Composer John Luther Adams writes music of environmental inspiration, often of quite a direct sort. One might wonder how it translates to the medium of the string quartet, often thought of as abstract, but the format focuses the mind on the slightly shifting phases and intervals that are the meat of Adams' minimalist style. The first work here, Lines Made by Walking, is explicitly programmatic: it depicts scenes from a hike and thus consists of (musical) lines made by walking. It is, however, as spare in its mode of expression as any other minimalist composition, with falling musical figures in all three movements that flatten out a bit as the hiker reaches a ridgeline in the middle movement. The second work, untouched, has the more abstract movement titles "Rising," "Crossing," and "Falling"; the work explores open string sonorities and harmonics. In its slow evolutions, it is of a piece with Lines Made by Walking, and the listener without guidance might not guess which piece had a specific nature program. The JACK Quartet conveys the monumental quality of Adams' music well, and listeners who enjoy the string quartets of Philip Glass will likely take naturally to this pair.
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