Graham Dixon - John Adams Trumpet Essay Adam’s Trumpets – Engines or Arbiters? A discussion of the role of the trumpet in John Adams’ orchestral music The history of the trumpet can be divided into four sections. From Early man onwards, the trumpet was used as a noise-making instrument for signaling on the battlefield or at municipal functions. Most music was not notated and almost no “art music” was music composed for trumpets until 1600. The “Golden age” of the natural trumpet (c.1550- c1770) saw many solo works composed for trumpet, particularly after the high clarino register was mastered and the uneven tuning tamed. Gradual acceptance into the orchestra was followed by a very high profile, enjoyed until the decline of the clarino art at the end of the Baroque era. This was followed by a less prominent role for the trumpet, overall, throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, apart from isolated concertos for the keyed trumpet. During this period the trumpet was relegated to providing support, strengthening cadences and underpinning harmonic movement. However, the trumpet began something of a Renaissance in late 19th century in orchestral music, particularly the Romantic symphony. The 20th century has seen a comparative explosion in solo writing for the trumpet and its involvement in chamber, windband, brass ensemble and orchestral music. The piccolo trumpet was developed to more readily perform the high Baroque register, though it was quickly utilised by contemporary composers. The trumpet enjoys full involvement in contemporary composition, and is seemingly able to cast off some of the lingering “fanfare” stigma. The American composer John Adams (b.1947) belongs to the Minimalist school, though his more recent works have developed a more lyrical and less rhythmically relentless style. Adams’ early pieces were largely for tape or electronics, composed during or shortly after his time at Harvard, where he studied with Leon Kirchner, Earl Kim and Roger Sessions. His first instrumental pieces were for piano (Phrygian Gates) and strings (Shaker Loops), his later writing for full orchestra comprising his more popular pieces, Fearful Symmetries, Harmonielehre, Harmonium and the operas Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer. His earlier music relies largely on rhythmic pulse, without recourse to melody in any traditional sense. Indeed, Adams confessed during a short pre-concert talk at London’s Barbican in November 1998 that he had written his first melody as recently as 1995! Instead, the influence of the early minimalists is clear - repeating, pulsating patterns over which the melodic fragments oscillate rapidly. Over this continuous, often hypnotic foundation are spun longer melodic themes which have become more rhapsodic throughout Adams’ output. The trumpet appears frequently in Adams’ chamber and orchestral works and its importance is worthy of discussion. The enormous changes endured by the trumpet have rendered it a much more flexible instrument, and it is interesting to assess Adams’ attitude to this new-found capability, by which the trumpet simultaneously command a variety of orchestral styles. The question becomes one of the modern trumpet’s orchestral role in Adams’ music - Engine or Arbiter? Does the trumpet exercise a file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/DixonG/My%20Doc...nts/My%20Web%20Sites/Geocities/Adams_Dissertation.htm (1 of 5)06/04/2006 11:07:46 Graham Dixon - John Adams Trumpet Essay controlling influence, as it has so much in the past, or has it reverted to its supporting role, or a mixture of these? To discuss this topic I have slightly narrowed the range of available pieces due to constraints of space, and decided to choose the rich variety of writing dating from the mid- to late-1980’s. Specifically, Harmonielehre, Nixon in China, Fearful Symmetries, The Wound Dresser, The Chairman Dances, A Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Tromba Lontana. These works, though not in essence a representative cross-section of Adams’ total output, give ample material for this study. The trumpet’s ancient role as a signaling instrument is most clearly emulated in the first of the two fanfares for orchestra written in 1985, Tromba Lontana (“distant trumpet”), during which a pair of C-trumpets, positioned offstage, exchange a mixture of sustained and briefer signals (example 1). Though never approximating to the braying of animal horns, as would have been the case in history, the trumpets’ roles are clearly influenced by the ancient vocation of the instrument. The range is somewhat limited and the soloists are never obscured by the orchestral accompaniment, which retains a low, consistently minimalist and repetitive profile, using light textures, high string harmonics and eerie bowed vibraphone tones. The accompaniment crescendos only towards the middle of the work before receding towards the close. The orchestration allows the trumpets ample opportunity to dominate without the need for forcefulness, including as it does divided strings, no brass except for horns, and much involvement of the gentler piano and harp. Throughout this period of Adams’ orchestral output, the trumpet section interrupts the orchestra with short, sharp interjections, often muted and using jarring offbeat patterns. This use of the instrument becomes a trademark of the trumpet’s involvement in the music, particularly in much of Nixon in China, throughout which the trumpets blare out angular, punchy rhythmic patterns, either single quavers or more complex groups, couplets, triplets or dotted figures. These utterances contribute almost nothing to the melody, but add a great deal of zest to the rhythmic background and push along the work’s insistent pulse. While this does not equate to any specific genre of writing for the trumpet, it is closest in its properties to the loud, rough-hewn fanfares of the battlefield. Writing of this nature dominates many of Adams’ early trumpet parts and the offbeat, complex rhythms and fast, high, muted passagework, often in three-part trumpet chords, provides a challenge for the performers, who must contribute to the rhythmic fabric of the work without becoming overbearing; in this way the instrument combines ancient blaring and bombast with the modern concerns of balance and style. Perhaps the most obvious example of this jarring, punchy style is the famous fanfare piece A Short Ride in a Fast Machine, an orchestral fanfare commissioned for the Great Woods festival. Adams’ best-known work, this features the four trumpets prominently throughout, and the challenging parts include persistently altering rhythmic patterns from the whole brass section (example 2). The pace is lightening-fast, and the brass scythe through sweeping woodwind shapes with jubilant, percussive outbursts. file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/DixonG/My%20Doc...nts/My%20Web%20Sites/Geocities/Adams_Dissertation.htm (2 of 5)06/04/2006 11:07:46 Graham Dixon - John Adams Trumpet Essay Though the style is a far cry from that of the prehistoric trumpet, the differences between one style and the other are not as great as might be thought. Variety of rhythm is of great importance in military fanfares, where it substitutes for melodic complexity, and the exciting dotted rhythms in Short Ride replace any real melodic interest until towards the end of the piece. Despite the important role played by the rhythmical fanfare writing, Adams’ trumpet parts also contain much lyricism and subtlety. The contrast provided by this change in approach is similar in effect to that created by the juxtaposition of punchy fanfare figures with orchestral minimalism and lyricism. Of particular note is the chorale section towards the end of Short Ride, where the trumpets break completely with their conventional role in the work and engage in a sweeping melody of considerable range and weight. Importantly, they continue to dominate the texture, but this is now achieved through long-breathed, generous phrases rather than the stronger, persistent and rapid chords of the opening. Other moments of lyricism include the piccolo trumpet solo in the setting of Whitman verse for baritone and orchestra, The Wound Dresser, the steady, muted solo during Pat Nixon’s aria “This is Prophetic”, the slower section of the first movement of Harmonielehre, where the trumpet doubles the high violin melody, the high melody towards the end of The Chairman Dances (example 3), and the dramatic rising sixths in emulation of the soprano in the aria “I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung” from Nixon in China (example 4). One moment of this opera combines the early, fanfare role of the trumpet with a more soloistic vein - shortly after the landing of the Nixons’ aircraft at Beijing, the solo trumpet plays a Wagnerian, rising arpeggiac solo to welcome China’s guests (example 5). Importantly, however, these moments of lyricism are the exception to the rapid- fire, fanfare-like rule. Their appearance confirms Adams’ enthusiasm for variety of writing for the trumpet, but I believe they also reflect a natural desire for variety in the orchestral texture. The large volume of writing in the punchy, fanfare style is in danger of becoming relentless, on occasion, and the lyrical, soloistic moments help to avoid the less approachable writing from becoming stale or “old hat”. Indeed, the writing is never as soloistic as other examples from the repertoire of the 20th century trumpet, including orchestral works by James Macmillan, Stravinsky and Carl Vine, though these soloistic moments in Adams’ writing are in stark