Customer Reviews

Adams: Harmonium/Klinghoffer Choruses

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For some years now one of my favorite "New Works" recorded has been the "Harmonium" of John Adams as recorded also by the San Francisco Symphony but under the baton of Edo de Waart. Time, and the increasing stature of the quality of playing of this orchestra under Tilson Thomas' nurturing, give Adams as conductor of his own work a spaciously beautiful contemplation on the words of Emily Dickinson and John Donne. The chorus is eminently worthy of plaudits for tone and diction. And to add Kent Nagano's travels with Klinghoffer.....all this makes for a disc well worth the wait. Extraordinary!

What a treat, to listen to John Adams' first masterwork in a new recording, conducted by Adams himself. The San Francisco Symphony play as beautifully as ever, and the choral performance is excellent. The sound is clear, and the album is perfectly produced, with very informative liner notes. The Choruses from Klinghoffer are expertly performed, as well, but seem rather like filler, as if they were thrown on the album so as to create a CD Adams' choral music. Couldn't something else have been used instead, like Century Rolls, or Naive And Sentimental Music, two Adams works yet to hit CD?Minor quibbles aside, this is a splendid CD, and a worthy addition to anyone's music library.

$20 for the CD, $10 for the mp3 download of "the album". That seems fair, no physical material changes hands. But when you look at the mp3 list, there are two tracks which are "album only". Why? Wake up, Amazon - charge the extra $0.01 (download $1 instead of the stupid $0.99 which shouldn't fool anybody) and sort out the legal issues!