John Adams: Slonimsky's Earbox (1996)

Hallé Orchestra / Kent Nagano
"The "Slonimsky" in my title not only memorializes his wit and hyper-energetic activity, but it also acknowledged my great debt to his thesaurus, whose scales and resulting harmonies have had a singular impact on my music since the Chamber Symphony of 1992. "Earbox" might be a word worthy of Slonimsky himself, a coiner who never tired of minting his own." - John Adams
"Slonimsky's Earbox marked an important turning point in my orchestral music, coming as it did after a period of harmonic and contrapuntal experimentation that began with The Death of Klinghoffer and progressed through the Chamber Symphony and Violin Concerto. The model for this piece was the exploding first few moments of Stravisnky's The Song of the Nightengale. I have long thought that the Russians - not only Stravinsky but composers like Scriabin and Tcherepnin - had begun something very important in their use of modal scales and harmonies, a direction that unfortunately was overwhelmed by more prestigous practices such as Neoclassicism and Serialism."

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Music

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• John
• Adams
• Orchestral

[skelligs63]

Hi John Adams from another John Adams.

Very interesting video thanks.

Perhaps you might be amused to see one of mine.

Just put in on you tube "John Adams drums in the fridge".

Best wishes and I would love to see your music live, I am in Ireland how could we organize that?

[twangbarfly]

Great stuff - thanks for posting. Sad to say I had no idea who John Adams was, but I'm happy to say I now do, thanks to you :-) A musical mistake lasting only 3 minutes? When I get up and play it's one after the other for a whole evening :-)

[psakbar]

This is great fun to hear and it's even more fun to play -- the NSO took it to China with Leonard Slatkin and it wears very well. What a great composer is John Adams.

[marcusunlimited]

LOL, what do you expect from a minimalist:)

[yumyumwhatzohai]

LOL, the last comment Adams said was hillarious.

[DaLu105]

I totally agree with how the first rehersal sucks, i go crazy wen people first reherse my piece

[AustinShowen]

I love this piece! I really enjoy how it sounds like it just might run off the tracks, but somehow it doesn't; and then it has just beautiful, perfect moments of pure joy and excitement--it's one of my favorite of John Adams' works.

[ckeledjian]

I saw John Adams conducting this with the New World Symp here in Miami, and later took a photo with him and had my Earbox collection signed. He does conduct it much better than Nagano, I heard details and big crescendos like I could never hear in the recording. Adams is the best.

[MColivejuice]

Eargazmic

[JeeRant]

I can't even begin to say how much I love that piece!!