John Luther Adams: Become Ocean

John Luther Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning orchestral piece Become Ocean was premiered in 2013 by conductor Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony, and this hypnotic recording was made a few months later. It catches grippingly the epic, slow-moving sweep of Adams’ vision of the ocean, inviting listeners both to immerse themselves in it, and contemplate the environmental destruction which humanity is causing. Written in a single, 42-minute movement, Become Ocean at times recalls the nature music of Wagner, Richard Strauss and Debussy, while firmly establishing its own monumental sense of scale and idiom. Morlot and the Seattle players respond with an interpretation of rippling luminosity, which it is difficult to imagine being bettered.