JL ADAMS Become Ocean
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: John Luther Adams
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Cantaloupe
Magazine Review Date: 11/2014
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 42
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CA21101
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Become Ocean |
John Luther Adams, Composer
John Luther Adams, Composer Ludovic Morlot, Conductor Seattle Symphony Orchestra |
Author: Pwyll ap Siôn
Surprising, therefore, that Adams’s recent composition is inspired by the sea rather than the earth. Become Ocean takes the sense of scale and space that captured the composer’s imagination when he first visited Alaska in the 1970s and applies it to the deep, dark and hidden depths of the oceans surrounding the Pacific Northwest.
This is not ersatz programmatic music, however. Adams’s ‘sonic geography’ is a by-product of what can only be described as a keenly felt musical osmosis. If ever an orchestra sounded like an immense sonic object, slowly floating across a vast area, then this must be it. Become Ocean is divided into six seven-minute segments, with each one forming a kind of slow-motion wave. Some of these waves swell up into enormous, thunderous crashes, as heard around the 21' and 35' marks, causing changes in the music’s environment – like shifting glaciers in a frozen sea. As if to demonstrate the connection, there’s also a DVD consisting of six oceanic images looped in sequence to the music.
Of course, a strong cautionary message lies behind Become Ocean. To quote the composer himself: ‘As the polar ice melts and sea level rises, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may quite literally become ocean.’
Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
SubscribeGramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.