John Luther Adams
An Atlas of Deep Time
South Dakota Symphony Orchestra/Delta David Gier
Cantaloupe CA21199 41:57 mins
Clip: John Luther Adams - An Atlas of Deep Time
An Atlas of Deep Time might just be John Luther Adams’s best work since his Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Become Ocean of 2013. Like that piece, this latest orchestral epic takes our planet as its subject, listening and looking far beyond the small speck that humanity plays in its history. Across a sweeping 42-minute panorama, he explores the idea of deep time, of an Earth that is 4 billion, 570 million years old. By his maths, ‘the entire history of the human family is represented in the dying reverberations of the last 25 milliseconds of this music’ (a high, ethereal tapering off the violins).
A humbling perspective, for sure, and one backed up by the sense of awe created by the music. If Become Ocean’s orchestral palette was aquatic, An Atlas of Deep Time is hewn from the earth, regularly punctuated with cascades of drums and striding piano that root and energise the music. An expansive space opens up at the start, rising up from the bottom of the orchestra, as if we are climbing through some vast canyon, ready to be overwhelmed by the natural world.
- How the sounds of the natural world inspired classical music
- 16 captivating evocations of storms, weather and the drama of nature
Adding to that effect is the immersive nature of the writing, with the instruments grouped into six ‘choirs’ (Become Ocean had three) and six simultaneous tempos.. Reports of the premiere in 2022 by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, who play excellently on this recording under Delta David Grier, suggest that it was hard to find the ideal space to appreciate them all. That’s resolved here. The music surges and subsides with primeval power, mixing terror, awe and beauty – and it repays repeated listening, with new aspects revealing themselves each time. Rebecca Franks
