Short Ride in a Fast Machine

Short Ride in a Fast Machine is a 1986 orchestral work by John Adams. Adams applies the description "fanfare for orchestra" to this work and to the earlier Tromba Lontana (1986).[1] The former is also known as Fanfare for Great Woods because it was commissioned for the Great Woods Festival of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.[2]

Cover of the score edition by Boosey & Hawkes

As a commentary on the title Adams inquires, "You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn't?"[3] The work is an example of Adams's postminimal style, which is utilized in other works like Phrygian Gates, Shaker Loops, and Nixon in China.[4] This style derives from minimalism as defined by the works of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass, although it proceeds to "make use of minimalist techniques in more dramatic settings."[5]

A typical performance of Short Ride lasts about four and a half minutes.

Reception, performance and non-performance

Short Ride in a Fast Machine premiered in 1986, when it was performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.[6]

The work has been generally well received as a concert work, according to a report in 2008 that places the fanfare as "the tenth most-performed orchestral work composed in the last twenty-five years."[2]

It was scheduled to be performed on two occasions at the Last Night of the Proms, but both times it was cancelled because of its title. The first time was in 1997 after the death of Princess Diana, and the second was in 2001 in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.[7] However, the work was eventually performed at the BBC Proms three times: on Saturday July 24, 2004; on Thursday September 4, 2014; and on Sunday July 21, 2019.[8][9]

The piece has been transcribed for concert band by Lawrence Odom.[10]

Orchestra

The piece is scored for the following large orchestra:[11]

Style and analysis

Harmonic devices

Short Ride in a Fast Machine, true to its minimalist heritage, utilizes a tonal language that, according to Catherine Pellegrino, "is not as neatly defined and predictable as that of common-practice tonality."[12] Adams is known (especially in Phrygian Gates) for the concept of "gating," which is the process of suddenly changing certain pitches in a harmony, often based on different modes.[13]

Example 1. Harmonic transformations in the first section

As seen in Example 1, the initial pitch collection of D, E, and A, as scored in the clarinets and optional synthesizers, slowly transforms over time by adding pitches. This process is a concept of changing harmony, which Adams describes as "bring[ing] in a new key area almost on the sly, stretching the ambiguity out over such a length of time that the listener would hardly notice that a change had taken place."[14] By measure 52, the aggregate of pitches suddenly shifts as the E major chord is replaced by a B-flat major chord. Meanwhile, the original pitch collection continues to exist as an unchanging force.[15] This process is the main harmonic device that Adams employs, as the next section shifts pitch collections more rapidly for contrast, while other sections return to the pace of the first section.[16]

Rhythmic devices

In its rhythm, this work adheres to the main precepts of minimalism, one of which is the use of repeated material, generally in the form of ostinati. Minimalism also favours a strong sense of pulse, which Adams emphasizes strongly in Short Ride in a Fast Machine in his scoring of the wood block. Adams claims that "I need to experience that fundamental tick" in his work.[17] Throughout the course of the work, Adams experiments with the idea of rhythmic dissonance as material begins to appear, initially in the trumpets, and generates a new sense of pulse.[18] As shown below, the manifestation of rhythmic dissonance is akin to Adams's method of creating harmonic dissonance as he adds conflicting rhythms to disrupt the metronomic stability of the wood block. Adams himself admits that he seeks to "enrich the experience of perceiving the way that time is divided" within his works.[17] Later in the work, (see Example 5) Adams introduces a simple polyrhythm as a means of initiating a new section that contrasts the rhythmic dissonance of the first section.

Example 2. Initial rhythmic dissonance
Example 3. Development of rhythmic dissonance
Example 4. Result of rhythmic dissonance
Example 5. Polyrhythmic dissonance at a later section

Formal devices

The idea of formal closure and rhetorical devices in a sense of common practice is skewed in the works of John Adams, especially in Short Ride in a Fast Machine. While works of common practice organize material by phrases which are separated by cadential material, this work is in a state of perpetual motion as the additive element of harmonic and rhythmic material drives the work forward. The "gating" concept gives the overall work a sense of sectional design, but the indication of termination through cadence is something that is absent from the work until the very end, which emulates a ii-V-I cadence.[19]

Final cadence

In terms of defining the sections of the work, the wood block is scored in a way that creates a four-part form. The first and third parts of the work have a high wood block present in the scoring, which is contrasted by a low wood block in the second part, while the final part features the absence of wood block.[20]

References
  1. John Adams's web site. http://www.earbox.com/orchestra/short-ride-in-a-fast-machine
  2. Michael Mauskapf, "Sound Recording Reviews: The American Orchestra as Patron and Presenter, 1945-Present: A Selective Discography," Notes - Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 66, no. 2 (December 2009): 389, http://search.proquest.com/docview/1111258 (accessed 7 October 2012).
  3. Michael Steinberg, "Short Ride in a Fast Machine," In The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer, ed. Thomas May, (Pompton Plains, N.J.: Amadeus Press, 2006), 108.
  4. Stanley V. Kleppinger, "Metrical Issues in John Adams's 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine," Indiana Theory Review 22, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 81.
  5. Brent Heisinger, "American Minimalism in the 1980s," American Music 7, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 434, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051914 (accessed 8 October 2012).
  6. Donald Rosenberg (10 February 1992). "Audience gets role in 'Concert of Future'". The Pittsburgh Press. E. W. Scripps Company . Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  7. Clements, Andrew (2001-09-14). "A Night to Forget". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  8. http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/search/work/short-ride-in-a-fast-machine/16811
  9. "Prom 4: The Planets". BBC Music Events. Retrieved Aug 20, 2020.
  10. "Short Ride in a Fast Machine (tr Odom)".
  11. John Adams, Two Fanfares for Orchestra, Study Score, Hendon Music Inc. 1986. Designations as given in the score.
  12. Catherine Pellegrino, "Aspects of Closure in the Music of John Adams," Perspectives of New Music 40, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 148, https://www.jstor.org/stable/833551 (accessed 24 September 2012).
  13. John Adams, Rebecca Jemian and Anne Marie de Zeeuw, "An Interview with John Adams," Perspectives of New Music 34, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 104, https://www.jstor.org/stable/833472 (accessed 7 October 2012).
  14. Heisinger, "American Minimalism," 434-435.
  15. John Adams, "Short Ride in a Fast Machine," in Norton Anthology of Western Music, ed. J. Peter Burkholder and Claude V. Palisca (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2010), 3:777.
  16. Adams, "Short Ride," 3:778.
  17. John Adams et al., "Interview," 94.
  18. Stanley V. Kleppinger, "Metrical Issues in John Adams's 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine,'" Indiana Theory Review 22, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 66.
  19. Catherine Pellegrino, "Aspects of Closure," 169.
  20. Adams, "Short Ride," 3:777-778.
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