Composer Connections: John Adams
Throughout my career, I’ve experienced a great many exciting opportunities to engage directly and imaginatively with dozens of prominent and prolific composers, among them Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Osvaldo Golijov, Joan Tower, Ellen Taafe Zwilich, and John Harbison. Perhaps the most meaningful and enlightening of the working relationships and friendships I’ve enjoyed with composers over the years is the one I have with John Adams, one of the greatest and most profound of all American composers. Known mostly for large-scale operas (based on a variety of intriguing and sometimes controversial topics) and grand orchestral works, John - who lives across the San Francisco Bay from my home at Stanford University – connected with me and my string quartet, the St. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ), back in 2007 when he attended a celebratory performance we gave at Stanford (in honor of his 60th birthday) featuring the grand work had composed several years earlier for the Kronos Quartet, “John’s Book of Alleged Dances.” I recall that we paired “Alleged Dances” with one of the late Beethoven quartets, the Op. 132 in A minor. Backstage after the concert, we spoke with John, who was beyond excited about our Beethoven performance (I think and hope he liked our performance of his piece as well, but it was the Beethoven that really energized him!). Then – and I’ll never forget this – he said to all four of us, “Would you mind if I wrote you a string quartet?” To which we replied,” Are you serious? We would be eternally thrilled and grateful to have a quartet written by you, for us!!” And so began an important and ongoing relationship and friendship with John Adams.
John completed his new quartet (entitled, uncharacteristically for a composer who is famous for giving his works unique and clever titles, “String Quartet”) in 2008. Prior to its premiere, we played the piece for him whenever it was possible to schedule meetings (tricky, since both John and the SLSQ travel extensively in any given year), resulting in adjustments and revisions (a normal process when workshopping a new piece). The world premiere took place at the Juilliard School in January of 2009 and was incredibly well-received. Following that performance, we began to play the piece extensively all over the US, in Canada, in Europe, and in ten cities in New Zealand. We recorded it a year or two later for Nonesuch Records.
On the heels of the great experiences we had with John’s “String Quartet,” he created two additional works for the SLSQ: “Absolute Jest,” for string quartet and orchestra, a brilliant and colorful work based on themes and motives from late Beethoven string quartets (written for us as soloists with the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting); and a second string quartet, entitled, appropriately, “Second Quartet” (at which time “String Quartet,” the first piece he wrote for us, was retitled “First Quartet”), like “Absolute Jest” inspired by Beethoven, this time his Op. 110 piano sonata.
Working on all three of these works with John has led to perhaps the most significant and enriching professional musical interactions of my three-decade career. The works he composed for my quartet have been in great demand following their world premieres; in particular, “Absolute Jest” has created happy opportunities for the SLSQ, resulting in performances across the US, Europe, and Japan, with the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Symphony, and the NHK Symphony in Tokyo, to name a few. And we continue to perform the two string quartets frequently. Most importantly, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to get to know John as a person: he is energetic, engaging, focused, exacting, and always an interesting and entertaining conversationalist. The music world is a much more interesting and exciting place because of John Adams’s profound contributions!