John Adams Road Movies

Here is a CD of chamber works by John Adams: Road Movies is for violin and piano, Hallelujah Junction is for two pianos, and the other three works are for solo piano. China Gates, the shortest piece, is simply beautiful: 4-and-a-half minutes of lyricism. American Berserk, the other miniature, is busy, jazzy and rhythmically rich. Hallelujah Junction, for two pianos, is named for a truck stop on the California-Nevada border, but Adams was thinking more of the area's past, filled with gold prospectors. Its 16 minutes are brawny and energetic; sometimes the pianos finish one-another's phrases, sometimes they form big-boned clusters. It goes through a section of plushness before a jagged last movement---it's as varied, Adams seems to be saying, as America's personality. Road Movies begins with a tempi and attitude evocative of driving down a highway, with billboards and dotted landscapes whizzing by; one might hear in the piano part the road and its turns and in the violin, the changing but much-the-same sights. The second movement is lonelier and more severe and the third is part pure minimalism sped up to a point of mania and part boogie-woogie. The CD's longest piece, Phrygian Gates, is peaceful and moody, with moments which alternately swell and ebb; the second movement goes nowhere and seems to be concerned with a tone cluster at time, and the finale is insistent minmalism, staying close enough to its original key at all times to be comfortable while rhythmically keeping us on out toes. The performances are beyond reproach, with Leila Josefowicz and John Novacek particularly splendid in their difficult Road Moves duos, but with very high praise going to the other pianists as well. This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but Adams always catches the attention. --Robert Levine