randy_byers | Become ocean (Reply)

I haven't posted about music for a while, and that's probably because I haven't been listening to much -- or at least not much new stuff -- in recent months. My exploration of 20th and 21st century classical music has faltered for the moment, although it hasn't completely come to a stop. I continue to obsess, for example, on John Luther Adams, and I'm posting now to recommend the new recording of his Pulitzer Prize winning piece, Become Ocean, which was premiered by the Seattle Symphony last year. WQXR is still streaming the Seattle Symphony's live performance at Carnegie from May of this year, and the studio recording is now available at fine music emporia everywhere.

To quote my post about the CD on Facebook: "I've been obsessing on the Seattle Symphony's new CD of John Luther Adams' brilliant BECOME OCEAN. The reviewer at SF Gate dismisses the music as 'a mashup of its obvious sources: the prelude to Wagner’s “Das Rheingold,” Debussy’s “La Mer” and the massive sound banks and arpeggios of early Philip Glass.' As if that's a bad thing! It's also a giant palindrome and produces a feeling of endless tidal returning."

I hemmed and hawed over whether to describe it as "tidal returning" or "tidal churning," because both seemed apt.

It's perhaps worth remembering here that my exploration of 20th and 21st classical music was inspired by the operas of Daniel Catán, who died in 2011. I was looking for more music that had that organic, unfurling, flowing quality. I've found some, too, both in older music like Ravel's and in newer stuff like Frances White's. This piece by JLA is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. It really speaks to me, and I've been listening to it (and some other pieces by JLA) almost constantly since I started listening to that WQXR stream back in May. It sounds nothing like Catán, although both owe a debt to Debussy. Water music, but different waters -- perhaps the Amazon vs. the North Pacific. It's immersive music for me. I can drown in it.