''The Dharma at Big Sur'' is a composition for solo

electric violin An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fi ...

and orchestra by the American composer

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...

. The piece calls for some instruments (harps, piano, samplers) to use just intonation, a

tuning system In music, there are two common meanings for tuning: * Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. * Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases. Tuning practice Tun ...

in which

intervals Interval may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers ** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to arbitrary partially ordered sets * A statistical level of measurement * Interval e ...

sound pure, rather than equal temperament, the common Western tuning system in which all intervals except the octave are slightly impure. The piece was composed in 2003 for the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and was conducted by

Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and music di ...

. The electric violin solo was written for violinist

Tracy Silverman Tracy Silverman (born April 7, 1960) is an American violinist, composer, and producer. Biography Born in Peekskill, New York and raised in Beloit, Wisconsin, he attended Beloit Memorial High School but left after two years when he was sixteen ...

Background

The piece is divided into two

movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

, titled ''A New Day'' and ''Sri Moonshine'', which are intended as homages to

Lou Harrison Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his for ...

and

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for ...

, respectively. Adams described the process of composing the piece: Adams originally intended for the piece to include a spoken component, and while studying California-related writings for inspiration, he discovered Jack Kerouac's novel ''Big Sur'', with Adams finding that Kerouac's thoughts mirrored his own. However, Adams ultimately decided to have the composition be scored for instruments only, stating: "I realized that what I had to 'say' was something that could only be expressed in music."

Instrumentation

It is scored for a solo 6-string

(with additional low C and F strings) and an orchestra with the following instruments. ;

Woodwinds Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed ...

:2 bass clarinets ;

Brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wit ...

horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

s :2

trombones The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

contrabass trombone The contrabass trombone (german: Kontrabassposaune, it, trombone contrabbasso) is the lowest instrument in the trombone family of brass instruments. First appearing built in 18′ B♭ an octave below the tenor trombone, since the late 20th cen ...

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

;

Percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

:4 percussionists: ::

vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist ...

:: glockenspiel ::

marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

tubular bell Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...

s :: almglocken ::

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...

::4 small bowl gongs ::10 large tuned

gongs A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...

::2 flower pots ::

crotales Crotales (, ), sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly played by being struck ...

;

Keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

:2 keyboard samplers ;

Strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

harps The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

I :violin II :

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s :

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

s :

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

es The two harps are tuned in just intonation in B and E, respectively. The piano and the samplers are tuned in B just intonation.

Reception

The 2003 premiere of ''The Dharma at Big Sur'' received a strongly positive review from the''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'', in which

Mark Swed Mark Swed (born ) is an American music critic who specializes in classical music. Since 1996 he has been the chief classical music critic of the ''Los Angeles Times'' where his writings have made him a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Pri ...

wrote:

Nonesuch Records Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records (formerly called Warner Bros. Records), and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, No ...

recorded ''The Dharma at Big Sur'' performed by the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. T ...

, with Adams conducting, and featuring Tracy Silverman on electric violin. The recording took place on August 23, 2004, at Abbey Road Studios in London and April 8, 2006, at

Skywalker Ranch Skywalker Ranch is a movie ranch and workplace of film director, writer and producer George Lucas located in a secluded area near Nicasio, California, in Marin County. The ranch is located on Lucas Valley Road, named for an early-20th-century l ...

in San Francisco and was released by Nonesuch, paired with Adams's '' My Father Knew Charles Ives'', in September 2006. On May 19, 2013,

Pieter Wispelwey Pieter Wispelwey (born 25 September 1962) is a Dutch cellist. In 1992, he was the first cellist to receive the Netherlands Music Prize, a government-awarded prize given to the most promising young musician in the Netherlands. He has come to ...

premiered the

version of the work at the Canberra International Music Festival.

References

External links

* https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/adams-the-dharma-at-big-sur/id191836937 * https://web.archive.org/web/20100127095918/http://www.earbox.com/W-dharma.html
Los Angeles Times
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dharma At Big Sur Concertos by John Adams (composer) 2003 compositions Music commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Big Sur