INSPIRATION FROM A SHIP THAT SOARED

“I was driving across the Oakland Bay Bridge,” recalls John Adams, “and I saw a giant tanker sitting in the water. Suddenly, this huge mass of a ship just took off into space like a rocket.”

And then, as the cliche goes, he woke up.

This dream, the San Francisco-based composer says, proved an impetus in the completion of “Harmonielehre,” a huge mass of an orchestral work, due for its local premiere tonight at the Music Center, as the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Leonard Slatkin opens the New Music America ’85 Festival (The piece will be repeated at weekend Philharmonic concerts).

“At that time (mid-1984),” Adams explains, “I was having a painful metamorphosis creatively.” Translation: writer’s block. “I was into Jungian therapy at the time, so dream images were very important to me. I thought about that dream, about how the tanker resisted gravity and just took off. It seemed to represent the lifting of a heavy load I had been carrying.”

Dressed in jeans and casual coat and tie, the 38-year-old prematurely gray composer speaks quietly but intently about that critical period in his musical development. “From about 1977 to 1984, everything I had written started with almost the identical quietly pulsating chord--kind of the way Bruckner began all of his symphonies.

“But with ‘Harmonielehre,’ I decided to open the piece with a mass of loud chords, a heavy E-minor mass.” Adams fails to realize his unintended pun. “I saw this as a dare to myself. In a way, it represents the mass of that ship I had seen in my dream.”

Commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, where Adams served a four-year term as composer-in-residence, the piece was first performed under the baton of Edo de Waart last March. Adams smiles in recollection of that premiere. “When I heard it (the opening), I thought it was a mistake.” Indeed, those seven huge, repeating chords come as quite a jarring departure from the Adams of old.

“But even more,” he adds, “it was almost embarrassing for me seeing this very personal statement of mine fill the hall--it’s like seeing a movie of yourself.”

Besides the tanker dream, another event helped lift Adams out of the creative doldrums--the birth of his daughter Emily, now 16 months old. The baby, nicknamed Quackie by her parents, is depicted in “Harmonielehre’s” third and final movement, “Meister Eckhardt and Quackie.” According to the composer, “Quackie, who is still too young to walk, rides upon Meister Eckhardt’s shoulders as they glide among the heavenly bodies. Quackie whispers the secret of grace into Meister Eckhardt’s ear.” A rather opaque image.

Adams is quick to agree that the casual listener--even one riveted to every note--might have trouble picking this up in the music. “I am fond of using what I call generating images--ones that help me compose, but don’t necessarily help the listener. It’s enough for the audience to know that the piece depicts a gradual descent into the underworld and back again.”

With the spiritually elevating experience of completing “Harmonielehre” behind him, can we now expect more full-blooded orchestral writing from Adams? “I’m tired of composing for orchestra,” he replies. “This is my last (orchestral) piece for a long, long time.

“But don’t misunderstand me: I am grateful for the San Francisco experience (as both music adviser and composer-in-residence). I think I matured tremendously as an artist. I learned to use the traditional sound of the orchestra as a starting point for my ideas.”

If Adams is taking an extended leave from symphonic writing, what lies ahead? “I’m working on a project with (director) Peter Sellars for Houston Grand Opera. It’s titled ‘Nixon in China.’ ” He’s not kidding--or dreaming.