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Adams: Harmonielehre, Short Ride in a Fast Machine [Hybrid SACD - DSD]

San Francisco Symphony , Michael Tilson Thomas , John Adams Audio CD
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Price: $23.96 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Formats

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MP3 Music, 4 Songs, 2012 $8.99  
Audio CD, Hybrid SACD - DSD, 2012 $23.96  

Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Samples
Song Title Time Price
listen  1. Harmonielehre: Part I17:23Album Only
listen  2. Harmonielehre: Part II: The Anfortas Wound12:54Album Only
listen  3. Harmonielehre: Part III: Meister Eckhardt and Quackie11:48Album Only
listen  4. Short Ride in a Fast Machine 5:04$0.99  Buy MP3 


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The San Francisco Symphony, one of America's most forward-looking arts organizations, presents over 220 concerts each year, creates leading edge media initiatives such as Keeping Score on PBS television and its own Grammy-winning record label SFS Media, and serves its community with one of the most extensive education and community programs of any orchestra in the country. Led by its ... Read more in Amazon's San Francisco Symphony Store

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Frequently Bought Together

Adams: Harmonielehre, Short Ride in a Fast Machine + Salonen: Out of Nowhere Violin Concerto - Nyx + Ligeti / Beethoven
Price for all three: $53.31

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Product Details

  • Orchestra: San Francisco Symphony
  • Conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas
  • Composer: John Adams
  • Audio CD (March 13, 2012)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: Hybrid SACD - DSD
  • Label: SFS Media
  • ASIN: B0074B2MV8
  • In-Print Editions: MP3 Music
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,168 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

This recording represents the latest chapter in the long time collaboration between composer John Adams and Michael Tilson Thomas. Here, MTT and the San Francisco Symphony perform Adams' orchestral masterpiece Harmonielehre, a milestone of American minimalism first premiered by the orchestra in 1985. Paired with the joyful Short Ride in a Fast Machine, this new release from the GRAMMY-® award winning San Francisco Symphony is a must-have for any collection.

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars
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What a magnificent performance and recording. Walker Pike  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement
This excellent album is a perfect match for Adam's excellent, exciting, ever fresh symphonic showpieces. Dr. Debra Jan Bibel  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
If all this sounds like a back-handed complement, I suppose it is to some extent. B. Guerrero  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful Grandeur & A Sonic Adventure March 21, 2012
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Harmonielehre, which premiered in 1985 with the San Francisco Symphony under Edo de Waart, is John Adams' break-out opus that made the classical world take notice. No longer lumped as a minimalist, long past his tape experiments, Adams wrote a majestic, powerful, complex composition. He had labored long in frustration searching for a novel work, but a dream (of a powerful tanker in San Francisco Bay suddenly taking off into the air) awakened a chordal idea that brought everything rapidly in order. I have heard performances of this work three times by the SF Symphony, once under the baton of Adams himself, and it never fails to plunge into my marrow. The old first issue of the work can hardly approach the new engineering standards of this high technological, surround sound SACD/CD. The live recording sparkles by its clariity, dynamic range, symphonic separation, and presence, from the hushed pianissimo to brass blasts, from the deep bass of the string basses to stratospheric piccolo, celesta, triangle, and bells. The performance in this album is outstanding, as good or better than I have experienced years before. The elegant, beautiful gravitas of Harmonielehre is shed for the encore fanfare, Short Ride in A Fast Machine, which was released in 1987 on The Chairman Dances album. Tilson Thomas takes it a minute longer, and on this recording it is a sonic adventure. This excellent album is a perfect match for Adam's excellent, exciting, ever fresh symphonic showpieces.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Emotionally stunning music July 6, 2012
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
For me, a classical music nut, musician, and audiophile, music comes in two "rough" flavors...

One: Stuff I can go around whistling and other people will recognize the music.

Two: Stuff that bypasses this route and goes directly to the soul.

Adams: Harmonielehre is a type two composition. I had never before heard anything from this composer and I was skeptical.

I put the SACD/CD disk on and settled down to reading my Kindle.

I have a large, powerful audio system.
The music was absolutely stunning!
I soon gave up on Kindle and just listened.
When the disk was finished, I repeated listening to it three more times.

This is a great example of primal direct mind stimulus, you will NOT go around whistling the "melody", but you might shed a tear.
I cannot recommend this more!
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Music of John Adams has become so familiar April 4, 2012
Format:MP3 Music
The selected title of this brief review is in no way negative: quite the opposite! How gratifying to see that in a composer's lifetime he can gain such complete acceptance and recognition that the public knows most of his works so well. And of course everyone realizes that he doesn't stop there. Every year his new works are premiered by orchestras across the country - but mostly in California where the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic honor every work he writes.

This recording is form a live taping during a concert in which Michael Tilson Thomas revisits his approach to the HARMONIELEHRE (`Harmony Lesson') and after a few listenings it seems this may be the finest recoding of the work available. The sound is bright and the harmonics are well delineated and masterfully played by the San Francisco Symphony. Although many regard this as their favorite Adams' composition, this listener continues to favor the HARMONIUM, perhaps because of the use of Emily Dickinson poetry as intoned by the chorus. But that is simply a personal passion.

Adding the SHORT RIDE IN A FAST MACHINE is a coups for this recording. It is distant in time form the big work but glows and pulsates in a manner that in a way pays homage to the lyricism of HARMONIELEHRE. This is a very special recording and one that belongs in the Adams section of the home music library. Grady Harp, April 12
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