The latest CD release reviewed

JOHN ADAMS
The Dharma at Big Sur/My Father Knew Charles Ives Nonesuch ****

Composed in 2003, The Dharma at Big Sur and My Father Knew Charles Ives are perhaps the American post-minimalist composer John Adams's most expressive and lyrical works yet. Part homage to West Coast composers Lou Harrison and Terry Riley, the first part of Dharma - A New Day - features a vibrant melody for Tracy Silverman's solo electric violin, which first soars against brooding orchestral strings before swooping spectacularly above a roiling sea of percussion and horns in the second part, Sri Moonshine. A tribute to the East Coast composer Charles Ives, three parts of My Father... form a transcendent pastoral with a long Ivesian speculative melody (first heard on elegiac trumpet) winding delicately through the martial polyrhythms of Concord, then floating majestically through the meditative nocturne of The Lake, before rising inexorably to the suspended climax of The Mountain. Sublime. www.nonesuch.com  Jocelyn Clarke