John Adams - Earbox: A Ten-CD Retrospective (1999) 10 CD Box Set

On October 19, 1999, Nonesuch Records released The John Adams Earbox, a 10-CD box set retrospective, representing nearly all of John Adams’s recorded output for the label. The set includes all of the composer’s major works with which Adams has redefined contemporary classical music over the previous two decades. All recordings on The John Adams Earbox were supervised by the composer, and many were conducted or performed by Adams as well. All but four works on the Earbox were originally released on Nonesuch as first recordings.

The John Adams Earbox includes examples from every phase of Adams’s career, from his earliest orchestral pieces such as Grand Pianola Music (1982), Harmonielehre (1985), and Harmonium (1980), to the widely hailed operas Nixon in China (1985-86) and The Death of Klinghoffer (1990-91), to works of this decade including Chamber Symphony (1992), Violin Concerto (1993), John’s Book of Alleged Dances (written for Kronos Quartet in 1994), Gnarly Buttons (1995) and the 1995 stagework I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw The Sky.

The Earbox features the world premiere recording of Slonimsky’s Earbox (1996), a virtuosic piece for orchestra, in a performance by The Hallé Orchestra with Kent Nagano conducting. Also included are the first Nonesuch recordings of Lollapalooza (1995), an orchestral piece written as a 40th birthday present for Simon Rattle, and Harmonium, in a performance by the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, conducted by Adams.

A comprehensive illustrated booklet (nearly 200 pages) accompanies the box set with liner notes by John Adams, Renaud Machart (chief music critic of Le Monde), and Nonesuch Records President Robert Hurwitz.

Having earned his composing stripes after the 1960s, John Adams had the pioneering work of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley close at hand as he ventured into his trade. And, while minimalism's historical continuum helps place Adams, he used Reich, Glass, and Riley (among others) only as a starting point. And here's proof: a 10-CD retrospective of nearly all Adams's recorded compositions on Nonesuch Records, the label that also issued Steve Reich 1965-1995 and Kronos Quartet: 25 Years. Adams's Harmonium, a choral work of startling energy and effervescence, appears here in a new recording, as do distillations of both The Death of Klinghoffer and Nixon in China, two path-clearing operas. Over the span of a career covered by Earbox, Adams has returned minimalism to traditional instrumental ensembles as well as to projects that at once advanced a political commentary and took that commentary back to orchestral audiences. And so, in far less time than his predecessors, Adams created works that now play like standard repertoire pieces: The Wound Dresser and Shaker Loops and the Violin Concerto–all of them are here. What these works demonstrate is a fierce creativity on the one hand and perhaps a hunger for commercial advances on the other. Adams may at times be a bustling free thinker, but he sounds ever conscious of what audiences are listening to. As for the works themselves, they remain every bit as daunting as when written.

Some may object to particular selections. I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, for example, hardly ranks with Adams's best work. But this box isn't a mere best-of; it's an almost-all-of. At times terrifically American–especially in the news-aware operas and their narrative pragmatism–Adams well deserves a major box set, and its coverage is appropriate to his varied, stylistically diverse output. As with any large-scale retrospective, Earbox–which fairly bristles with Adams's new composition, Slonimsky's Earbox–has spots where fans might balk at the quality of the composer's writing. But it's got a fantastic accompanying booklet along with its many hours of inarguably modern and thoroughly listener-friendly music.

Review by Andrew Bartlett

Call me indulgent, but I just cannot resist retrospectives - and this one is better produced than most. Quite aside from its purely aesthetic appeal (imaginative artwork and stylish annotation), 'The John Adams Earbox' affords us the invaluable opportunity of weighing up the relative virtues of a major modern composer whose style is still developing. It's all there, at least everything released by Nonesuch, and the consistently fine sound quality (much of it produced by Wilhelm Hellweg) helps keep the listener's attentions centred firmly on the music.

'Minimalism' is far too limiting a term for Adams's work, but it's still fairly central to his creative formula, and anyone hooked on Reich, Glass or their various disciples will probably love what's on offer here. And yet pulsing sequences and foot-tapping potential are only part of the plot, certainly in the more recent works. The later Adams has a rather more complex story to tell.

Most of 'Earbox' is reissued material, and the chance to re-hear and reassess finds me, generally speaking, reacting most positively to those works that made the strongest impression on me first time around. I still love the post-Reichian musings of Hoodoo Zephyr (with its 'synthesizers, samplers and a large stockpile of sounds and timbres') whereas Gnarly Buttons, though intense and superbly played by clarinettist Michael Collins, strikes me as musically less memorable. The original CD coupling was John's Book of Alleged Dances, pungently played by the Kronos and still sounding mischievously provocative.

Three new items are more enjoyable than especially significant. Adams's San Francisco recording of Harmonium for chorus and orchestra occupies a richer sound-frame than its fine ECM predecessor (with the same orchestra) under the work's dedicatee, Edo de Waart. The choral contribution is marginally better on the new version, but de Waart keeps the tighter hold on line and rhythm. Parallel comparisons reveal that while Sir Simon Rattle's City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra version of the epic Harmonielehre is monumentally imposing, de Waart and his players (on the older Nonesuch recording reissued here) sound more comfortable with the rhythmic writing in Part 3. Kent Nagano directs the Halle Orchestra in the colourful orchestral essay Slonimsky's Earbox ('Stravinsky's Earbox' might have been a better title, given the opening's debt to Le Chant du Rossignol) and the loopy, brazenly aggressive Lollapalooza (written for Rattle). They also give us a fine reading of that slightly eerie study in textural opposites, El Dorado.

Extended extracts from the operas Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer incline me to view the librettos as more effective than the music. I'm sure that, in the theatre, the stage action helps; but when it comes to I was looking at the Ceiling and then I saw the Sky, the power of the words (dealing with inner-city tensions) is unpretentiously - and often emotively - mirrored in Adams's song-like treatment of them. Here, the balance between spoken narrative and its musical counterpart is better gauged. Although the idiom is vaguely 'pop' (or something close to it), the urgent passage from one song to the next - and the intensity of the subject matter - add up to something altogether more absorbing, more real than the operas (at least to these ears).

Fans on the lookout for A Short Ride in a Fast Machine will find it as the second of Two Fanfares for Orchestra. Again de Waart offers the best option (more natural than any rival), much as he does for The Chairman Dances, whereas the marvellous, madcap Chamber Symphony - still my favourite Adams piece - is marginally better served by Sian Edwards on RCA. Incidentally, I was delighted that DJF featured it as one of his favoured American symphonies (Awards issue).

Shaker Loops and Grand Pianola Music find Adams indulging the joyous abandon of his own work, though his poetic sensibilities are better exhibited in the tragi-lyrical The Wound-Dresser, perhaps the most moving work in the collection. Grand Pianola Music is exciting, no doubt about it, but heard for the tenth time (or so), that cheesy tune at the end starts to pall.

Which leaves the lyrical Christian Zeal and Activity, Eros Piano (with Paul Crossley), Adams's orchestration of Five Songs by Charles Ives (featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw), Common Tones in Simple Time and the Violin Concerto (with Gidon Kremer). For me, the last is by far the best, a restlessly spiralling masterpiece where mobility and harmonic interest form a powerful alliance. Nowadays, Adams tends to pack more meat on the musical bone, hold your interest more securely, and rely rather less on the seduction of rhythm. Works like Hoodoo Zephyr, Shaker Loops, Grand Pianola Music, even Harmonium, are great for motorway driving. You can watch dawn rise or dusk fall while bombing along a highway, and the music invariably fits the mood. It's nearly always on the move, and yet there's thought there too, and great skill. But for me the Violin Concerto and Chamber Symphony suggest that Adams's next retrospective will be more a 'mind-stretcher' than an 'earbox'.'

Review by Rob Cowan, Gramophone Magazine

CD1 (56:21)

Harmonium
01. 1. Negative Love (10:33)
02. 2. Because I Could Not Stop for Death (9:41)
03. 3. Wild Nights (11:43)

Shaker Loops
04. 1. Shaking and Trembling (8:25)
05. 2. Hymning Slews (5:08)
06. 3. Loops and Verses (6:55)
07. 4. A Final Shaking (3:56)

1-3: San Francisco Symphony, John Adams, conductor;
San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Vance George, director
4-7: Orchestra of St. Luke’s, John Adams, conductor








CD2 (1:11:42)

01. The Chairman Dances (12:37)

Grand Pianola Music
02. First Movement (15:13)
03. Second Movement (7:51)
04. Third Movement On the Dominant Divide (8:00)

05. Fearful Symmetries (28:03)

1: San Francisco Symphony, Edo de Waart, conductor.
2-4: London Sinfonietta, John Adams, conductor; John Alley, Shelagh Sutherland, pianos;
Nicole Tibbels, Judith Rees, sopranos; Teresa Shaw, mezzo-soprano.
5: Orchestra of St. Luke’s, John Adams, conductor.








CD3 (1:18:46)

Nixon In China

01. Opening (2:53)
02. 'Soldiers Of Heaven Hold The Sky' (2:48)
03. 'The People Are Heroes Now' (2:49)
04. Landing Of The Spirit Of '76 (2:23)
05. 'Your Flight Was Smooth I Hope?' (1:19)
06. 'News Has A Kind Of Mystery' (7:09)
07. 'Ladies And Gentlemen, Comrades And Friends' (6:38)
08. 'Mr. Premier, Distinguished Guests' (2:37)
09. Cheers (3:50)
10. 'This Is Prophetic' (8:31)
11. Opening (2) (2:54)
12. 'Oh What A Day-I Thought I'd Die' (4:48)
13. 'Whip Her To Death' (2:33)
14. 'I Am The Wife Of Mao Tse-Tung' (6:34)
15. 'Let Us Examine What You Did' (2:44)
16. 'When I Woke Up' (1:21)
17. 'I Have No Offspring' (1:55)
18. 'I Can Keep Still' (2:11)
19. 'After That –The Sweat-Had Soaked My Uniform' (2:28)
20. 'Peking Watches The Stars' (2:43)
21. 'You Won At Poker' (3:14)
22. 'I Am Old And I Cannot Sleep' (4:24)

Music by John Adams. Libretto by Alice Goodman.
Cast in order of appearance:
Sanford Sylvan (Chou En-lai); James Maddalena (Richard Nixon); Thomas Hammons (Henry Kissinger); Carolann Page (Pat Nixon); Mari Opatz, Stephanie Friedman, Marion Dry (Three Contraltos, Secretaries to Mao); Trudy Ellen Craney (Chiang Ch’ing [Madame Mao Tse-tung]); John Duykers (Mao Tse-tung). Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Edo de Waart, conductor.








CD4 (53:19)

01. The Wound-Dresser (19:11)

02. Christian Zeal And Activity (10:07)

Five Songs
03. Thoreau (1:56)
04. Down East (2:28)
05. Cradle Song (1:25)
06. At The River (1:17)
07. Serenity (2:02)

08. Eros Piano (14:52)

1: Sanford Sylvan, baritone; Orchestra of St. Luke’s, John Adams, conductor;
Naoko Tanaka, violin; Chris Gekker, trumpet.
2: San Francisco Symphony, Edo de Waart, conductor.
3-7: Dawn Upshaw, soprano; Orchestra of St. Luke’s, John Adams, conductor.
8: Paul Crossley, piano; Orchestra of St. Luke’s, John Adams, conductor.








CD5 (1:04:44)

The Death of Klinghoffer

01. Chorus of the Exiled Palestinians (8:34)
02. Chorus of the Exiled Jews (8:33)
03. Act I - Scene 1 (8:09)
04. Act I - Scene 1 (5:10)
05. Act I - Scene 1 (2:01)
06. Act I - Scene 1 (1:18)
07. Act I - Scene 1 (1:18)
08. Act I - Night Chorus (3:39)
09. Act II - Chorus of Hagar and the Angel (5:25)
10. Act II - Scene 1 (3:29)
11. Act II - Scene 1 (5:13)
12. Act II - Scene 2 (7:24)
13. Act II - Day Chorus (4:31)

Music by John Adams. Libretto by Alice Goodman.
Cast in order of appearance:
James Maddalena (The Captain); Janice Felty (Swiss Godmother, Austrian Woman, British Dancing Girl);
Thomas Hammons (The First Officer, “Rambo”); Thomas Young (Molqi); Eugene Perry (Mamoud);
Sanford Sylvan (Leon Klinghoffer); Stephanie Friedman (Omar); Sheila Nadler (Marilyn Klinghoffer).
Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon, Kent Nagano, conductor.
The London Opera Chorus, Richard Cooke, director.








CD6 (58:11)

Two Fanfares For Orchestra
01. Tromba Lontana (4:18)
02. Short Ride In A Fast Machine (4:20)

03. Common Tones In Simple Time (20:44)

04. El Dorado, Part I, A Dream Of Gold (12:40)
05. El Dorado, Part II, Soledades (16:10)

1-3: San Francisco Symphony, Edo de Waart, conductor;
Glenn Fischtal, Laurie McGaw, trumpets (1-2).
4-5: The Hallé Orchestra, Kent Nagano, conductor.








CD7 (1:14:26)

Harmonielehre
01. Part I (17:13)
02. Part II. The Anfortas Wound (12:25)
03. Part III. Meister Eckhardt and Quackie (10:42)

Violin Concerto
04. I (14:56)
05. II. Chaconne. Body through which the dream flows (11:31)
06. III. Toccare (7:40)

1-3: San Francisco Symphony, Edo de Waart, conductor.
4-6: Gidon Kremer, violin; London Symphony Orchestra, Kent Nagano, conductor.








CD8 (1:15:39)

Chamber Symphony
01. Mongrel Airs (7:50)
02. Aria with Walking Bass (8:13)
03. Roadrunner (5:52)

04. Tundra (10:34)

05. Disappointment Lake (8:15)

06. Hoodoo Zephyr (10:31)

Gnarly Buttons
07. The Perilous Shore (10:01)
08. Hoe-down (Mad Cow) (5:51)
09. Put Your Loving Arms Around Me (8:32)

1-3, 7-9: London Sinfonietta, John Adams, conductor; Michael Collins, clarinet (7-9).
4-6: Performed by John Adams.








CD9 (1:10:02)

I Was Looking At The Ceiling And Then I Saw The Sky
Act I
01. Ensemble - I Was Looking At The Ceiling And Then I Saw The Sky (8:06)
02. A Sermon On Romance (3:12)
03. Consuelo's Dream (4:56)
04. Mike's Song About Arresting A Particular Individual (3:22)
05. Tiffany's Solo (4:52)
06. Song About The On-Site Altercation (2:52)
07. Song About The Bad Boys And The News (6:20)
08. Your Honor My Client He's A Young Black Man (5:40)
09. Leila's Song; Alone (Again Or At Last) (4:18)
Act II
10. Three Weeks And Still I'm Outta My Mind (5:12)
11. Crushed By The Rock I Been Standing On (4:38)
12. Dewain's Song Of Liberation And Surprise (5:30)
13. !Este Pais! / This Country (4:27)
14. One Last Look At The Angel In Your Eyes (2:01)
15. Finale (4:36)

Music by John Adams. Libretto by June Jordan.
Cast in order of appearance:
Audra McDonald (Consuelo); Michael McElroy (Dewain); Welly Yang (Rick); Angela Teek (Leila); Darius de Haas (David); Marin Mazzie (Tiffany); Richard Muenz (Mike). Grant Gershon, vocal director. Seppo Kantonen, Marja Mutru, Markku Tabell, keyboards; Janne Murto, saxophone; Kari Tenkanen, clarinet, bass clarinet; Hannu Rantanen, electric bass, double bass; Jari Nieminen, guitar; Jari-Pekka Karvonen, drums. John Adams, conductor.








CD10 (56:33)

01. Lollapalooza (6:47)

John's Book Of Alleged Dances
02. Judah To Ocean (2:34)
03. Toot Nipple (1:16)
04. Dogjam (2:35)
05. Pavane: She's So Fine (6:34)
06. Rag The Bone (3:04)
07. Habenera (4:49)
08. Stubble Crotchet (2:44)
09. Hammer & Chisel (1:16)
10. Alligator Escalator (3:55)
11. Standchen: The Little Serenade (4:59)
12. Judah To Ocean (Reprise) (2:39)

13. Slonimsky's Earbox (13:21)

1, 13: The Hallé Orchestra, Kent Nagano, conductor.
2-12: Kronos Quartet: David Harrington, violin; John Sherba, violin; Hank Dutt, viola; Joan Jeanrenaud, cello.