City Noir

Critical reception#

Anthony Tommasini, reviewing the world premiere, stated that “Mr. Adams has become a master at piling up materials in thick yet lucid layers. Moment to moment the music is riveting. Yet here as in some other Adams scores, I found it hard to discern the structural spans and architecture”. Following its European premiere in March 2010, Richard Morrison praised the work as “infused with the seething energies, menace and melodrama of one particular cinematic genre — the film noir. The restlessness, the sardonic relish of urban angst familiar from the hard-bitten tales of Hammett and Chandler seeps through it like a dark stain”. In regard to the same performance, Nick Kimberley wrote that the piece is “suffused with longing for a past in which big, bold gestures and firm-footed melody were the order of the day. And yet so affectionate is Adams’s manipulation of his musical memories that City Noir emerges as a dazzling showpiece. It may look resolutely backwards but it knows where it’s going”. In 2019, The Guardian ranked City Noir the 24th greatest work of art music since 2000, with Andrew Clements describing it as a “vivid portrait of Los Angeles … that references a host of American idioms without ever getting too specific. It’s not his finest orchestral work by any means (those came last century), but an effective, extrovert showpiece.”

Instrumentation#

The work is scored for the following instrumentation. ;Woodwinds :piccolo :3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo) :3 oboes :English horn : :bass clarinet :alto saxophone :2 bassoons :contrabassoon ;Brass :6 horns :4 trumpets :3 trombones :tuba ;Percussion :timpani :5 percussionists :jazz drum set ;Keyboard :piano :celesta ;Strings :2 harps :violins (1st and 2nd) :violas :cellos :double basses

External links#

• City Noir page from John Adams’ official site