Debussy & John Adams

An evening featuring two composers who both broke with the musical conventions of their time - though in different ways.

John Adams' work Harmonielehre takes its title from Arnold Schoenberg's guide through music history, from the Renaissance to late Romanticism. Drawing inspiration from Wagner, Sibelius, and Mahler, Adams weaves minimalism together with Romantic models in an epic work that reveals how music's various movements and currents interconnect.

Debussy is described by Adams as the most radical composer around the turn of the last century - the one who freed music from the constraints of major and minor tonality and let chords flow freely. In Images, Debussy paints nature scenes in transparent sonorities and evokes a Spanish fiesta with tambourine and castanets.