Silence descends on Finney

Composer Adams unveils his latest work Wednesday

Physicists have discovered that "moving clocks tick slowly" and all on board John Luther Adams' diatonic train Wednesday evening can vouch for it. At approximately 9:45 p.m., Finney Chapel contained a silence so overwhelming that those present could not breathe independently, while their hearts beat in a stretched, synchronized pulse.

As the artist Mark Rothko articulated, "Silence is so accurate." Adams' new work, "In the White Silence" and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble achieved accuracy approaching an inhuman nature in the 30 seconds after the piece's premiere.

A performer or composer might ask, "How does one do that?" Well, it could have had something to do with the 80 minutes of repetitive whole-note phrases that came before. Or maybe something more.

With stage set-up for "Silence,"- string quartet at the center, and celeste, harp, vibraphone and strings fanning from the sides - the compositional structure was literally laid out before the audience. Similar, in form, to another of Adams' works, "Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing," this work fit a very classic mold, with the intention of creating predictability for the listener.

Adams' recent direction, compositionally, is writing non-narrative music, or avoiding music where the element of unpredictability is vital. As he admits in program notes, "for many years now, I've been obsessed with the notion of music as place, and place as music." Rothko, a favorite of Adams' in the visual art world, moved to non-representational painting-music's non-narrative equivalent-in his late work. Different from his minimalist contemporaries, Rothko was often credited for his ability to create vast space, but simultaneously an intimate feeling of enclosure.

The audience could not help but be intimately involved in Adams' vast time space, although entry was a bit rocky. Adjusting to the long sustained notes of the strings, training the ear to expect less obvious change and a more internal variety, took some time for most audience members. Surveys were passed out, asking questions such as, "Did the music affect your mood in any way? Your body?" This provided more evidence that the performance is an entirely physical experience, and not just aural.

The work and its performance was predominantly beautiful, with extremely lyrical writing for the string quartet, and meditative, trance-inducing parts for the celeste and vibraphone.The harp's uncharacter-istically harsh sound on the fortissimo ends of crescendos contrasted dramatically with the other textures. One saw the severe landscape of Adams' sub-Arctic homeland in such deliberate, forced arpeggios, over the other instruments' more floating, ephemeral material.

CME should be commended for its stunning performance and effort. The concert began with the Oberlin Percussion Group playing "The Time of Drumming," a much shorter piece by Adams. What the composer describes as "Eskimo rock'n roll for Western instruments," was an aesthetic interpreted perfectly by the Oberlin Percussionists. Four more listenings would have been suitable for fully appreciating the variety of timbre and flavor thrown around with rhythmic vivacity. And just to hear more Alaskan funk.

To hear more of music of John Luther Adams, attend the Percussion Group-Cincinatti's performance of "Strange and Sacred Noise," in Finney Chapel on Saturday, Nov. 21 at 8 p.m. Ear plugs are strongly encouraged.

Silence, please: The Contemporary Music Ensemble under the direction of Timothy Weiss were anything but silent. (photo by Noah Mewborn)