For this collection of some of
John Adams' best-known shorter orchestral works from the 1980s, EMI has gathered performances from its earlier releases by three different ensembles.
Ransom Wilson's 1984 account of Grand Pianola Music with Solisti New York is a pastel reading of one of the composer's brashest, most primary-color pieces. The approach allows the niceties of
Adams' orchestration to be heard, but at the cost of rhythmic and dynamic vitality and overall excitement; the composer's version on Nonesuch with the
London Sinfonietta does a better job of capturing the work's energy.
Christopher Warren-Green leads the London Chamber Orchestra in a bristling performance of Shaker Loops, which approaches the wildness that's possible (and that
Adams likes) when it's preformed in its original version for seven strings. Particularly in the first movement, "Shaking and Trembling," the performance sometimes seems thrillingly on the verge of veering into chaos, but
Warren-Green safely brings it home.
Simon Rattle conducts the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in two of
Adams' most popular short pieces, The Chairman Dances and Short Ride in a Fast Machine.
Rattle is strong in the faster parts, but he doesn't capture the smoothness of the slide into the Chairman Dances' languorous slow section with the style of someone who's entirely at ease in the jazz world. The collection may not be the most energetic or idiomatic introduction to
Adams' work, but these are useful alternative readings to the canonical versions by the composer and
Edo de Waart on Nonesuch. EMI's sound is exemplary, clean, and spacious, with terrific stereo separation.