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Date: | Tue, 14 Mar 2000 15:19:26 +0000 |
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Steve Schwartz wrote:
>I admit to slight disappointment at my first hearing of Adams's clarinet
>concerto, Gnarly Buttons, but mainly because I read Adams's liner notes
>first, which invoked the name of Benny Goodman. The first movement engages
>the mind. The second movement takes over the body. The third movement, a
>slow song, moves the heart. It begins very tenderly, becomes increasingly
>"gnarled and crabbed," in the word of the composer, as if the singer becomes
>confused and frustrated at the confusion, and goes out lovingly again.
I have just sat through performance by the Cambridge University Music
Society (CUMS) choir and orchestra of Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and
Orff's Carmina Burana. Guess what came between them. Yes - an absolutely
enthralling performance of Adams - Gnarly Buttons. This was the first time
I had ever heard the piece. Steve has somewhat pre-empted my question
which was - does any know of a recording of it. My friends had mixed
feelings about it but to me this was the knockout piece of the evening -
well worth a CD. By the way a sound effect in the second movement was that
of a cow used was a cow (simulated on one of the keyboards I hasten to add)
- does anyone know if Adams actually put this in the score?
Ray Stamford - Cambridge, UK
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