J. Adams: Road Movies : Leila Josefowicz(vn)/John Novacek(p)/etc

Composer John Adams' album Road Movies contains five pieces that Adams' considers "travel music, (...) passing through harmonic and textural regions as one would pass through on a car trip." Indeed, during Leila Josefowicz's spirited and appropriately brusque reading of the "40% Swing" movement from the title work, one hears what sounds like a passing auto in the left channel. Is it mere coincidence or the album concept channeling onto the master tape? Three of the pieces here appear on recordings for the first time, Road Movies for violin and piano (1995), Hallelujah Junction for two pianos, and American Berserk for piano (2001). The balance is given to the already familiar China Gates and Phrygian Gates played by pianists Nicolas Hodges and Rolf Hind, respectively, who join forces in the four-hand work. Actually, it's been a long time since there was a whole disc made up of chamber and/or keyboard works from Adams, who has been concentrating on orchestral music and pieces for ensembles. As such, this is a real treat -- the playing is expert on all counts, and the newer pieces sit comfortably side by side with the older ones, which are given a fresh perspective in these new recordings. While it may not be the album that never leaves your car stereo -- American Berserk is raucous enough that it could prove quite distracting during a traffic jam -- Road Movies is an immensely enjoyable collection that never runs out of gas.

Here is an anthology of John Adams' comparatively small output for the piano, whether solo, duo, or in tandem with another instrument. The title of the album -- also the first composition in the sequence -- gives you an idea of what to expect, for Adams' motor rhythms turn several of these pieces into travelogues. You're in a car, watching the scenery flash by as the sophisticated well-tuned engine sets the rhythm, slowing to a contemplative crawl before picking up speed again. This is certainly the case in Road Movies, with its fast-slow-fast, three-movement layout and running ostinatos -- and Hallelujah Junction, named after a tiny hamlet near Adams' cabin retreat deep in the Sierra Nevada, has the same ABA tempo structure and similar motorized driving ideas. Road Movies introduces a violin into the mix, with star violinist Leila Josefowicz scraping away lustily and rhythmically at the first movement, as if this were prime Stravinsky, and John Novacek on piano, while Hallelujah is left to the duo pianos of Nicolas Hodges and Rolf Hinds. American Berserk is a more complex animal; the rhythms shift, lurch, and generally make the life of anyone who sight-reads it miserable over a span of six minutes. The disc also takes in two Adams solo piano pieces written two decades (1977) before their companions -- the brief, limpid, minimalist exercise China Gates and its much larger companion, Phrygian Gates. From a 21st century vantage point, Phrygian now seems like the signpost at the beginning of a long stylistic highway; obsessive minimalist patterns still run the show yet a restless Romantic spirit yearns to break free. The composer provides typically erudite yet offbeat liner notes -- always worth reading. ~ Richard S. Ginell