Volume 65, No. 1

JACK Quartet. John Luther Adams: Waves and Particles. 2024. Cold Blue Music CB0069. CD and MP3 download, 6 tracks (48:23). coldbluemusic.com. $16/$12

Waves and Particles is a viscerally appealing composition that continues John Luther Adams’s streak of audience-pleasing work. Adams has no interest in melody, harmony, or groove, but he knows his strengths and he uses them: dynamic propulsion, form, and evocative (but not jarring) sounds. We know Adams is a skilled composer because he rarely writes a passage that makes you wonder “why is that there?”

The opening passage, which informs the rest of the piece, finds the excellent JACK Quartet furiously sawing away in double-stop fifths. The tonal material is derived from a B-flat lydian mode (in Indian music, Raag Yaman) which in its similarity to a major key creates an uplifting effect. This arrangement of tones is often found in creations by the more sophisticated ambient and new age musicians.

Atop the B-flat tonal center, the violins and viola play mostly open strings, a technique that has evoked the open Western plains ever since Aaron Copland composed Rodeo. But Adams’s cowboys are riding fast! It’s an exhilarating section that will have three year olds dancing in the aisles and older folks hitching in their seats. An expert cajun fiddler or a beginning classical violin student could play along and no one would be the wiser. It’s also a visually appealing moment: you can see the sound.

Before these cowboys settle down, Adams expertly introduces aliens, in the form of contrasting, softer, and more esoteric motifs. The remainder of the fifty-minute work alternates between the driving earthbound strings and more celestial sotto voce material. A real standout is the fourth section, “Triadic Waves,” in which the quartet exclusively plays slow ascending and descending glissandos. The overall effect is of a police siren in zero gravity. But not to worry: these Westerners eventually make it back to earth, a little bruised and sore but definitely wiser. It’s an enjoyable journey.

The JACK Quartet play with great commitment and precision. Adams hasn’t written any passages that feature an individual (that would reek of melody) but JACK is a well-oiled machine, with astonishing intonation. Between the ferocious double-stops and the otherworldly glissandos, there are plenty of tuning pitfalls, but the quartet survives unscathed. You really couldn’t ask for a better performance: this is modern music masterfully played.