John Adams – Piano, Vocal, and Chamber Works (Naxos)

Post-minimal composer John Adams is well known for pieces that make big statements – operas such as Nixon in China and Dr. Atomic and the orchestra piece On the Transmigration of Souls immediately come to mind. He’s also a skilful composer of chamber music; his two chamber symphonies are some of his best work. A new Naxos recording of pieces for violin, piano, and voice makes a strong statement for compact Adams. 

Perhaps compact, but not writ small. The pieces programmed here are ambitious sounding in their own right. Pianist Ralph van Raat, a stalwart advocate for a number of contemporary composers, leads the proceedings and plays on all of the tracks. Violinist Rosanne Philippens and he dazzle with the motoric, jazzy nature of  the outer movements of “Road Movies.” Its central movement’s tender lines are delivered gracefully. Van Raat’s solo turn on “I Still Play” twists and turns through the several types of triple meter dances Adams seems to channel: waltzes, Gymnopedie-esque sections, bluesy shuffles, and Romantic character pieces.

“Roll Over Beethoven,” on which van Raat is joined by pianist Maarten van Veen, is the most substantial piece on the recording. In it, Adams incorporates fragments from two of Beethoven’s works – the Opus 110 piano sonata and the “Diabelli Variations” – reconstituting them for an imposing minimalist mash-up in the opening movement and a more deliberatively constructed second section. After several delicate passages, there is a slow buildup to a rousing conclusion.  

Some pieces are arrangements, such as arias from Adams’s theater works remade for soprano and piano, sung by soprano Laura Bohn. “Am I in Your Light,” from Doctor Atomic, displays Adams at his most lyrical, and Bohn’s rendition is affecting. Two selections from I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, “Consuelo’s Dream” and “Leila’s Song: Alone (Again or At Last),” find the composer exploring jazz and pop idioms. Bohn is quite able to shift gears and sing most persuasively. 

One of Adams’s most famous orchestra pieces is Short Ride in a Fast Machine. It is inimitable, but the four-hands version performed by van Raat and van Veen is a convincing distillation of the original, with the perpetual motion of energetic ostinatos propelling the music ever forward. A stirring closer to a compelling collection of works. 

-Christian Carey