John Luther Adams -

Become Ocean

2013

Intro

Okay, so two things. One: it’s important to write these things whenever I’m divinely inspired - because it can take me months. Two: I’m divinely inspired, three glasses of wine deep, and recovering from a half-marathon, so sitting and writing is within my current range of motion.

This is meant to be a short and relevant companion-piece to the La Mer review. We’ll see how this goes.

Background

This piece was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony. Root, root, root for the home team.

Become Ocean won a Grammy in 2015. It won the Pulitzer in 2014. It’s not fucking-around shit we’re talking here, this is the real deal - something for the cultured class.

This piece came to me some time in 2018? 2019? Not entirely sure, but I remember having some kind of a tiff with my ex-girlfriend at the time. I wanted to listen to it, at full volume, while stretching, and she did not. That’s my personal frame of reference.

The Composer’s Notes

John Luther Adams wrote this piece and so I think it’s best to let him describe his process:

“If you stop and think about the oceanic dimension of music, there’s this implication of immersion. We came from the ocean, and we’re going back to the ocean, right? We’re made up mostly of water, and life on earth first emerged from the seas. And with the melting of the polar ice caps and the rising sea levels, we may become ocean sooner than we imagine.

“Eventually we begin to realize that we’re part of something much larger than ourselves. Become Ocean embraces this idea, but gets its title from something much more personal for me. Back in the late ’70s, John Cage wrote a mesostic poem called ‘Many Happy Returns,’ in honor of his dear friend – also my mentor and friend – Lou Harrison. He compares Lou’s music to a river in delta, with all these different influences and currents, coming together in a big beautiful sweep of music. And in the last line of the poem, Cage writes, ‘Listening to it, we become ocean.’ I’ve always been struck by what a beautiful image that is.” - John Luther Adams

Mesostic

You might be wondering what the word “mesostic” means. I’ve searched for you to save you the cognitive load. The term does not exist in my Oxford Dictionary from 1996, per Wikipedia: “A mesostic is a poem or other text arranged so that a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text. It is similar to an acrostic, but with the vertical phrase intersecting somewhere in the midst of the line, as opposed to the beginning of each line.”

If you were then curious what the fuck that could look like, especially for the inspiration behind Become Ocean, then here you go:

Many Happy Returns

first the quaLity
Of
yoUr music

                tHen   
       its quAntity   
     and vaRiety   
  make it Resemble   
            a rIver in delta.   
              liStening to it   
    we becOme   
        oceaN. 

• John Cage, 1973-1978

Immersion vs. Impression

La Mer is, regardless of what Claude Debussy thinks, an “Impressionist” piece of music. Unfortunately, he’s kind of fucked by history here and in this case, history mirrors my relationship to his piece, especially as it compares to Become Ocean. I am left with the impression of the sea, and based on his beautiful movement titles, given the pretext for each movement, and what it was meant to conjure for me as its listener.

Become Ocean has sonically similar components to La Mer. Both systems are built around a system of crescendos and decrescendos to evoke the rising and falling of tides and waves. But the sensation is not similar.

Picture this: You’re walking through an art gallery and are moved by a piece of art called “The Ocean.” It reminds you of what it was like to be a child playing in, and dreaming about, the ocean. It is somehow whimsical and serious. It feels raw, yet is somehow so technically impressive. That is La Mer.

Picture this: You are about 10 years old, half-asleep, after a full day of playing in the surf. You feel the push and pull of the waves upon you as you lie in bed. You lay in bed, feeling that sensation. That is Become Ocean.

Become Ocean has no Movements

There are no “movements” in this piece. There is an organic cadence of crescendos and decrescendos, of arpeggios and dynamics, that immerse the listener.

Listen to this piece before bed and you will have a very different, though equally enriching experience as you will have had while riding a bike or running. But always listen intently while breathing, mindfully. Your ears, circa 2026, are attuned to this experience. So go forth and listen with your smartphone in your pocket via the streaming service of your choice, you barely pre-apocalyptic, pre-cyborg motherfucker, you.

Final rating

Did John Luther Adams succeed in his vision? Did his impact match his intention? For me, it did. Here’s a video that shows how they actually conduct this piece, but I recommend listening without the video first: John Luther Adams Become Ocean DSO Replay Collections Composers

Become Ocean

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