Variations 2020
date completed
2020
duration
18'
scored for
orchestra
instrumentation
3.3.3.3-4.4.3.1-2pno.keyb.perc.(4)-strings
commission
Het Concertgebouw and Cincinnati Symphony
premiere
March 2023 in Cincinnati, OH
Program Note by Samuel Adams
I started work on Variations in the summer of 2020 after briefly relocating to Nevada and completed the score the following January. It was during this period of isolation that emerged a consistent pattern to my life, starting each day at the piano to compose and ending each day with the same long walk in my temporary desert neighborhood. The only variations during this time were found in my environment: the gradual change in the landscape, the swelling number of migrating birds in the fall, and the angle of light on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada.
In many ways, Variations became a mirror of this lived experience. The organic texture and the flow of the music reflect the steely grey expanses of Western Nevada and the rhythmic, almost rippling quality of the peaks and valleys as they roll out east. Yet while composing the piece—as the light gradually left the northern hemisphere and the world during the first pandemic winter seemed to gradually close in on itself—the music seemed to, conversely, open up. The 18 minutes uncoil like the fronds of a fern. Each variation grows in duration so that the first variation lasts about a minute and the last about seven, and each variation begins with the same ascending Phrygian scale before venturing into increasingly vast landscapes. The final variation reaches a high plateau, with ecstatic waves of sound cresting and falling to the most extreme ranges of the orchestra before arriving at a brief, ringing coda.
The first work I’ve written for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, it was a total joy to create.
-Samuel Adams
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For the centerpiece, “Variations,” the composer, Samuel Adams (whose father is the renowned composer John Adams), was in the house to introduce his work. Scored for large orchestra, the piece is colorfully orchestrated. The array of percussion included two pianos, sine wave bass keyboard, sandpaper, paper on table and an aerosol can of compressed air.
Adams, who was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, wrote “Variations” while living in Nevada in 2020 during the height of pandemic lockdowns. Now looking back three years, he said, “It really is about possibilities. Each variation answers the question, ‘What is going to happen?’”
His seven variations are based on the same Phrygian scale. He explained that each variation grows in duration and complexity, beginning with the first one, clocking in at a minute, and expanding to about seven minutes by the last variation.
The inventive concept gave the overarching flow of the work a feeling of gradual expansiveness. The 18-minute piece began with the “theme” in the pianos, and it soon became a pulsating, slightly minimalist canvas. As each variation grew in rhythmic and textural complexity, there were sudden fortissimos, long pedal points in the bass and massive blocks of sound for full orchestra.
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In contrast, some variations were more about subtle color and pointillistic textures. Some of the most beautiful atmospheres were created with piano and mallet instruments in a soft counterpoint, almost like raindrops. Nuanced touches for the percussion section included the faint sounding of tuned gongs, the bowing of a vibraphone and flutter-tonguing in the flutes. The work concluded with long waves of sound across the orchestra, ending to the ringing timbre of a triangle. Langrée made sense of these elements, and the orchestra responded with a precise, vibrant reading. The audience gave it an enthusiastic reception.
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