Harmonium (John Adams)

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This article is on the orchestral work; for information on other kinds of harmonia, see harmonium (disambiguation).

Harmonium, by the American composer John Coolidge Adams, is a richly-textured, large-scale work for orchestra and chorus based on poetry by John Donne and Emily Dickinson.

Its three movements are:

1: Negative Love (words by Donne)
2: Because I could not stop for Death (poem by Dickinson)
3: Wild Nights (poem by Dickinson)

The music has enormous sonic range, from the very faint to a full throated roar of sound from the chorus and orchestra together. The music and singing with the poems by Dickenson are sigularly evocative.

The work first was first premiered by the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Chorus. A performance of the piece typically takes slightly less than 40 minutes.