Become Ocean

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Become Ocean is an American orchestral composition by John Luther Adams. The Seattle Symphony Orchestra commissioned the work and premiered it at Benaroya Hall, Seattle, on 20 and 22 June 2013. The work won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.[1]

The work, in a single movement, was inspired by the oceans of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. The composer took his title from a phrase of John Cage in honour of Lou Harrison,[2] and further explained his title with this note placed in his score:

"Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. As the polar ice melts and sea level rises, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may quite literally become ocean."[3]

Instrumentation and structure

The bulk of the orchestra is split into its three natural groups, full-sized strings, woodwind and brass sections. Each group is given slowly moving sequences of sound, often in the form of arpeggios for the strings, and each block has its own rise and fall. Thus the groups overlap in an ever-changing pattern. Harmonies are fundamentally tonal; simple diatonic intervals form the basis of the wind instruments' staggered chords. The phrase lengths are constructed so that there are three moments when all the groups reach a climax together; the first is early on, and the second represents the greatest surge of sound. From that point, the music is played in reverse: the entire piece is a palindrome. Music critic Alex Ross has hand-drawn a diagram of the work and digitised it.

Underlying this pattern, a rippling effect is provided by a centrally placed piano (which plays continually throughout), four harps, celesta, one percussionist on bass drums, timpani, tamtam and cymbals, and two percussionists, placed on each side, on mallet instruments.

The composer specifies colored lighting to match the activity of the orchestral groups, but after the first two performances these were not used.[citation needed]

Performances

After being introduced in June 2013, the work was performed at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon, on March 30, 2014. It was repeated in Seattle at a free concert on May 2, 2014. The New York premiere of Become Ocean occurred on 6 May 2014 at Carnegie Hall, with the Seattle Symphony and Morlot performing in the now-defunct 'Spring for Music' series at Carnegie Hall.[4] This was the first live performance of the work that Adams himself heard, as an eye conditions and resulting surgery caused him to miss the world premiere in Seattle.[5] Subsequent performances have occurred in Winnipeg and Miami.[6][2]

Critical reception

The initial review, in The Seattle Times, was lukewarm. The reviewer found it "pleasant" but "after the first 20 minutes or so, the musical ideas had pretty much run their course, and there were no further developments to justify sustaining the piece."[7] By contrast, Alex Ross, writing in The New Yorker and on his blog, gave a strongly positive review, saying he "went away reeling", and "[i]t may be the loveliest apocalypse in musical history." He compared it with The Rite of Spring, then just 100 years old, in its newness of voice and its ability to provide new shocks for a new century. Ross also provided a technical analysis.[8]

Recording

Cantaloupe Music released the premiere recording on October 30, 2014, on CD and DVD. The DVD includes still images and a surround sound mix supervised by Adams. After hearing this recording of Become Ocean, Taylor Swift donated USD $50,000 to the Seattle Symphony.[9]

References

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External links