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John Luther Adams’s One That Stays All Winter

 

Reem Zedan 7711552

Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath

The Future of [American] Music

17 February 2022

 

John Luther Adams’s One That Stays All Winter

After a very long winter semester, we have finally reached the end of this with Sir John Luther Adams. I was filled with false hope because of the previous lecture’s enjoyable music. So it is safe to say that I was disappointed to realize that we went back to where we started: Music that makes me wonder what music is, how it is music, why it is music and most importantly who listens to this? Professor Herzogenrath definitely make me question my reality when he mentioned that Taylor Swift (a.k.a my God)  is a supporter of John Adams but because of that I will write this review with an extremely open mind and a very free spirit.

John Adams’s One That Stays All Winter begins with static sounds that later become clearer as the sound of birds, specifically sea-gulls, which made me think of the beach and summer then a high pitched tune joins in that keeps on changing volume-wise. This gives the sound a dynamic of movement. I say that because I felt like this sound was moving in my room, coming closer then walking away. Consequently, different sounds of speech and talking joined in. I could not comprehend what was being said and I also was not able to determine the gender of the multiple speakers because of the quality of the sound. Later, I was also able to detect dogs barking as a background noise behind all the talking. When the background noise disappears, I can hear an intense uncomfortable whistle that lasted a bit too long but by the end the piece is back to the sound of birds, which made me think of a forest in winter.

This might be a stretch but this piece made me think of the process of a year: the seasons changing, time passing, noise, people chatting, the many things that occur in the “background” of your life that you are aware and unaware of. The process of a year can be simultaneously a little and a lot, everything and nothing.

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