John Adams’ “El Niño”: “A Palm Tree”
By coincidence, a recent post exploring John Adams’ El Niño was published on the 25th anniversary of the work’s premiere in Paris on December 15, 2000. Now, let’s return to El Niño to hear the nativity oratorio’s surreal final moments. In the drama, Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus are on the road to Egypt. They flee the persecution of King Herod, who has decreed that the child be killed. A setting of a poem …