much a favorite.     General Discussion: Adams: Nixon In China - any love?    < 1 2  > >>  Go to page:  1 2   First Post    General Discussion • Trading Post • Non-Film Score Discussion  Profile • Preferences • Community Rules • Help/Contact • Search Board You must log in or register to post.   Go to page:  1 2

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