“What he did, I think, is the most difficult thing,” said composer Nico Muhly. “Let’s assume this is a kind of American minimalist tradition, taking the time-space influences we see in Wagner and figuring out how to make them live next to each other and work together.”
As Adams’ more personal style developed, it carried traces of the Western classical tradition, with the colorist insight of Debussy and the American language of Ives and jazz. , says Adams faithfully incorporates familiar elements into his work. “
For example, the popular idiom in “Dance of the Chairman” (1985) smells of the Darmstadt school of modernism that dominated Adams’ youth — the music of composers such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was a clear departure from, but was beginning to be overtaken. By a broader return to minimalism and tonality. And it coincided with what Adams called “my Saul moment on the road to Damascus” when he began reading Dickens’ novels in his thirties.
“The first thing that struck me was that some people were making great art,” recalls Adams. “I mean, sometimes it’s awful, it’s funny and sentimental, but it turns the pages fast. And like Tolstoy and Victor Hugo, he wrote important works with social connections and social impact.” They had a huge audience.I thought about our time.We composers surrendered it to pop music.”
Pop star Adams isn’t, but he’s one of the few composers to come close to that position, perhaps second only to Glass. And from that position he wrote music of conscience and consequence, following in the footsteps of literary heroes. Along with practicing form and tone, violin concerto (1994) and more recently, “Should the devil have all the good songs?” (2019), “About Soul Reincarnation” A Pulitzer Prize-winning response to the September 11 attacks and a collaboration with director Peter Sellers, who explored contemporary social issues through a classical lens: “El Nino” (2000), a Christmas oratorio familiar with Handel’s “Messiah”, or “Gospel According to Another Mary” Passion retelling from 2012.