Thomas ADÈS (b. 1971)
The Twenty-fifth hour: chamber music of Thomas Adès
Piano Quintet (2001) [19:18]
The Four Quarters (2011) [17:59]
Arcadiana (1993) [19:57]
Calder Quartet (Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook (violins), Jonathan
Moerschel (viola), Eric Byers (cello))
Thomas Adès (piano)
rec. All Saints Church, East Finchley, London, 2014
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD413 [56:17]
Few contemporary composers have met such acclaim as Adès.
Just take two examples: his orchestral works have been regularly recorded
by EMI – let’s hope Warner continue the practice. His opera on The Tempest
was first produced at Covent Garden in 2004 and has since been revived both
there and in many other opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, New
York and Vienna; it has also been recorded twice (review).
Now we have the chance to hear what he can do with chamber music.
What we have here are two string quartets, written eighteen years apart, and
a piano quintet which comes chronologically between them. Arcadiana
is an early work with strong literary, musical and also pictorial associations,
most of which are explained in the very helpful note by Paul Griffiths. The
Arcadia referred to in the title is not the real barren and rocky landscape
of that name, which is in the Peloponnese in Southern Greece, but rather the
ideal landscape invented by Virgil and taken up in the Renaissance for pastoral
settings. Arcadiana consists of seven sound pictures, six of which,
Adès says “evoke various vanished or vanishing ‘idylls’. The odd-numbered
are all aquatic and would splice if played consecutively”.
The idiom is astringent but not specially dissonant, though with a fondness
for high registers. A constant feature is that of a dance form struggling
to get through, for example a waltz in the first movement and a tango in the
fourth. These are subverted by all sorts of noises off, which can include
pizzicati, glissandi and high harmonics. Just when you think you want a change
there comes a tune, a snatch of one or a bit more, sometimes quoted from another
composer and sometimes new. The sixth movement is again quite different: taking
its start from Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’, it is slow, quiet, deep in the instruments
and full of rich harmonies. This is the second
commercial recording of Arcadiana, and it is on its way to becoming
a contemporary classic.
This is also the second recording of the piano quintet, which like the first
(with the Arditti quartet on EMI)
features Adès himself on the piano. He is no mean pianist, as I know from
his splendid recording with Anthony Marwood of Stravinsky’s violin and piano
music (on Hyperion).
Though three movements are listed this is really a massive single movement
in an expanded sonata form. The first theme is an ascending group of three
chords followed by a more rapid descent, a motif which is worked on before
the first violin reaches a passage of quavers while the other instruments
proceed in different metres. There is a rather Brahmsian second theme and
even a modified repetition of the exposition before a development which culminates
in a huge churning passage with complex rhythms which suggest that Adès had
been listening to Elliott Carter to some purpose. From this there is a gradual
retreat to a quiet résumé of the opening. Adès leads the listener carefully
throughout so the work is easy to follow and with a great variety of textures
and moods. It is a fascinating piece.
The Four Quarters is the second string quartet. Here the controlling
idea is that of the cycle of day and night. The first movement, ‘Nightfalls’,
much the longest, opens with high violins playing repeated notes in the rhythm
of an anapaest (short – short – long). The two lower instruments then enter
far below them and more slowly. It is perhaps not too fanciful to hear this
as a representation of the stars coming out in the sky while the earth darkens
below. The two lines gradually combine in a passage of rather Bergian chromaticism,
a process which is repeated with difference until the two strands separate
out again. ‘Morning Dew’ is a scherzo which starts entirely in pizzicato.
The scherzo of the Ravel quartet is not far away and the pizzicato movement
of Bartók’s Fourth Quartet is even nearer. But in this piece the instruments
all play in different rhythms, which only occasionally coincide. The second
time they do this so excites the first violin that he picks up his bow again.
Then all the others do too. ‘Days’ is built on a repeating rhythm of thirteen
beats on the second violin while the other instruments have something quite
different. The quartet ends with ‘The Twenty-fifth Hour’, which, like the
first movement, begins with high violins, though no longer in that anapaestic
rhythm, but in a dance rhythm of 8+3+8+6. This has many adventures but ends
with a widely spaced D major chord.
The Calder Quartet hails originally from California and has made a speciality
of playing contemporary works. They have worked with Adès for some years.
Their performances are assured; though I have not been able to compare their
versions of Arcadiana and the piano quintet with their predecessors
I find it hard to think they would be inferior. The recording is clear, perhaps
slightly on the dry side. I look forward to hearing more chamber works from
Adès.
Stephen Barber
The Four Quarters (2011) [17:59]
1. Nightfalls [7:06]
2. Serenade: Morning Dew [3:12]
3. Days [3:50]
4. The Twenty-fifth Hour [3:51]
Arcadiana (1993) [19:57]
1. Venezia notturno [2:39]
2. Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schön [1:22]
3. Auf dem Wasser zu singen [2:35]
4. Et . . . (tango mortale) [3:53]
5. L’Embarquement [2:34]
6. O Albion [3:27]
7. Lethe [2:27]
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