John Adams was neither arch nor facetious when he titled his most recent work Son of Chamber Symphony. The genealogy of this dangerously exhilarating 24-minute work, premiered on Friday by the Alarm Will Sound ensemble, dances on the surface from the opening pages. If both Schoenberg and the cartoon scores of Carl Stallings and his brethren inspired the reckless romping of the first chamber symphony 15 years ago, Adams here seems to look back on his minimalist roots and bid them a fond farewell.

The repeated figurations, chord progressions and syncopations of the early pages soon yield to a febrile display of rhythmic energy and off-beat accents, punctuated by sudden rests that bristle with tension. The second movement trades in the lyricism familiar from Adams’ more ambitious large orchestral works; the winds propose the songful material marked by the rising figures one heard in the opening choruses of The Death of Klinghoffer, the strings comment, and soon the sections seem to exchange roles. Staccato attacks launch the finale in which an energy field gathers strength like a rock rolling downhill. Percussion dominates, predecessors are referenced (was that really a quote from Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements?) and the piece seems to devour its own tail before it ends.