12/1/2016 John Adams

John Adams (1947), The Chairman Dances. DaanAdmiraal,2012.

Written program notes for the concerts of the VU Orchestra in June and July 2012, the Netherlands and Russia.

The short orchestral work The Chairman Dances (1985)(12')withthesubtitleFoxtrotfororchestraemergedas

asortof warmup forwriting theopera Nixon in China (1987) 1 . The opera is based on the historic visit of US
President Richard Nixon to China in 1972. The Chairman refers to the Chinese Party leader Mao Tse-tung. An
important role in the opera is the famous third wife of Mao, Jiang Qing 2 , which had a lot of blood on her hands.
She was a political agitator, architect of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and played a major role during the
Great Purge. The Chairman Dances refers to the surreal nal scene of the opera. It Jiang Qing upsets during a
state banquet for which she was not invited to the joyless protocol. She asks Mao, like a giant portrait hangs on
the wall, and from there to come down and dance with her. They are back in Yenan and dance the foxtrot on the
gramophone ....

On the basis of this scene reads the translation of The Chairman Dances "The leader is dancing."

Jiang Qing and Mao in Yenan in 1938, when they rst met.
In the nal act of the opera lyrics and music are going about their vulnerability , their desperate desire to return
to a time when life was simpler and less compromised feelings 3 . Only Zhou Enlai, the moral question: "How
much of what we did was good?"

The John Adams music has its roots in the minimal music, a style that emerged in the 60s in New York. Famous
American colleagues 'minimal' composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Europe made Henryk Grecki, Arvo
Prt, John Tavener, and the Netherlands Louis Andriessen use of minimalist practices. Some characteristics of
minimal music are: consonant chords, a constant pulse and prolonged repetition of small musical gures, motifs
and cells. One therefore speaks of 'repetitive music.

According to John Adams's The Chairman Dances composed in an ABA form. The rst A-side is made up of a
pair of tones that are repeated endlessly in the D-major tonality:

Example-1

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.daanadmiraal.nl%2FArticles%2Fadams%2520chairman%2520dances.htm 1/3
12/1/2016 John Adams

Long-term repeated bass notes (s, c, e, g, berry) to give the above example, an ever-changing signicance. The
playing style of the band is mostly staccato, except the radiant rave verklinkende highs long a "percussion" (2
oboes, piano, harp, glockenspiel, vibraphone, harmonics in the violins and cellos). A new part is in G minor, the
basses are typically minor thirds. The game with one continuous variable rhythmic cell (top bar) reminds us
strongly of Stravinsky's Symphony in three movements:

Example-2

After all legato staccato brings the violins rst long lyrical lines:

Example-3

Then follows an agitated passage with a fascinating Strawinskiaans game with 3 tones in the tuba with timpani,
low woodwinds and cellos / Basses:

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.daanadmiraal.nl%2FArticles%2Fadams%2520chairman%2520dances.htm 2/3
12/1/2016 John Adams

Example-4

Then put the slow middle section B (half rate) with harmonics with glissando in the high strings. The repetitive
bass line here is gone. After a molto ritenuto will put the second A section again with his characteristic thirds in
the bass. Soon after diving a merry dance tune on:

Example-5

After an expressive middle section turns the dance tune back into the piano alone in the enchanting epilogue left
with percussion. After the fadeout of the piano, the music in the last 8 bars slowly to a halt as a portable
gramophone that is no longer excited.

Footnotes.
1. The denition of warmup Adams himself. I have taken him to this article on his website:
Nixon in China (1987): The opera, in three acts, is based on Richard Nixon's visit to China on February 21-25,
1972. Main characters in the opera are: the Nixons, Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, Chiang Ch'ing (Madame Mao)
and Henry Kissinger. Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing was made in the hope, but by no Means the certainty, that
he would see Chairman Mao. It was directed by Peter Sellars.
The Chairman Dances was an "out-take" of Act III of Nixon in China. Neither an "excerpt" nor a "fantasy on
themes from," it was in fact a kind of warmup for embraking on the creation of the full opera. (...) So The
Chairman Dances Began as a "foxtrot" for Chairman Mao and his bride, Chiang Ch'ing, the fabled "Madame
Mao," rebrand, revolutionary executioner, architect of China's calamitous Cultural Revolution, and (a fact not
universally Realized) a former Shanghai movie actress. In the surreal nal scene of the opera, she interrupts the
tired formalities of a state banquet, disrupts the slow moving Protocol and invites the Chairman, who is present
only as a gigantic forty-foot portrait on the wall, to "come down, old man, and dance. " The music takes full
Cognizance or re-t as a movie actress. Themes, slinky and sometimes sentimental, at other times bravura and
bounding, ride above into bustling manufacturing or energized motives.
A screenplay by Peter Sellars and Alice Goodman, somewhat altered from the nal one in Nixon in China is as
follows:
"Chiang Ch'ing, aka Madame Mao, HAS gatecrashed the Presidential Banquet. She is rst seen standing where
she was most in the way of the waiters. After a few minutes, she brings out a box of paper lanterns and hangs
them around the hall, then strips down to a cheongsam, skin-tight from neck to ankle and slit up the hip. She
signals the orchestra to play and begins dancing by herself. Mao was becoming excited. He steps down from his
portrait on the wall, and They start to foxtrot together. They are back in Yenan, dancing to the gramophone ... "
http://www.earbox.com/W-chairmandances.html
2. An informative article about http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Qing
3. Pat is the perfect diplomatic guest, being treated to a whirlwind tour of the city and "loving every minute of
it." The shrill, corrosive Chang Ch'ing interrupts the ballet angry to shout orders at the dancers and sing her
credo of power and violence, "I am the Wife of Mao Tse-tung." But in the nal act, the focus of both text and
music is their vulnerability, Their desperate desire to roll back time to When life was simpler and less
compromised feelings. Indeed, all ve of the principals are here is virtually paralyzed by Their innermost
thoughts during this act. In the loneliness and solitude of his or her own bed, no one can avoid the feeling of
regret, of time irretrievably lost and opportunities missed. It falls to Chou En-lai, the only one with a modicum of
self-knowledge, to ask the nal question: "How much of what we did was good?" back

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.daanadmiraal.nl%2FArticles%2Fadams%2520chairman%2520dances.htm 3/3