A highly energetic chamber music work by the USA's most performed living classical composer
Rich in motoric motifs and rhythmic excitement, both for violinist and pianist
This virtuoso journey through American landscapes is ideal for advanced level violinists exploring new modern repertoire.
Year of Composition: 1995
Duration: 00:16:00
Pages: 40
Size & Presentation: Manuscript book stapled; New edition portrait
Period: Contemporary 1975 - Current
After years of studiously avoiding the
chamber music format I have suddenly begun to compose for the medium in real earnest. The 1992
Chamber Symphony was followed by the string quartet,
John's Book of Alleged Dances, written for
Kronos in 1994, and now comes
Road Movies. My music of the
70s and
80s
was principally about massed sonorities and the physical and emotional
potency of big walls of triadic harmony. These musical gestures were not
really germane to chamber music with its democratic parceling of roles,
its transparency and
timbral
delicacy. Moreover, the challenge of writing melodically, something
that chamber music demands above and beyond all else, was yet to be
solved. Fortunately, a breakthrough in melodic writing came about during
the writing of
The Death of Klinghoffer, an opera whose subject and mood required a whole new appraisal of my musical language.
The title "Road Movies" is total whimsy, probably suggested by the "groove" in the piano
part, all of which is required to be played in a "swing" mode
(second and fourth of every group of four notes are played slightly
late).
Movement I is a relaxed drive down a not unfamiliar road.
Material is recirculated in a sequence of recalls that suggest a rondo
form.
Movement II is a simple meditation of several small motives. A solitary figure in a empty desert landscape.
Movement III is for four wheel drives only, a big perpetual motion machine called
"40%
Swing". On modern MIDI sequencers the desired amount of swing can be
adjusted with almost ridiculous accuracy. 40% provides a giddy,
bouncy ride, somewhere between an Ives ragtime and a long
rideout
by the Goodman Orchestra, circa 1939. It is very difficult for violin
and piano to maintain over the seven-minute stretch, especially in the
tricky cross-hand style of the piano part. Relax, and leave the driving
to us.
John Adams, September 1995
