Australian Ensemble Plays John Luther Adams

Cover design for the album being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page)

In reviewing my past articles, it appears that I have been doing my best to keep up with releases of music composed by John Luther Adams and produced by Cold Blue Music. However, my last article seems to have been written in May of 2024, meaning that there has been a hiatus of almost two years since then. The good news, however, is that the latest Adams album, entitled Horizon, showed up today on its own Amazon.com Web page.

The album presents a two-movement composition making virtuosic demands on a string orchestra. The album title shows up in the title of both of the movements: “Visible Horizon” and “True Horizon.” The composer provided notes to elaborate on these titles. The distinction between these two titles is described as follows:

1. “The visible horizon is what we see from where we look.”
2. “The true horizon is the full extent of all that we might possibly see, an unobstructed view of the enveloping circle where the sky meets the earth or the sea.”

Adams composed Horizon on a commission by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The recording process for the album took place in Chatswood, New South Wales, on October 14 and 15 of last year. The ensemble then gave its first performance before an audience at Newcastle City Hall this past February 5.

My Blogger search tool informs me that I have used some form of the word “texture” in writing about five past recordings, the earliest of which was the first Cold Blue release: The Light That Fills the World. On the other hand, there seems to be no sign of my ever referencing the opening measures of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the first of the four operas given the collective title Der Ring des Nibelungen. It would be fair to say that Wagner’s prologue depicts the emergence of life itself out of pure nothingness. Adams seems less interested it how things come to be and more interested in how we cultivate our awareness of them.

I must confess that I find myself curious to see the score for Horizon. On this album, there are seventeen musicians in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, ten violins, three violas, three cellos, and one double bass. My guess is that the engaging textures that emerge from Adams’ score are the production of providing each instrument with its own part. This might make for challenging score-following, but the listener has the luxury of allowing his attention to “wander about,” exploring one sonority and then moving on to another.

This was the way in which I dealt with a performance of “Inuksuit” in the summer of 2017. The work was an “open-ended” composition, which had more to do with establishing an environment, rather than unfolding a path from beginning to end. The piece had a three-part structure. However, the music was scored for 9 to 99 percussion players; and the score pages were distributed among them. The performance took place at Lands End with the permission of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. One might say that the performance was less a matter of listening and more one of “being there.”

A recording, on the other hand, encourages one to prioritize listening over being. I have now listened to Horizon several times. Each new experience tends to have its own “being,” rather than stimulating memories of the last listenings. My guess is that this is how one should approach any of the albums of Adams’ compositions.