Doric String Quartet, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Peter Oundjian - John Adams: Naive and Sentimental Music, Absolute Jest (2018) CD-Rip

There's a strong case to be made for John Adams as America's greatest living composer, and his music is increasingly often getting performed in Britain and continental Europe. The all-British Isles forces on this Chandos release -- the Doric String Quartet with the Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Peter Oundjian -- do especially well with these Adams pieces, and it may be because these, of all Adams' works, are concerned with the European legacy to an unusual degree. Start off with Absolute Jest, an ebullient 2011 work for string quartet and orchestra in seven joined sections that is a kind of fantasia on late Beethoven, most of all the String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135, and String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131. It is less a concerto for string quartet than a work that uses the string quartet to introduce the material on which the orchestra will elaborate and comment, and it's as much fun as anything Adams ever wrote. The better-known (and earlier) Naive and Sentimental Music is very Brucknerian, or at least it would be if Bruckner had lived in California and played a Hawaiian or country steel guitar. You may find cleaner orchestral performances of this work, but Oundjian is in touch with its soul. Highly recommended among the various non-American choices for major Adams works.