Harmonium (Adams)

Harmonium is a composition for chorus and orchestra by the American composer John Adams, written in 1980-1981 for the first season of Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California. The work is based on poetry by John Donne and Emily Dickinson and is regarded as one of the key compositions of Adams' "minimalist" period.^[1]

The work was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Symphony Chorus, with conductor Edo de Waart, on 15 April 1981, and subsequently recorded it.^[2] The UK premiere was on 13 October 1987 at Birmingham Town Hall, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) conducted by Simon Rattle.^[3] Rattle and the CBSO gave the London premiere on 28 July 1990 at The Proms.^[4]

Music

Each movement is a setting of an entire poem:

"Negative Love" (by John Donne)
"Because I could not stop for Death" (by Emily Dickinson)
"Wild Nights" (by Dickinson)

"Because I could not stop for Death" ends with an orchestral interlude that segues into "Wild Nights" without a pause. A typical performance takes about 35 minutes.

Timothy Johnson has discussed various aspects of the harmonic language of Harmonium in detail.^[5] K. Robert Schwarz has noted the influence of the musical techniques of Steve Reich on Harmonium, and also has commented on the less schematic and more "intuitive" manner of Adams' composition in the work.^[6]

"Negative Love" is featured in the film Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990).^[7]

Instrumentation

Chorus: soprano, alto, tenor, bass; minimum of 90 performers

Woodwinds: 4 flutes (2nd, 3rd, and 4th doubling on piccolo); 3 oboes; 3 clarinets in B♭ (1st and 2nd doubling clarinet in A, 3rd doubling bass clarinet); 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon)

Brass: 4 horns in F; 4 trumpets in C (1st doubling B♭ and D trumpets; 2nd, 3rd, and 4th doubling B♭ trumpet); 3 trombones; tuba

Timpani and Percussion, 4 players: 2 marimbas; metallophone; xylophone; tubular bells; crotales; glockenspiel; suspended cymbal; sizzle cymbal; crash cymbals; triangle; bass drum; tom-toms, medium and large; anvil; cowbells; tambourine

Keyboards

piano (or synthesizer)

celesta

Strings: harp; violins; violas; cellos; double basses

Recordings

ECM New Series 1277: San Francisco Symphony Chorus; San Francisco Symphony; Edo de Waart, conductor
Telarc CD-80365: Atlanta Symphony Chorus; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Robert Shaw, conductor
Nonesuch 79549: San Francisco Symphony Chorus; San Francisco Symphony; John Adams, conductor

References

^ Heisinger, Brent (1989). "American Minimalism in the 1980s". American Music. 187 (4). American Music, Vol. 7, No. 4: 430–447. doi:10.2307/3051914. JSTOR 3051914.
^ John Rockwell (10 February 1985). "Expanding on Minimalist Music". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
^ Clements, Andrew (December 1987). "Reports: Birmingham". The Musical Times. 128 (1738). The Musical Times, Vol. 128, No. 1738: 706–709. doi:10.2307/964828. JSTOR 964828.
^ Rye, Matthew (November 1990). "Opera, Concert and Festival Reports: London, Proms 1". The Musical Times. 131 (1773): 606–620. doi:10.2307/966196. JSTOR 966196.
^ Johnson, Timothy A. (Spring 1993). "Harmonic Vocabulary in the Music of John Adams: A Hierarchical Approach". Journal of Music Theory. 37 (1). Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 37, No. 1: 117–156. doi:10.2307/843946. JSTOR 843946.
^ Schwarz, K. Robert (Autumn 1990). "Process vs. Intuition in the Recent Works of Steve Reich and John Adams". American Music. 8 (3). American Music, Vol. 8, No. 3: 245–273. doi:10.2307/3052096. JSTOR 3052096.
^ Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990) - IMDb, retrieved 2021-04-05