United Kingdom Adès conducts Adès: London Philharmonic Orchestra / Thomas Adès (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, 22.2.2023. (KMcD)
Sibelius – Overture; Suite No.1, The Tempest
Adès – The Tempest Symphony (UK premiere); Inferno Suite
Tchaikovsky – Francesca da Rimini, symphonic fantasia after Dante
As live performance programmes go, this was definitely one of the imaginative and coherent that has been offered for a while. Four works, two of them by one of many UK’s most fêted composers, Thomas Adès, sat alongside two others, all of which have been inextricably linked by their supply materials – specifically two literary titans, Shakespeare and Dante. Intelligent programming of this calibre shouldn’t be that frequent within the live performance corridor as of late – with each bit in its personal method making calls for on each performers and viewers – so it was encouraging that this brilliantly-devised night was nicely attended, obtained in rapt silence, and met with an enormous ovation on the shut.
It is tough to imagine that Adès’s first full-scale opera, The Tempest, obtained its first performances at The Royal Opera 20 years in the past. It merely doesn’t appear that way back, and stays a contented reminiscence. Adès has usual a 20-minute piece from the opera, giving it the title of The Tempest Symphony. In this case nonetheless, calling the work a symphony is one thing of a misnomer. To all intents and functions that is an orchestral suite, containing a few of the opera’s most beguiling moments. Written for the London Philharmonic Orchestra who gave its premiere final 12 months in Dresden, this was its first efficiency on residence floor.
From the vivid, wild opening that brilliantly evokes the storm – an abrasive, psychedelic musical depiction of the raging components – to the hauntingly stunning ‘Prospero’s Farewell – Caliban’ that concludes the work, this bite-size collection of ‘highlights’ was a salutary reminder of the blazing originality of Adès’s rating. With vocal traces assigned to devices, notably a stratospheric piccolo within the ‘Ariel and Prospero’ part, this 20-minute orchestral odyssey whetted the urge for food for an entire efficiency of the opera, which is lengthy overdue a revival.
Sibelius’s Overture and Suite No.1 from The Tempest opened the programme. Written after his Symphony No.7 in 1925-6, for a manufacturing of Shakespeare’s play in Copenhagen, the no-holds barred Overture depicts a wild, torrid battle in opposition to the weather – evidently the inspiration for Adès’s tackle the subject material virtually 80 years later. The ensuing 9 actions take the listener on an often-mysterious journey, Sibelius’s musical panorama completely mirroring the emotional shifts current within the play. Adès formed the composer’s musical traces with loving care, and the LPO responded with agile, quicksilver enjoying.
After the interval we have been handled to 2 exhilarating performances, the primary of which was Adès’s Inferno Suite. Drawn from the opening a part of ‘Dante’, a triptych primarily based on The Divine Comedy which the composer wrote in 2019-20 to a joint fee from The Royal Ballet and The Los Angeles Philharmonic, the work’s eleven actions brilliantly conjure up Dante’s depiction of the varied circles of Hell. We begin in Hell’s vestibule, the place these barred from Paradise on account of their selfishness however will not be fairly depraved sufficient to warrant Inferno’s punishments dwell, and the string of punishments meted out on them. Adès himself has described Inferno Suite as ‘a grateful tribute to Franz Liszt, the composer of Hell and demonic music,’ and the German composer’s affect is current all through. Adès shouldn’t be afraid to take pleasure in pastiche at instances, most notably in a headlong, rollicking gavotte, ‘The Thieves – devoured by snakes’, which drew a burst of spontaneous applause from the viewers. Audacious within the excessive, one of the simplest ways to explain it’s as if Offenbach, Johann Strauss and Shostakovich downed a bottle of Absinthe collectively, then pooled their compositional assets – it was off the size, loopy.
Elsewhere, Adès the grasp of portray orchestral footage was evident within the graphic illustration of bugs making mischief in ‘The Selfish – stung by wasps’, as trilling clarinets, violas and cellos depict the relentless stinging of these whose ideas are solely of themselves. The last part is reserved for Satan himself ‘Satan – in the lake of ice’, concluding the work on a desolate, spine-chilling word. Adès proved to be a galvanising presence on the rostrum, even turning into air-bound on a few events, as he drew thrilling sounds from his gamers.
Dante additionally offered the inspiration for Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini. In the poem, Francesca’s punishment for an adulterous affair is to be blown ceaselessly by darkish area by whirlwinds. No doubt the Russian composer felt a particular affinity to her plight, given his emotions of guilt over his sexuality. From the compact, tense introduction which evokes a way of foreboding to the blistering whirlwind which carries our heroine by the weather, Tchaikovsky’s rating glistened and glowed underneath Adès’s skilled baton. His interpretation definitely didn’t maintain again – it was viscerally thrilling, fringe of the seat stuff. The second of respite at its centre was rendered unforgettable due to Benjamin Mellefont’s beautiful, languid clarinet solo – totally mesmerising. Adès definitely drove the LPO onerous, drawing the work to an ear-shattering conclusion, setting the seal on an exemplary night of music making.
Keith McDonnell