Adams, John

[MrGongGong]

Personally I think the idea that a composer is "having a laugh" at the expense of his/her audience betrays a distinct lack of understanding of what writing music actually involves. .

Spot on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Short Ride On A Fast Machine was programmed here by MTT paired with works by Copland and Ives. I knew at least one 20 something who came for the Adams and enjoyed his first exposure to the other pieces.

Sorry, rfg, I'd misread your post (with its reference to "dead composers") to mean that the success of Adams' work might lead his admirers to explore other contemporary composers.

[teamsaint]

there is a fair bit of Adams' work available to buy or hear.

perhaps those with in depth knowledge would be kind enough to provide guidance towards some of the best recordings? it would be helpful

In the meantime, fresh on Youtube, and with a sensational 27 views......

[richardfinegold]

I have tried, I really have.

But I just cannot shake off the gut feeling that the guy is having the longest and most lucrative laugh in musical history at us all.

Mr Barret

Note the word "lucrative" in the OP. I didn't raise the issue of Adams commercial success. It was there from the origins of this thread.
It is clear that there is a resentment here of his prosperity. It is clear that others feel there are Contemporary Composers whose music is unappreciated and who would be more deserving than Adams. Actually, I believe that as well.
Some of Adams sucess no doubt comes from adroit self promotion. He has had timely themes for his Operas. He wrote a commemorative piece for 9/11.
I don't begrudge him any of this. I wish more Living Composers could self market as he has done and thereby gain more exposure for their music and for Classical Music as a whole.
To your fellow Composer ahinton's point, achieving a degree of popularity does not make his music "better" than other living Composers. No one has made that claim.
To ferney's post, I am merely saying that if someone uses his music as a portal into the world of Classical Music, and therefore develops a love for other Composers, alive or dead, then that is a good thing.
team saint, I won't be able to help you with an Adams discography. Adams is perhaps the only Composer that comes to mind in my experience whose music I have heard much more live, and via radio, than I have collected. The few pieces that I have in my collection were included as part of multi Composer discs that I purchased for the non Adams works. MTT guest Conducts here a few weeks out of the year and I always attend his Concerts, and he programs Adams frequently. Dr Atomic happened to be on the schedule the one year that I purchased a season subscription to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Klinghofer was performed at a summer Music festival that I atttended many years ago in Santa Fe. Our local radio station featured Adams in interviews and recordings for a week when Dr Atomic was performed and I heard many more of his works that week. I don't actively seek out his Music but it seems to find me.
I like Adams music but haven't developed any real affection for it. I enjoy seeing him "make it" as I would enjoy seeing any living Composer be appreciated during their lifetime.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

To ferney's post, I am merely saying that if someone uses his music as a portal into the world of Classical Music, and therefore develops a love for other Composers, alive or dead, then that is a good thing.

Yes. I get that now - I misunderstood your earlier comment, apologies.

[kea]

I fail to see why his having some success commercially represents a threat to Life As We Know It.

That's not really the point—more that using Adams to try to convince the uncertain that contemporary music is worth listening to may well have the opposite effect.

Of course the same could be said of any contemporary composer (c.f. Birtwistle), it's just that I happen to believe it to be true of this one

I cannot quite see the mere fact that Adams as as widely performed as he happens to be is necessarily a reliable indicator of the value of the content of some of his work

Well, he is certainly widely performed, suggesting that there is a sizeable audience out there for his work, but at the same time there is a (different) audience that seems to believe contemporary music is worthless or broadly inferior to the music of the past. This has usually been attributed to their exposure to "difficult", "impenetrable" composers such as Boulez and Carter, but Adams's music is performed much more frequently than either of theirs... and doesn't seem to have changed their minds significantly.

[jayne lee wilson]

That's not really the point—more that using Adams to try to convince the uncertain that contemporary music is worth listening to may well have the opposite effect.

Of course the same could be said of any contemporary composer (c.f. Birtwistle), it's just that I happen to believe it to be true of this one


Well, he is certainly widely performed, suggesting that there is a sizeable audience out there for his work, but at the same time there is a (different) audience that seems to believe contemporary music is worthless or broadly inferior to the music of the past. This has usually been attributed to their exposure to "difficult", "impenetrable" composers such as Boulez and Carter, but Adams's music is performed much more frequently than either of theirs... and doesn't seem to have changed their minds significantly.

Does anyone really use Adams' music to convince an audience of the worth of "contemporary music", or to listen to more challenging contemporaries? Who would bother to do this? Don't planners & musicians put Adams on simply because they like the music & know an audience will come to hear him? In which case, you might ask yourself why so many listeners (and sophisticated, widely-listened**, "classical" performers) seem to enjoy it...

And some of us will go on annoying everyone by enjoying John Adams and Harry Birtwistle...

(**on the analogy with "widely-read"...)

[kea]

Does anyone really use Adams' music to convince an audience of the worth of "contemporary music"

Richard F did suggest that this was a possibility, by implication:

If Adams serves as a portal for people to become interested in Classical Music, what is the harm?

Don't planners & musicians put Adams on simply because they like the music & know an audience will come to hear him?

Of course. They're not usually trying to further the "cause" of 21st century music, any more than a typical Tchaikovsky performance is intended to further the cause of LGBT rights or a typical Mahler performance intended to highlight the issues of antisemitism etc. I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing. Obviously people should be free to perform whatever they want, but does programming an Adams piece (I don't know, pick one... The Chairman Dances or something) alongside, e.g. The Lark Ascending and Mahler 1 actually do any of those pieces a service?

[ahinton]

And some of us will go on annoying everyone by enjoying John Adams and Harry Birtwistle...

That reminds me of Tony Payne who once said that he'd often told people that it's perfectly possible to love Delius AND Webern (to which I replied "but you don't say that it's compulsory, though")...

Adams certainly is a good self-publicist - by which I mean that he seems to have developed a way of doing this without always making it look as though that's what he's doing. That said, despite my finding so much of his work a disappointment, do I suspect that he's merely manipulating audiences cynically because he knows how to do this? No; I'm sure that he writes wht he wants the way he wants to write it because that's how he wants his music to go - no more, no less. There's a good deal more substance to him than there is to some of his like-minded colleagues (no names, no pack-drill), but so often I still find myself so dismayed by what seems to me to be the sheer lack of generosity in his work that I find myself wanting to go and listen to some Carter to wash out the emptiness in my ears...

[Richard Barrett]

Mr Barret

Note the word "lucrative" in the OP. I didn't raise the issue of Adams commercial success. It was there from the origins of this thread.

If you can't be bothered to spell my name correctly I don't really see why I should be bothered to reply, but I've already made it clear I don't agree with the OP, and hardly anyone else has mentioned this aspect, so I wonder why it seems to annoy you so much.

I wish more Living Composers could self market as he has done

I wish the situation was such that creative musicians experienced less pressure to ape the marketing techniques of commercial music. Marketing is basically to do with persuading people that a "product" no better than others is in fact more desirable than them, and applying this to music seems to me to devalue (potential) listeners to the status of passive consumers. Personally I wouldn't wish to insult people in that way.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Richard F did suggest that this was a possibility, by implication:

If Adams serves as a portal for people to become interested in Classical Music, what is the harm?

You've made the same misunderstanding that I did, kea. Because rfg had just been talking about "Classical Music" being not just "dead composers", I also understood that the "interest" referred to here was in "contemporary Classical Music by living composers". His later post mentioning Ives and Copland clarified that this was not his intention.

rfg's anecdote about the young man at the concert does raise the question "Where had he heard Adams' music?" - if he wasn't a "typical" listener to "classical Music", how did he get to know it? Is it broadcast on Rock/Pop/Jazz/Prog etc Radio stations in the States? Are there public service TV stations that did a well-advertized documentary/series on Adams? What was it that brought this listener to Adams (and from there to Ives and Copland) if he isn't a regular visitor to "classical" Music broadcasts/concerts? (I bet it doesn't involve being invited to Tweet in his life story to a simpering idiot using the expression "blow your mind" every five seconds.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wish the situation was such that creative musicians experienced less pressure to ape the marketing techniques of commercial music. Marketing is basically to do with persuading people that a "product" no better than others is in fact more desirable than them, and applying this to music seems to me to devalue (potential) listeners to the status of passive consumers. Personally I wouldn't wish to insult people in that way.

Beautiful.

I suspect (hope) that rfg meant that he wished other composers had the ability to make their work better known to a wider audience (rather than the purely commercial aspects that his words might suggest) - but RB's comment here demonstrates that there are other, more important things to which composers can (and should) be devoting their time and efforts, and other, more important priorities that the Arts can (and should) be concerned with.

[kea]

You've made the same misunderstanding that I did, kea. Because rfg had just been talking about "Classical Music" being not just "dead composers", I also understood that the "interset" referred to here was in "contemporary Classical Music by living composers". His later post mentioning Ives and Copland clarified that this was not his intention.

Ah. Fair enough.

rfg's anecdote about the young man at the concert does raise the question "Where had he heard Adams' music?" - if he wasn't a "typical" listener to "classical Music", how did he get to know it? Is it broadcast on Rock/Pop/Jazz/Prog etc Radio stations in the States? Are there public service TV stations that did a well-advertized documentary/series on Adams? What was it that brought this listener to Adams (and from there to Ives and Copland) if he isn't a regular visitor to "classical" Music broadcasts/concerts? (I bet it doesn't involve being invited to Tweet in his life story to a simpering idiot using the expression "blow your mind" every five seconds.)

The Rest is Noise, possibly. That received a fair bit more publicity in the States than the average classical music book (perhaps due to Alex Ross's New Yorker connection)

[ahinton]

I wish the situation was such that creative musicians experienced less pressure to ape the marketing techniques of commercial music. Marketing is basically to do with persuading people that a "product" no better than others is in fact more desirable than them, and applying this to music seems to me to devalue (potential) listeners to the status of passive consumers. Personally I wouldn't wish to insult people in that way.

Once again, you've hit the nail on the head; it's a pressure that has and generates no benefit to anyone other than money for those who know how most effectively to take advantage of it.

[MrGongGong]

Once again, you've hit the nail on the head; it's a pressure that has and generates no benefit to anyone other than money for those who know how most effectively to take advantage of it.

Indeed
This makes interesting reading

http://soundandmusic.org/projects/sound-and-music-commissioning-report