Absolute Jest

Absolute Jest is a concerto for string quartet and orchestra by the American composer John Adams. The work was commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony for the orchestra's centennial. Its world premiere was given at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall on March 15, 2012, and was performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet and the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. However, after the premiere Adams heavily re-wrote the beginning of the piece; this revised version of Absolute Jest was first performed in Miami Beach on December 1, 2012, by the St. Lawrence String Quartet and the New World Symphony under the composer's direction.

Absolute Jest is composed in a single movement and has a duration of roughly 25 minutes. The concerto incorporates the music of Ludwig van Beethoven's (specifically his late string quartets, among other pieces) into Adams's original material.

Adams first conceived the idea for Absolute Jest during a performance of Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. Adams wrote, "Hearing this (and knowing that I was already committed to composing something for the San Francisco Symphony's 100th anniversary) I was suddenly stimulated by the way Stravinsky had absorbed musical artifacts from the past and worked them into his own highly personal language." He continued, "But there the comparison pretty much ends. Stravinsky was apparently unfamiliar with the Pergolesi and other Neapolitan tunes when Diaghilev brought them to him. I, on the other hand, had loved the Beethoven string quartets since I was a teenager, and crafting something out of fragments of Opus 131, Opus 135 and the Große Fuge (plus a few more familiar 'tattoos' from his symphonic scherzos) was a totally spontaneous act for me."

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