Adams: Harmonielehre

John Adams (Composer), Edo de Waart (Conductor), San Francisco Symphony (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: San Francisco Symphony
• Conductor: Edo de Waart
• Composer: John Adams
• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nonesuch / Elektra
• ASIN: B000005IXN
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,549 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Harmonielehre, for orchestra: Part 1

2. Harmonielehre, for orchestra: Part 2: The Anfortas Wound

3. Harmonielehre, for orchestra: Part 3: Meister Eckhardt and Quack

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing and Powerful, June 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Adams: Harmonielehre (Audio CD)

I have had this CD since it came out in the late 1980's. Almost 15 years and hundreds of CD's later, it still is one of the joys in my collection. Its a musical cocktail of minimalism, Sibelius, Bruckner and Wagner.

The first movement is a sonic portrait of (Adam's description of a dream he had) "a huge tanker in the San Francisco Bay that suddenly takes off like a rocket out of the water with an enormous force of levitation". For those of you familiar with Sibelius, I find obvious parallels with the first movement of the 5th symphony.

The second movement (The Anfortas Wound) is a slow, deeply emotional piece that echos Wagner's Parsifal. Per Adams, it is "a piece about sickness and infirmity, both physical and spiritual".

The third movement is a struggle out of darkness back into the light. Again, the sound world resembles sibelius with the arc of bruckner.

While I have collected most of Adams works since this purchase, this remains my favorite work of his (El Dorado is a close 2nd). Of the two commercial recordings, this performance by Edo De Waart and the San Francisco Symphony is to be preferred to Simon Rattles later version. Rattle over romanticises the piece. De Waart and the SFS provide a more modern interpretation with a leaner orchestra sound that provides much more clarity.

Highly recommended - One of the best orchestra works to come out of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent work, January 9, 2001

By 

Daniel R. Greenfield "Dan" (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Adams: Harmonielehre (Audio CD)

I just discovered John Adams recently, and have heard only a few of his works. I picked up this album from my local library. I was extremely impressed by the scope of this work. For all practical purposes, it is a symphony that compares favorably with any of William Schuman's symphonic works. The beginning reminds me of a Bruckner symphony -- and much of the first movement is positively Brucknerian, albeit it is a Bruckner that has an expressionistic style. The second movement reminds me in spots of late Mahler -- especially that long extended dissonant chord, which can also be heard in M10. The last movement is charming, and probably the most enjoyable movement of this work. All in all, I am tremendously impressed to realize that this music was composed when Adams was a mere 38 years old. A magnificent work.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Returning to the Great Ones, March 1, 2006

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Adams: Harmonielehre (Audio CD)

John Adams is now part of the mainstream of classical music and his newer compositions, married in part to social commentary such as the magnificent 'On the Transmigration of Souls' in tribute to 911, 'El Nino' with its bow to the Hispanic heritage, and of course the obvious - his operas 'Nixon in China', 'The Death of Klinghofer', and 'Doctor Atomic'- gain widespread coverage in the media and rightly so. But now and then it is refreshing to return to some of his purely orchestral works such as the splendid 1981 'Harmonium' and the brilliant 'Harmonielehre' here recorded shortly after its premiere in 1985.

'Harmonielehre' is a mature work, a purely orchestra fabric in which Adams is in full control of his very original musical language. That 'language' is the massive pulsation of single chords that moves subtly in context with various additions and subtractions of instrumental choirs, changing tonal colors and rhythms in a manner that sweeps the work along never allowing a moment of static position so often prevalent in some so-called minimalist music. The work is divided into three parts. Part I is 'like a tanker taking off', a driving almost brutal force. Part II 'The Amfortas Wound' is one of the most serenely beautiful movements has written, an evocation of Wagner's tragedy within 'Parsifal'. Part III 'Meister Eckhardt and Quackie' is the climatic 'harmonic struggle among different tonalities vying for dominance'.

Edo de Waart and the San Francisco Orchestra have captured as honest and straight forward a perfomance of this mighty work as we are likely to hear. The recorded sound (from SFOs Davies Hall) in 1985. There is a spaciousness to the recording perhaps in part due to the fact that the CD has no accompanying works. This is the gold standard recording for Adams' important 'Harmonielehre' (translated means Harmony Lesson) and it is a complete success. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, March 06