Multimedia Review

John Adams: A Portrait and a Concert of American Music. Portrait: Amita Dhiri, narrator; David Jeffcock, director. Concert: John Adams. Gnarly Buttons. Chamber Symphony. Steve Reich. Eight Lines. Conlon Nancarrow. Studies for Player Piano No. 1 and No. 7. Andre Trouttet, clarinet; Ensemble Contemporain; Jonathan Nott, conductor; Bob Coles, director. 2002. Arthaus Musik DVD 100 323 (134 minutes; Picture format 16:9; Sound 2.0, 5.0 and DTS 5.0; Region 0).

The music of John Adams will require little introduction for most readers of this journal. This is, as the voiceover of the portrait documentary proclaims, the most performed living American composer of classical music. Yet the opening monologue casts the New England neo-tonal star in an unfamiliar role: this is not Adams the consolidator, the populist, or even the playfully undogmatic dialogist; this is Adams the bad boy, Adams of the avant garde, Adams the contentious cutting edge conveyer of uncomfortable "home truths." If the heroic narrative put forward in these opening sequences seems at odds with the music and public image of the composer we know so well, the realization that this narrative unravels of its own accord in the course of the documentary will no doubt come as something of a relief.