Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Harmonium/I. Negative Love
2. Harmonium/II. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
3. Harmonium/III. Wild Nights
4. Shaker Loops/I. Shaking & Trembling
5. Shaker Loops/II. Hymning Slews
6. Shaker Loops/III. Loops & Verses
7. Shaker Loops/IV. A Final Shaking

Disc 2:

1. Chairman Dances (Foxtrot for Orchestra)
2. Grand Pianola Music/First Movement
3. Grand Pianola Music/Second Movement
4. Grand Pianola Music/Third Movement: On the Dominant Divide
5. Fearful Symmetries

Disc 3:

1. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 1. Opening
2. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 1. "Soldiers of Heaven Hold the Sky"
3. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 1. "The People Are the Heroes Now"
4. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 1. Landing of the Spirit of '76
5. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 1. "Your Flight Was Smooth, I Hope?"
6. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 1. "News Has Kind of Mystery: "
7. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 3. "Ladies & Gentlemen, Comrades & ..."
8. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 3. "MR. Premier, Distinguished Guests, "
9. Nixon in China/Act 1. Scene 3. Cheers
10. Nixon in China/Act 2. Scene 1. "This Is Prophetic! "
11. Nixon in China/Act 2. Scene 2. Opening
12. Nixon in China/Act 2. Scene 2. "Oh What a Day/I Thought I'd Die! "
13. Nixon in China/Act 2. Scene 2. "Whip Her to Death! "
14. Nixon in China/Act 2. Scene 2. "I Am the Wife of Mao Tse-Tung"
15. Nixon in China/Act 3. "Let Us Examine What You Did."
16. Nixon in China/Act 3. "When I Woke Up"
17. Nixon in China/Act 3. "I Have No Offspring."
18. Nixon in China/Act 3. "I Can Keep Still, "
19. Nixon in China/Act 3. "After That -/The Sweat/Had Soaked My Uniform"
20. Nixon in China/Act 3. "Peking Watches the Stars, "
21. Nixon in China/Act 3. "You Won at Poker."
22. Nixon in China/Act 3. "I Am Old & Cannot Sleep"

Disc 4:

1. Wound-Dresser
2. Christian Zeal & Activity
3. Five Songs: Thoreau
4. Five Songs: Down East
5. Five Songs: Cradle Song
6. Five Songs: At the River
7. Five Songs: Serenity
8. Eros Piano

Disc 5:

1. Death of Klinghoffer/Prologue. Chorus of the Exiled Palestinians
2. Death of Klinghoffer/Prologue. Chorus of the Exiled Jews
3. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 1. Scene 1. "It Was Just After 1:15"
4. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 1. Scene 1. " My Grandson Didi, Who Was Two"
5. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 1. Scene 1. "Give These Orders"
6. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 1. Scene 1. "So I Said to My Grandson"
7. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 1. Scene 1. "We Are Sorry for You"
8. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 1. Scene 1. Night Chorus
9. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 1. Scene 1. Chorus of Hagar & The Angel
10. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 2. Scene 1. "I've Never Been a Violent Man"
11. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 2. Scene 1. "You Are Always Complaining ..."
12. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 2. Scene 2. Aria of the Falling Body ...
13. Death of Klinghoffer/Act 2. Scene 2. Day Chorus

Disc 6:

1. Two Fanfares for Orchestra/Tromba Lontana
2. Two Fanfares for Orchestra/Short Ride in a Fast Machine
3. Common Tones in Simple Time
4. Dorado, Pt. 1: A Dream of Gold
5. Dorado, Pt. 2: Soledades

Disc 7:

1. Harmonielehre, Pt. 1
2. Harmonielehre, Pt. 2: The Anfortas Wound
3. Harmonielehre, Pt. 3: Meister Eckhardt and Quackie
4. Violin Concerto, Pt. 1
5. Violin Concerto, Pt. 2: Chaconne: "Body Through Which the Dream Flows"
6. Violin Concerto, Pt. 3: Toccare

Disc 8:

1. Chamber Symphony/Mongrel Airs
2. Chamber Symphony/Aria with Walking Bass
3. Chamber Symphony/Roadrunner
4. Hoodoo Zephyr/Tundra
5. Hoodoo Zephyr/Disappointment Lake
6. Hoodoo Zephyr/Hoodoo Zephyr
7. Gnarly Buttons/The Perilous Shore
8. Gnarly Buttons/Hoe-Down (Mad Cow)
9. Gnarly Buttons/Put Your Loving Arms Around Me

Disc 9:

1. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. I Was Looking
2. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. A Sermon ...
3. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. ...
4. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. Mike's ...
5. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. Tiffany's ...
6. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. Song ...
7. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. Song ...
8. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. Your Honor My
9. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 1. Leila's Song:
10. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 2. Three Weeks &
11. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 2. Crushed ...
12. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 2. Dewain's Song
13. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 2. Este País!
14. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 2. One Last Look
15. I Was Looking at the Ceiling & Then I Saw the Sky/Act 2. Finale

Disc 10:

1. Lollapalooza
2. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Judah to Ocean
3. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Toot Nipple
4. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Dogjam
5. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Pavane: She's So Fine
6. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Rag the Bone
7. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Habanera
8. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Stubble Crotchet
9. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Hammer & Chisel
10. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Alligator Escalator
11. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Ständchen: The Little Serenade
12. John's Book of Alleged Dances/Judah to Ocean (Reprise)
13. Slonimsky's Earbox

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #133617 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-19
• Number of discs: 10
• Format: Box set

Amazon.com
Having earned his composing stripes after the 1960s, John Adams had the pioneering work of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley close at hand as he ventured into his trade. And, while minimalism's historical continuum helps place Adams, he used Reich, Glass, and Riley (among others) only as a starting point. And here's proof: a 10-CD retrospective of nearly all Adams's recorded compositions on Nonesuch Records, the label that also issued Steve Reich 1965-1995 and Kronos Quartet: 25 Years. Adams's Harmonium, a choral work of startling energy and effervescence, appears here in a new recording, as do distillations of both The Death of Klinghoffer and Nixon in China, two path-clearing operas. Over the span of a career covered by Earbox, Adams has returned minimalism to traditional instrumental ensembles as well as to projects that at once advanced a political commentary and took that commentary back to orchestral audiences. And so, in far less time than his predecessors, Adams created works that now play like standard repertoire pieces: The Wound Dresser and Shaker Loops and the Violin Concerto--all of them are here. What these works demonstrate is a fierce creativity on the one hand and perhaps a hunger for commercial advances on the other. Adams may at times be a bustling free thinker, but he sounds ever conscious of what audiences are listening to. As for the works themselves, they remain every bit as daunting as when written.

Some may object to particular selections. I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, for example, hardly ranks with Adams's best work. But this box isn't a mere best-of; it's an almost-all-of. At times terrifically American--especially in the news-aware operas and their narrative pragmatism--Adams well deserves a major box set, and its coverage is appropriate to his varied, stylistically diverse output. As with any large-scale retrospective, Earbox--which fairly bristles with Adams's new composition, Slonimsky's Earbox--has spots where fans might balk at the quality of the composer's writing. But it's got a fantastic accompanying booklet along with its many hours of inarguably modern and thoroughly listener-friendly music. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews

Nonesuch delivers.Again
John adams is one of the most popular living composers of"modern" classical music[I believe the cutoff point, though arbitrary is usually WWII}.I came to him late, through my husband. Modersn classical music , I said? What the hell is that?My husband kept playing bits and pieces of adams for me, and more and more i found myself amazed. and swayed. His operas have been groundbreaking{Nixon in China} controversial{Death Of klinghoffer},his compostions sublimely beautiful{shaker Loops or harmonium].HIS STATURE IS WORTHY THEN OF SUCH A MONUMENTAL CAREER SPANNING BOX SET.This 10 disc set[great value, again from NONESUCH}encompasses Adams' entire career,and though there are some misses here{I was looking at the ceiling and then i saw the sky doesnt quite fit},it is still magnificent. the Highlights are ,{for me} the Wound Dresser, Chamber symphony,Violin Concerto, of course, Shaker Loops and Harmonuim are wonderful. The true jewels here are Nixon in China,the Chairman dances and the Death of Klinghoffer,which is simply a masterpiece. The set comes with a wonderful book, which contains essay's by Robert Hurwitz {An Uncommon Man}renaud Machart[John adams as seen from europe} and Essays before an earbox by Adams himself.A Chronology and dicography are included. A wonderful study of an American original,worth the investment, Highly highly recommended

Our greatest living composer
As a composer, I'm staggered that anyone could fail to be gripped by this music.

That anyone can use the words "spoiled, overrated" amazes me. I emphatically disagree with "A music fan"'s review.

I don't think it's "mind-numbing"; I think it's spiritual and exciting. To me it's the most substantial music being created in our times.

I'm really sorry that anyone could fail to enjoy it, and really recommend others to listen for themselves.

So much, so good, so well put together
Adams has a great diversity to his projects. He works with great collaborators and gets amazing results. These are first class performances, beautifully packaged, the liner notes are accessible and insightful and the music is fascinating, hypnotic, funny, gorgeous, and surprising by turns. A lot to digest.