John Luther ADAMS (b. 1953)
The Become Trilogy
Become River [14:57]
Become Ocean [42:13]
Become Desert [40:22)
Seattle Symphony & Chorale/Ludovic Morlot
Recorded at the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, USA November 2013 (Ocean), June & October 2018 (River), September 2018 (Desert)
CANTALOUPE CA21161 [3 CDs: 97:32]
First things first: don’t confuse him with John Adams! The composer John Luther Adams may not have as high a profile as his countryman and contemporary, but his profile is developing enormously, and his Become works have played a huge part in that. Ocean (review) and Desert (review) have been released separately before, but this box set puts together the three parts of what the composer calls “this trilogy that I didn’t set out to write.”
It’s definitely worth exploring them as a set, because they reveal themselves as parts of a whole, albeit an unintentional one. Adams writes compellingly in the set’s booklet note, setting out with admirable directness what the music is for and what it definitely isn’t. He tries to move away from western classical music’s overarching sense of music developing and moving in a certain direction. Instead the emphasis here is “become”, not “becoming.” Adams’ purpose here is for the listener (and, no doubt, the musicians) to enter into the music and lose yourself in music that is, fundamentally, static and cyclical, where textures and colours matter more than themes and progressions, and where the invitation is to stop and “discover oceans, deserts and rivers of your own.”
From that, you’ll already get a sense, therefore, as to whether this is for you. If you approach it with an open mind, and with no desire to find a Beethovenian sense of development or progress, then you’ll find a lot to enjoy and to appreciate some great musical craftsmanship. For one thing, it’s undeniable that Adams knows his sound world really well and he sculpts it very carefully. That comes down to the layout of the orchestra, which is different for all three works, and all are different to that of the traditional symphony orchestra. The purpose of this music is to beguile and to cast a spell, and it does that rather beautifully, to my ears. Textures are appealing, and often very affectionate – there is never a hint of atonal screeching – so that I found myself sinking into a musical landscape that I very much enjoyed.
Become River is by far the shortest of the three, opening with icicle strings and the gentle clink of bells. The music moves through a barely perceptible crescendo from height to depth, and it’s skilfully enough crafted so as to allow you to hear water imagery in it if you like, or you can just surrender to its spell. I mostly did the latter, enjoying the hypnotic feel to it which I found very effective, even quite deep. I’m not sure if it really encouraged me to listen to myself or to the depths within, but there is still something profound at its heart.
Become Ocean, on the other hand, explores the tides and man’s place in nature. There is a gentle sense of ebbing swell, with rumbling depths and lots of typical proto-minimalist techniques, like rippling arpeggios and much-repeated fragments. It’s still rather lovely, though, and there is something compelling about the immensity that the music seeks to evoke.
In the notes for Become Desert, Adams writes of the desert as the presence of space, not the absence of people. There is a sense of immensity in this music, too, but here it is evoked with more delicacy and with a continual focus on the light. There are more tintinnabulations and rolling rumbles, suggesting the desert as a place of life, not absence. Furthermore, Adams uses a chorus. At first they creep in barely perceptibly, singing just one word – “luz”, the Spanish for light – but they’re used with orchestral subtlety and their presence makes a surprisingly big difference. At the end the music seems to disappear upwards in a way that I found both mysterious and effective.
The recorded sound is excellent. Cantaloupe have given it their all in a sign of how much they believe in the composer and his music, and they capture the diverse soundscape required for each work in a way that is very impressive. I’d have loved a BD Audio with surround sound, better to bring to life the composer’s varying instrumental layout, but this is the next best thing. There is only one track per disc, which forces you to commit; though I concede that dividing up each work would go rather against the spirit of what the composer is trying to achieve.
Comparisons can be killers among artists, but the contemporary composer that I most thought of when I heard this trilogy was Max Richter, whose slow-moving, ambient music has achieved deserved popularity and is cut from a similar cloth. This deserves to find a similar popularity, so take the plunge and dive into all three. With the difficulties that our world is currently facing, we could all use the opportunity to escape from “becoming” and “become” a little bit more.
Simon Thompson
