# John Adams - Harmonielehre



## MattTheTubaGuy (Jan 28, 2010)

I played this in the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra a couple of weeks ago.
Absolutely fantastic piece. I don't usually like modernist sort of stuff, but this is one of those pieces tat I could quite easily listen to over and over again (and I probably will when I get a decent recording of it)

Link to youtube playlist
:trp:


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

I'm a fan of most of his work.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Love this piece.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Personally, I think John Adams is the best of the process-music minimalists.


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## johnfkavanagh (Sep 9, 2011)

IMO, there really is no way you can call Harmonielehre minimalist. Post-minimalist, perhaps. But it is a great piece.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

I am unhappy about Adams's blatant ripoff of Mahler 10 in _Harmonielehre _and the transition in the last movement from the flying music to the jubilant ending is unconvincing - Sibelius he ain't.

_Harmonium _is by far the better work, viewed compositionally, and _Shaker loops_ impresses within its deliberately restricted orbit.


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## johnfkavanagh (Sep 9, 2011)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> I am unhappy about Adams's blatant ripoff of Mahler 10 in _Harmonielehre _and the transition in the last movement from the flying music to the jubilant ending is unconvincing - Sibelius he ain't.
> 
> _Harmonium _is by far the better work, viewed compositionally, and _Shaker loops_ impresses within its deliberately restricted orbit.


I must confess that I hold a diametrically opposite view; I personally find nothing of interest in _Harmonium_ or _Shaker Loops_ and I view the Mahlerian-ness (sorry about that word!) of _Harmonielehre_ as a postmodernist reference rather than a rip-off. Maybe I am just more gullible than you.

Generally with Adams I find that while I greatly enjoy some of his music, some does very little for me -_ Klinghoffer_, the _Violin Concerto_ and the _Chamber Symphony_ are examples of the latter. But I like _Naive and Sentimental Music_ almost as much as I do _Harmonielehre_ and _Nixon In China_.


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## TrazomGangflow (Sep 9, 2011)

When you look at the word minimalism in the dictionary John Adam's picture is there.


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