John Luther Adams - recordings

Year

Title

Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing

1997

“…Adams’s heavenly new magnum opus…a curious orchestral masterpiece…Bells ring in clusters, featureless piano arpeggios ascend like sheer walls, and at one central point the orchestra is suddenly gripped in fortissimo ecstasy. How can a work be so gorgeous and inviting, yet so difficult to grasp?” – Kyle Gann, The Village Voice

“…a contemplative evocation…etched in white on white… like some Arctic gamelan.” – Brad Bambarger, Billboard: Critic’s Choice

“…a ruminative tapestry of arresting beauty…a vast space filled with shimmering textures and tintinnabulary outbursts.” – Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Examiner

His music perfectly echoes the landscape he loves: impersonal, relentless, larger than human scale, yet gorgeous, a quiet chaos of colors, suffused with light. It’s not a climate everyone could live in. But for those who want to bathe their ears in an aural aurora borealis while staying warm inside, it’s a spiritual odyssey well worth taking. - Kyle Gann

john luther adams

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