Listening to John Adams' Naive and Sentimental Music, I was again struck by his ability to compose contemporary music (with dissonance and weird sounds and all that) that's completely approachable by even a casual listener. I'm a fan of much of his orchestral music and this "user-friendly" strain seems to go through most of his catalogue.
The same could be said of Frank Zappa who, with all his idiosyncracies, always emphasized that he intended his music to be listened to and consumed, that he wanted it to be entertaining, no matter how skewed it sometimes was.
Is there a specifically American mentality at work here? I suppose it can't be conclusively proved, but at least it would be in line with a culture that stresses social behavior and openness. Whatever the underlying cause, I like it.
As for Naive and Sentimental Music itself: the beautiful, shimmering middle section, Mother to the Man, was on my headphones when walking to work this morning across a park in downtown Helsinki. The peace of the park was physically framed by the pulsing mass of traffic around it, and the contrast was perfectly reflected in the music, where a cascade of rapid string crescendos intefere and disturb the central calm of the piece. One of those Koyaanisqatsi moments where the aural accidentally complements and comments on the visual.
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