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John Adams's expansive, hyperactive three-movement work emerges more powerfully than ever before in this live recording from San Francisco. The bass lines in this Harmonielehre have staggering presence - listen too loudly through headphones and your brain begins to liquefy. Those low notes are all-important, occasionally giving us a fleeting sense of harmonic stability in music which really soars. Adams's control of tempo is remarkable; at times it's virtually impossible to ascertain exactly how fast the music is moving as swathes of musical material overlap and coexist. The work was inspired by a dream involving an airborne oil tanker, and the music's elephantine grace matches this image perfectly. This performance makes the work convince as a minimalist symphony pitched on a grand scale, one whose unabashed tonality clashes cheekily with the Schoenberg-referencing title.
You can hear references to Wagner, Mahler and Sibelius. But the propulsiveness, the wild energy are uniquely American. And Tilson Thomas and his players know how to make the work hang together. It's a rip roaring ride. Shame that the disc is so brief - Short Ride in a Fast Machine is as punchy and exciting as ever, but several other of Adams's shorter works could have fitted on to the disc. The applause has not been edited out - in this case a good thing. You'll cheer along with the San Francisco audience.