Short ride in a fast machine

Short Ride in a Fast Machine ( Engl. Short ride in a fast machine ) is a composition for orchestra by John Adams in 1986. Adams gave the piece the term " Fanfare for Orchestra", which he in the same year already his play Tromba Lontana had given. He commented on the title with a question: “Do you know what it is like when someone invites you to drive in a great sports car and you wish you had turned it down?” The work is an example of Adams' post-minimalist style as it is also used in other plants such as Phrygian Gates , Shaker Loops and Nixon in China .

Emergence

The work was supported by Michael Tilson Thomas for the opening of the " Great Woods Festival" in 1986 commissioned and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra premiered. Adams said he had worked through a frightening ride in a friend's Italian sports car while composing .

occupation

Block of wood

The line-up provides for a large symphony orchestra :

4 flutes (3rd and 4th piccolo ), 3 oboes (3rd English horn ), 2 ( ad libitum 4) clarinets in A and B, 4 bassoons (4th contrabassoon ), 4 horns in F, 4 trumpets in C, 3 trombones , tuba , timpani , percussion (3 players: 3 wooden blocks (high / medium / low), 2 large drums (1st with pedal, 2nd with mallet), snare drum , hanging cymbal , sizzle cymbal, large tam-tam , Tambourine , triangle , glockenspiel , xylophone , crotales ), 2 synthesizers set to "analog brass" (ad libitum), strings .

Lawrence Odom wrote an arrangement for wind band in 1995.

construction

Characteristic is the continuous quarter rhythm of the wood block in fortissimo , which sets the tempo in the first bar solo and drives the orchestra through the first parts of the piece (the tempo is "Delirando (♩ = 152)" ('fantasizing', 'feverish') )) and from the second bar is picked up by a continuous eighth note motif in the clarinets and synthesizers. The brass and the low strings in particular oppose the different, shifting, partly straight and partly dotted rhythmic motifs, while the high strings and woodwinds make hectic interjections. In the last part the trumpets and horns close the piece with the actual fanfare after a dramatic final crescendo .

A performance lasts a little over four minutes.

reception

Edition by Boosey & Hawkes

Short Ride in a Fast Machine is one of John Adams' best known works. In the USA in 2008 it was named "the tenth most played orchestral work in the past 25 years".

Michael Steinberg wrote: “'Short Ride in a Fast Machine' is a happily exuberant piece, brilliantly set for a large orchestra. [It] has the usual minimalist features: repetition, regular beat and, perhaps most importantly, a harmonious language with an emphasis on consonance that has not existed in Western art music for the past five hundred years. "

Web links

“ Short Ride in a Fast Machine” on the composer's website

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Michael Steinberg : Short Ride in a Fast Machine . In: Thomas May (Ed.): The John Adams reader. Essential writings on an American composer . Amadeus, Pompton Plains, New Jersey 2006, ISBN 1-57467-132-4 , pp. 108 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine. In: Earbox / John Adams. September 23, 2009, accessed May 3, 2020 .
↑ Michael Mauskapf: Sound Recording Reviews. The American Orchestra as Patron and Presenter. 1945-Present. A Selective Discography . In: Notes (Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association) . tape 66 , no. 2 , December 2009, p. 389 ( proquest.com ).

[:0-1] A ^b Michael Steinberg : Short Ride in a Fast Machine . In: Thomas May (Ed.): The John Adams reader. Essential writings on an American composer . Amadeus, Pompton Plains, New Jersey 2006, ISBN 1-57467-132-4 , pp. 108 .

[:1-2] John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine. In: Earbox / John Adams. September 23, 2009, accessed May 3, 2020 .

[3] Michael Mauskapf: Sound Recording Reviews. The American Orchestra as Patron and Presenter. 1945-Present. A Selective Discography . In: Notes (Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association) . tape 66 , no. 2 , December 2009, p. 389 ( proquest.com ).