American Standard (Adams)
American Standard is an early ensemble work by noted American composer John Adams. It consists of three movements: a march, a hymn, and a jazz standard. The piece in its entirety has only been recorded once for commercial release, by Adams himself. The middle movement, "Christian Zeal and Activity", has achieved individual notability.
The work is named for American Standard Brand appliances although Adams says that the title also reflects that the constituent movements are "indigenous musical forms" of the United States.
The commercial release was produced by Brian Eno and released on Eno's Obscure Records label in 1975. The recording was of a 23 March 1973 performance at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by the New Music Ensemble of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music of which Adams was director and was released together with two works by Christopher Hobbs and one by Gavin Bryars on an album called Ensemble Pieces.
The work is aleatoric and Adams did not specify the instruments on which the works should be performed, did not write bar lines for the music, and noted that a conductor was not necessary to perform the work.
The first movement of the work is "John Philip Sousa". Adams himself notes that it is "obviously a march, but...stripped down to a plodding pulse, with no melody or harmony" and that it sounds "like the retreat from battle of a badly wounded army (not my original intention, but curiously evocative all the same)". All of the players play a B♭ chord repeated about 60 times with an addition of what he calls "corny march rhythms". Adams felt that the piece was technically difficult to perform.
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