Adams: Keyboard Works
View all works by Adams in the main appExplore the complete catalog of Keyboard compositions by Adams. This curated list includes composition years, historical Wikipedia context, and interactive audio to add specific tracks directly to your listening queue.
| Title | Year | Actions |
|---|---|---|
| China Gates |
China Gates is a short piano piece composed by the minimalist American composer John Adams in 1977. (Adams soon gave this work a companion, his Phrygian Gates, finished the next year. The latter is the longer of the two and uses similar techniques, but in terms of structure the pair have little in common.) China Gates is one of Adams' first mature works, which he wrote for the then 17-year-old pianist Sarah Cahill during a rainy season in northern California. Adams himself has suggested that the constant eighth notes of the piece reflect the steady rainfall of the time. The bass notes of the piece form the root of the mode, while the upper voices oscillate between different modes. K. Robert Schwarz has noted how the style of China Gates is in keeping with the ideas of "process music" of Steve Reich. The piece has a duration of about 4:50 minutes and is written in three parts. In the first part, the modes alternate between A-flat mixolydian and G-sharp aeolian, which sound almost like the major and minor versions of the same key. The third part alternates between F lydian and F locrian. The second part alternates more rapidly between all four modes. Adams has described the structure of the work as an "almost perfect palindrome". |
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| Hallelujah Junction |
Hallelujah Junction is a composition for two pianos written in 1996 by the American composer John Adams. Adams titled his autobiography after this composition. A two-CD retrospective album of works by Adams on the Nonesuch label is also entitled Hallelujah Junction, but does not include the composition. |
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| Phrygian Gates |
Phrygian Gates is a piano piece written by minimalist composer John Adams in 1977–1978. The piece, written for the pianist Mack McCray, together with its smaller companion China Gates, written for the pianist Sarah Cahill, is considered by Adams to be his "opus one". They are, according to his own claims, his first compositions consisting of a coherent personal style. It was commissioned and written for the pianist Mack McCray, and first performed by him in the Hellman Hall, San Francisco on March 17, 1978. The work was funded by a group of the board of trustees of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. |