John Adams's 'Gnarly Buttons': Issues of history, performance, and style.

摘要

John Adams's clarinet concerto Gnarly Buttons, now more than ten years old, fuses post-minimalism, post-Stravinsky techniques, and American vernacular idioms, holding a unique place in the clarinet repertoire and serving as an important marker in Adams's evolution of compositional style that began in the 1990s. The stylistic point of departure is his 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer, and Gnarly Buttons is among the pieces that continues to develop the textural and melodic innovations that Klinghoffer started. Thus, full comprehension of the style and aesthetic of Gnarly Buttons depends on an understanding of the stylistic traits established by Adams's compositions from the 1980s combined with an examination of innovations in the 1990s.; This document offers an account of the history of the work, centered on information of those interviewed for this project, including John Adams, Michael Collins, Paul Meecham and William Helmers. The performance guide that follows also incorporates information from recent performances, especially from the January 2007 performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, John Adams conducting, and Derek Bermel as soloist. The last section of the document offers analysis, tracing Adams's style from Nixon in China, through The Death of Klinghoffer, and finally to Gnarly Buttons, showing how the concerto both incorporates and builds on Adams's own compositional past.