John Adams, the composer, may be no relation to John Adams, our second president, but today he is most definitely feeling the spirit of “76.” Adams was born on this date in 1947. Considered by some to be America’s preeminent living composer, he emerged from the haze of Minimalism to become the most versatile and substantial of early proponents of the style. In 2003, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his 9/11 memorial “On the Transmigration of Souls.”
Personally I’ve always been divided on Adams’ music. Some of it I find to be fun; some of it I find to be quite good; some of it I find to be boring, clumsy, or downright embarrassing. But what do I know? I’m just some dope posting on the internet.
My subjective evaluations do nothing to mar Adams’ influence or his standing. Happy birthday to John Adams on his 76th birthday, and congratulations on his long-term success!
FUN FACTS: Adams’ name may recall our second president, or perhaps his son, sixth president John Quincy Adams, but the composer’s middle name is actually Coolidge. Presidents John Adams and Calvin Coolidge were third cousins five times removed, through John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden of the Mayflower fame. Admittedly, none of this has to do with the composer, beyond the fact that he was indeed named for Adams the president, who had no middle name.
A few of my Adams favorites:
“Short Ride in a Fast Machine”
“Shaker Loops”
“Nixon in China,” here introduced by Walter Cronkite
There’s something oddly appropriate about a composer named John Adams arriving between the birthdays of Lincoln and Washington.
Adams turns 70 today. Considered by some to be America’s foremost living composer, he emerged from the fog of minimalism to become the most versatile and substantial of those who have embraced the style.
Personally I’ve always been divided on Adams’ music. Some of it I find fun (“Short Ride in a Fast Machine,” “Grand Pianola Music”), some of it I find to be quite good (“Shaker Loops,” “El Niño”), some of it I find to be boring, clumsy or downright embarrassing (“Harmonium,” for as much as I could stand of “Doctor Atomic”).
I concede that my reactions are very subjective. There’s no arguing against Adams’ influence or his standing. Happy birthday, sir, and congratulations on your long-term success.
Adams’ music will be featured today alongside that of fellow birthday celebrants Christopher Rouse, Georges Auric, Robert Fuchs and Michael Praetorius, when I take to the airwaves from 4 to 7 p.m. EST on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
He maintained a filing cabinet filled with drawings of imaginary medieval buildings, the properties of which he would periodically put up for sale in local journals by way of anonymous ads.
He founded his own church – Église Métropolitaine d’Art de Jésus Conducteur (Metropolitan Art Church of Jesus the Conductor) – of which he was the only member, and for which he promptly composed a mass.
He only ate white food: eggs, sugar, shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, veal, salt, coconuts, chicken cooked in white water, moldy fruit, rice, turnips, sausages in camphor, pastry, cheese (only white varieties), cotton salad (whatever that is) and certain kinds of fish.
When he died, his friends produced umbrella after umbrella after umbrella from his room.
Erik Satie (1866-1925) was an artist whose life was full of enigmas and ambiguities. He is often misclassified as an Impressionist. He was viewed by some (including Maurice Ravel) as a precursor to Debussy, even as he felt a greater affinity with the younger generation of composers who made up Les Six.
In practice, he elevated salon and cabaret music, of which he spoke slightingly. After he went back to school at mid-life in order to bone up on classical counterpoint, he stopped using bar lines in his manuscripts. He blazed trails later rediscovered by Morton Feldman and John Cage. He was a minimalist more than half a century before Minimalism.
Satie rejected the concept of musical development, believing it to be an unconscionable imposition on the public’s time. For him, brevity was the soul of wit. He could be profoundly ironic. Many of his piano pieces bear titles like “Trois Morceaux en forme de poire” (“Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear”), “Embryons desséchés” (“Desiccated Embryos”), and “Véritables préludes flasques pour un chien” (“Veritable Flabby Preludes for a Dog”).
A friend of Jean Cocteau, the two collaborated on the surrealist curio “Parade,” written for the Ballets Russes, with choreography by Léonide Massine and costumes and set design by Picasso. The scenario involves three circus acts trying to attract an audience to an indoor performance.
It was one of a number of works that were introduced in the ‘Teens that attempted to create a scandal through the incorporation of low-brow elements into what was perceived as a high-brow art form. Hoping for a strong reaction, Cocteau pushed for the inclusion of such provocative “instruments” as a typewriter, a foghorn, a siren, milk bottles, gunshots, and boots sloshing around in a wash tub. The work bore the subtitle “A Realist Ballet.” The opening night audience responded by rioting energetically.
Politically, Satie was a radical socialist, who eventually teetered over into Communism. For a time, his wardrobe consisted of seven identical grey suits. During his quasi-religious phase, he went about in a priest-like habit. Then he became a “velvet gentleman.” Finally, during his communist period, he assumed the appearance of a bourgeois functionary, never to be seen without a bowler and an umbrella.
No one would have guessed that such an impeccable dresser would have lived out his life in clutter and squalor. When Satie died, his friends, who had never been invited back to his place in 27 years, were aghast at the piles of newspapers, the unending collection of umbrellas, and most of all the stacked grand pianos, the uppermost of which had been used by the composer as a repository for papers and parcels. Among these, and in the pockets of Satie’s wardrobe, were discovered a number of manuscripts which the composer had believed long lost.
Happy birthday, Erik Satie! I will have eggs for breakfast in your honor.
“Je te veux” (“I want you”):
Selections from “Parade,” with the Picasso designs. Love the horse!
