American Berserk is a short (approximately 7 minutes long) solo piano composition by the American composer, John Adams.
The first performance took place February 25, 2002, at Carnegie Hall, New York City, with Garrick Ohlsson on the piano. It was commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation and is dedicated to Ohlsson. The composition is substantially influenced by jazz and bop piano playing. According to Adams, “the title, from Philip Roth, hints at the darker, manic edge of American life evoked in his novel, American Pastoral."
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“We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)