Listen: John Adams Music in Luca Guadagnino's Films Now in a Playlist

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"I immediately got completely kidnapped by the musical world of John Adams," filmmaker Luca Guadagnino tells Pitchfork. Nonesuch recordings of Adams's music have been featured memorably in the three films of Guadagnino's "Desire Trilogy": Call Me By Your Name, A Bigger Splash, and I Am Love, which is scored entirely with Adams's music. All of that can now be heard here via new Nonesuch playlists on Spotify and Apple Music.

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"I immediately got completely kidnapped by the musical world of John Adams," Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino said in a recent interview with Pitchfork. Nonesuch recordings of the composer's music have been featured memorably in the three films of Guadagnino's "Desire Trilogy": Call Me By Your Name, A Bigger Splash, and I Am Love. All of that music by Adams can now be heard below via new Nonesuch playlists on Spotify and Apple Music.

"There is something Wagnerian and also something minimalist into his music, which I found very fantastic because he just goes beyond the strict rules the minimalists gave to themselves," Guadagnino tells Pitchfork. "The world of the music of John Adams is a world that comes with a very great package of intellect that I found fantastic. It comes with a capacity of interpreting reality, interpreting the history of the reality, interpreting the history of the United States, and understanding even the boundaries of music to become a cunning exploration of the identity of human nature and the politic relationship that ties all us in."

Guadagnino's latest film, Call Me By Your Name, opens with a title sequence set to the first movement of Adams's 1998 piece Hallelujah Junction, and later includes music from his Phrygian Gates. A Bigger Splash, from 2015, includes the first movement to 1999's Naive and Sentimental Music. And the 2009 film I Am Love, which Guadagnino created with Adams's music in mind, is scored entirely with music from seven of Adams's pieces: The Chairman Dances, Century Rolls, Lollapalooza, Shaker Loops, The Death of Klinghoffer, Fearful Symmetries, and Harmonielehre. The BBC called the I Am Love soundtrack, which was released on Nonesuch, "one of those rare soundtracks that merits—and rewards—repeated listening."

Rewarding, repeated listening to all of the music by John Adams featured in Luca Guadagnino's films can be done via the playlists below.

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John Adams 2016 by Vern Evans la jkt w
  • Thursday, February 8, 2018
    Listen: John Adams Music in Luca Guadagnino's Films Now in a Playlist
    Vern Evans

    "I immediately got completely kidnapped by the musical world of John Adams," Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino said in a recent interview with Pitchfork. Nonesuch recordings of the composer's music have been featured memorably in the three films of Guadagnino's "Desire Trilogy": Call Me By Your Name, A Bigger Splash, and I Am Love. All of that music by Adams can now be heard below via new Nonesuch playlists on Spotify and Apple Music.

    "There is something Wagnerian and also something minimalist into his music, which I found very fantastic because he just goes beyond the strict rules the minimalists gave to themselves," Guadagnino tells Pitchfork. "The world of the music of John Adams is a world that comes with a very great package of intellect that I found fantastic. It comes with a capacity of interpreting reality, interpreting the history of the reality, interpreting the history of the United States, and understanding even the boundaries of music to become a cunning exploration of the identity of human nature and the politic relationship that ties all us in."

    Guadagnino's latest film, Call Me By Your Name, opens with a title sequence set to the first movement of Adams's 1998 piece Hallelujah Junction, and later includes music from his Phrygian Gates. A Bigger Splash, from 2015, includes the first movement to 1999's Naive and Sentimental Music. And the 2009 film I Am Love, which Guadagnino created with Adams's music in mind, is scored entirely with music from seven of Adams's pieces: The Chairman Dances, Century Rolls, Lollapalooza, Shaker Loops, The Death of Klinghoffer, Fearful Symmetries, and Harmonielehre. The BBC called the I Am Love soundtrack, which was released on Nonesuch, "one of those rare soundtracks that merits—and rewards—repeated listening."

    Rewarding, repeated listening to all of the music by John Adams featured in Luca Guadagnino's films can be done via the playlists below.

    Journal Articles:Artist News

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