Friday, December 10, 2021

Minimalism and Word-Setting in Act I Scene II of John Adams’s Nixon in China (Part 1)

Minimalism and Word-Setting in Act I Scene II of John Adams’s Nixon in China

            Nixon in China has helped shape contemporary opera from its premiere in 1987. John Adams’s use of minimalism in his own style mixed with the sophisticated libretto of Alice Goodman makes for a uniquely American, distinctive musical experience. In Act I Scene II, Nixon meets Mao and the two titans of history clash, sharing their political and philosophical opinions. The libretto written for this historical event touches up on various events relevant to that era, and to the meeting. The music accentuates the text and adds subtext, namely, how the characters are feeling and where they want to convey to the other party. This paper will focus on the intersectionality of the text and the minimalist music - how Adams uses his unique compositional techniques to set the text.

Introduction

On the Libretto

            Peter Sellars came to John Adams with the idea to write this opera in 1982 or 1983, and finally started work on the project in 1985. Joined by Sellars’s classmate Alice Goodman as librettist, the opera premiered in 1987 at the Houston Grand Opera. Goodman, well-versed in classical poetry, wrote a libretto that was, as Adams put it, “beyond what was usual in an opera”.[1] This libretto is what interests this paper. Goodman had it all and she could, “…move from character to character and scene to scene, alternating between diplomatic pronouncement, philosophical rumination, raunchy aside, and poignant sentiment.”[2] The libretto in Act I Scene II, contains the best of Goodman’s writing. She takes the original conversation, and rewrites it, into a drama that holds the audience’s interest, without diving deep into specifics.[3] A close look at how she frames the characters, their emotions, and all the little references to history and politics concern the body of this paper.

On Adams’s use of Minimalism

            Nixon in China sounds little like other operas of this style. Compared to such works by Phillip Glass and his opera Akhnaten, or even works by the great minimalist Steve Reich, and it is easy to see that Adams has a unique voice, his own flavour of composition. Unlike Glass, where the music dominates the text, Adams’s musical ideas follows very closely to the text, to the extent that his music will often change suddenly to mirror a change in the characters emotions or the emotion of the scene. Adams shifts away from other American minimalists to write Nixon in China, incorporating both the text and the music as driving plot forces. Adams says in an interview with Thomas May, “I needed to find a musical language that could contain my expressive needs, a language that was formally and emotionally much more malleable, much more capable of a sudden change of mood, one that could be both blissfully serene and then violently explosive within the same minute.”[4] Adams achieves this by rejecting “classical” minimalism.[5] Instead, he uses Neo-Riemannian transformations to quickly change the harmony without adhering to traditional progressions or, in the case of other minimalists, to avoid staying on the same chord for too long.[6] The Johnson book also talks about the use of metrical dissonance in the opera, but it is a topic that is rather simple to understand, and it will be explained in the discussion when an example surfaces.

            Johnson quickly describes the necessary information to understand his analysis for Nixon in China. There are three basic Neo-Riemannian transformations.[7] All three transformations take a triad and changes a note in the triad to alter the quality. The Parallel transformation, denoted by the symbol ‘P’, shifts the 3rd in the triad by a semitone, while keeping the fifth constant.[8] Basically, a major chord turns into a minor chord and vice versa. The Relative transformation keeps the major third in the triad constant, while moving the other note by a step. It is easier to think of it as its name: going to the relative major or minor. For example, from C major to A minor is a relative or ‘R’ transformation.[9] The final basic transformation is the Leading-tone transformation. Hold the minor 3rd in the interval constant while moving the other note by a semitone. Since the note moving will always be to the, or away from the leading tone of the major triad, the name makes sense. A C major triad transforming to an E minor one would be an example of ‘L’ transformation. Johnson also speaks to the ‘SLIDE’ transformation, which can be obtained with an ‘LPR’ combined transformation, applying the basic ones in that order.[10] This will be used to turn a major chord into a minor chord a semitone higher.

Analysis and Discussion

            There are two recordings of this opera. The first, with the original cast, conducted by da Waart, and the second, with a new cast conduced by Alsop. Both of which have six tracks for Act I Scene II. This analysis will not use the recording structure or use the structure that is given by Adams in his score with double bars. The libretto is also difficult to create narrative since this scene is rather stagnant in action. Therefore, this analysis will attempt to be linear and mention measure numbers, with the specific edition of the score I am working from included in the bibliography.

            The scene opens with the orchestra playing bichords, a G minor in the upper voice and a G major in the lower voices. Occasionally, a G pedal rings out in the low brass and a bass drum hit. This represents the tension in the room, and the anxiousness that the characters feel leading up to this moment.[11] Adams’s use of bichords, especially dissonant ones represent tension in this scene, for he doesn’t compose tonally and use harmonic tension as other composers do. The idea of functional tension drives all music, and Adams uses various techniques to recreate it without functional harmony.

MAO
I can’t talk very well. My throat...

NIXON
I’m nearly speechless
with delight just to be here.[12]

            Nixon and Mao begin to converse. Mao and his three secretaries sing the first line. Mao, nearing the end of his life and suffering from congenial heart failure, loses the full use of his voice.[13] The three secretaries serve two roles here. The first is to shift our perspective to Nixon, which is listening to Mao speak, while his “back-up singers” sing over him, distorting Mao’s voice and making him harder to understand, therefore putting the audience in Nixon’s perspective.[14] The second is more historical. Since Mao had to use a translator, the secretaries translated Mao’s words in real time, and it made it difficult for Nixon to hear what the secretaries were saying while the Chairman gave his next idea. Nixon responds, and in his first iteration of “speechless”, he sings a falsetto note, a B flat above middle C, to represent his voice cracking from his excitement. He then sings it twice again, correcting himself. Winds flutter as a common motif, above the constant eighth note bass, to represent the anxiety that goes through Nixon’s mind. This motif is played the last time, at measure 58, after which the initial awkwardness is overcome. We see a pattern in the first couple of lines, Adams uses pitch to set words, since he cannot rely on harmony. Pitch as a minimalist compositional technique will come up often, as Adams uses higher pitch for excitement and tension, and low pitch for calm. 

MAO
We’re even then.
That is the right way to begin.
Our common old friend Chiang Kai-shek
with all his virtues would not look
too kindly on all this.
We seem to be beneath the likes of him.
You’ve seen his latest speech?

NIXON
You bet.
It was a scorcher. Still, he’s spit
into the wind before, and will again.
That puts it into scale.
You shouldn’t despise Chiang.

MAO
No fear of that.
We’re followed his career for generations.
There’s not much beneath our notice.

CHOU
We will touch
On this in our communiqué.[15]

            Mao’s next lines soars high into the tenor range, from “We’re even then…” to “…he likes of him.” This is a sign of his still present strength even though he seems weak on the outside. Adams uses the heldentenor, of which Mao is cast as, to sound both loud and stressed in that higher tenor range. The pair then talk briefly about Chiang Kai-shek, before Chou En-Lai cuts them off short with “We will… communique”, since this was only the initial greeting, and photographers were still in the room.[16] Adams uses metrical dissonance, a technique that basically shifts the measure over an eighth note to create either a syncopated or polyrhythmic feel. Since all the music was on the beat before Chou’s interruption, Adams uses the sudden change into a foreign rhythm to accent Chou’s words, effectively silencing Nixon about Chiang Kai-shek.[17]

Adams uses mimicking lines between Nixon and Mao to convey their connection during conversations. In measure 69 to 77, Nixon sings a quarter note triplet rhythm and Mao copies, connecting “You shouldn’t despise Chiang” and “No fear of that”, mirroring a connection between their thoughts, that Mao knows exactly what Nixon is thinking about and follows up.

MAO
Ah, the philosopher! I see
Paris can spare you then.

KISSINGER
The Chairman
may be gratified to hear
he’s read at Harvard.
I assign all four volumes.

MAO
Those books of mine aren’t anything.
Incorporate their words
within a people’s thought
as poor men’s common sense and try
their strength on women’s nerves,
then say they live.

NIXON
The Chairman’s book enthralled
a nation, and have changed the world.

MAO
I could not change it.
I’d be glad to think that in the neighborhood of Peking
something will remain.[18]

            Adams gives stage direction to have the leaders sit down. Mao now speaks to Kissinger, to whom he makes a reference to his travels to Paris. Paris will come up later in the libretto as well, but this refers to his previous meetings with Chou, which occurred in Paris.[19] When Mao sings “philosopher”, his melodic line jumps an octave, signifying his excitement, for Mao himself considered himself a philosopher. The harmony stays constant on E flat major chords. Mao’s next lines about his books are very interesting and shows Adams’s compositional voice. After Kissinger attempts to impress the Chairman with his assignment of his books, Mao sings over dissonant chords, breaking away from the E flat major continuity. It can be argued that Mao dismisses the assignments since it is not enough for his works just to be read by students. He wants them to be “incorporate[d]… within a people’s thought”, for his words to be read by the masses and for Americans to actually follow them in their daily lives. This is disappointing to Mao, and the dissonance, first of its kind in this mini scene, draws the audience’s attention to his words. Nixon then tries to flatter Mao, and a C dominant 7th chord harmonises his line, a chord somewhat distant to E flat major, needing a PR transformation and only sharing one common tone (ignoring the 7th), and brightens Nixon’s melodic line, but Mao returns to the dissonance of his previous line, lamenting about his change being restricted to Beijing. This previous section is a watered-down version of a Neo-Riemannian chord progression that we will take a look at in the next paragraph. The PR transformation, as a compound transformation, represents a big shift in the characters, and that is realized when Mao sings. The dissonance and the consonance are precursors of the tension and release of larger forms, as we will see in Chou’s mini aria. 

CHOU
You’ve said
that there’s a certain well-known tree
that grows from nothing in a day,
lives only as a sapling,
dies just at its prime,
when good men raise
it as their idol.

NIXON
Not the cross?[20]

            Skipping ahead to the next compositional technique as the beginning covers most of the normal techniques that Adams uses throughout this scene, we will now be looking for unique passages that highlights word-setting above the simple ways he uses in the first hundred measures.

            Chou, in this scene, tries to describe the concept of liberty as he understands it. Nixon, fully misunderstands, and tries to relate his analogy to Christianity.[21] Although this is humorous, this section actually has cadential form, and it can be looked at on how this philosophical text is set to a sort of “Adams-esque” chord progression. Chou’s short aria of two phrases follows a typical progression that can be described with Neo-Riemannian transformations. Starting off in D minor, a PL transformation takes it to F# minor. These two chords just change the colour of the melody since they have no tension notes. Then a reverse transformation occurs (LP), and we stay on D minor long enough to set up the next chord, a bichord with a F major triad in the upper voice and a B flat minor triad in the lower.[22] This bichord is tension. Chou sings the word “nothing” and Adams sets this phrase very well, since that is the important word in the sentence. The other important word, “tree” is set on D minor, which, looking at this phrase in a traditional sense, is the pre-dominant chord. Instead of using those terms though, I propose that tension can be looked at in steps in the Neo-Riemannian sense. The F# minor chord, our “tonic”, would be level zero on the tension scale. The D minor chord, only slightly different from the F# minor, can be called level one. This chord sets up the bichord, which due to its huge amount of tension, we can call it level two. Then, Adams cadences the phrase on a F# minor triad, returning us to zero. The second phrase is much the same, allowing the important word to go on the “level 2” chord, in this case “idol”, and cadencing on a transformation back to the lease tensioned chord. Here, Adams pulls out the aria style writing to create not only importance on certain words, but also to create structure in the line, to make the audience know that this is a whole idea, and not many short, unjointed ones. The use of three chords with varying levels of connection serves as functional chords in this passage.

MAO
We no longer need Confucius.
Let him rot... no curse...
Words decompose to feed their source...
Old leaves absorbed into the tree
to grow again as branches.
They sprang from the land,
they are alike its food and dung.
Upon a rock you may well build your tomb,
but give us the earth, and we’ll dig a grave.
A hundred years and ears may press hard
to the ground to hear his voice.[23]

            A caesura opens this chorus of Mao and his three secretaries. They sing in unison rhythm, in tight harmony. Mao is annoyed at Nixon’s slowness to understand his words. Mao, in the previous text, talks about how the Chinese is departing from the views of the past, no longer worshiping the ancestors and instead, worshiping the living people. Nixon doesn’t get it, instead wondering if he means Confucius, in which Mao explains, powerfully, that the Chinese no longer need Confucius. The libretto, written here as flowing prose, speaks to the philosophy of Mao. Adams sets this in huge block chords, formed by the chorus. Here, the tension comes from the orchestration, the large doubling of voices works as a great alternative to harmonic tension in minimalistic writing. This becomes even more true in measure 681, where a bichord harmonies the word “dung”, the height of this section. Bass trombones blast the bass line of the C minor chord, while oboes and trumpets squeak out C major ideas, creating this environment of tension that only resolves itself with a “modulation” (SLIDE transformation) into E flat minor.[24]

Concluding Remarks

            To avoid traditional harmony, and to compose in the Adams style, he uses unique techniques to set the libretto, and create audience engagement with the text. His use of tension through dissonance is seen through his use of bichords, acting as pseudo dominant chords, for “resolutions” to the “tonic”. He also creates tension with pitch and orchestration. Cadential lines, used though long passages where traditional composers take advantage of leading tone tension, Adams uses Neo-Riemannian transformations to simulate functional harmony and therefore create word stress. Finally, Adams uses metrical dissonance to draw the attention of the audience towards a certain character or line of text. It is due to these advancements in this opera that Nixon in China is a glowing example in minimalistic word setting, and an opera that advances modernist opera into the 21st century.


Bibliography

Adams, John. Hallelujah Junction. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

Adams, John. Nixon In China. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1994.

Johnson, Timothy. John Adams’s Nixon in China: Music Analysis, Historical and Political Perspectives. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2011

Lord, Winston. “Mao Zedong Meets Richard Nixon, February 21, 1972.” USC US-China Institute, April 1, 2004. https://china.usc.edu/mao-zedong-meets-richard-nixon-february-21-1972.

Mann, James. About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999

May, Thomas. “John Adams Reflects on His Career.” In The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer, edited by Thomas May, 22. Pompton Plains: Amadeus Press, 2006.

Schwartz, David. “Postmodernism, the Subject, and the Real in John Adams’s Nixon in China.” Indiana Theory Review 13, no. 2: 112. Accessed November 25, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24046021


[2] Ibid.

[3] Winston Lord, “Mao Zedong Meets Richard Nixon, February 21, 1972,” USC US-China Institute, April 1, 2004, https://china.usc.edu/mao-zedong-meets-richard-nixon-february-21-1972.

[5] Ibid. Classical minimalism in the style of Reich entails slow and unchanging harmonies and the lack of distinct melody, opting for systematic composition to drive the piece.

[7] Ibid. Adams uses both basic and compound transformations in Nixon in China, connecting the classical style of minimalistic writing with the new. His use of basic transformations (sharing two common chord tones) is closely connected to what early minimalists would have written to move their compositions along, while using SLIDE and other compound transformations is what separates his work from the earlier group.

[8] Ibid., 9.

[9] Ibid., 10.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid., 54.

[12] Text from m. 36 to m. 46.

[13] Ibid., 53.

[15] Text from m. 46 to m. 80.

[16] Johnson, 55.

[17] Ibid., 56.

[18] Text from m. 80 to m. 120

[20] Text from m. 288 to m. 310

[21] Johnson, 171.

[22] Ibid., 173.

[23] Text from m. 644 to m. 704

[24] Johnson, 178.


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