THE TWENTY-FIFTH HOUR COMPOSER’S NOTE the same musical stuff, as if each were a THE CHAMBER MUSIC OF THOMAS ADÈS (b. 1971) different view through a kaleidoscope. ‘Six of Nearly twenty years separate the two string the seven titles’, he has noted, ‘evoke quartets on this record, and all I have been able various vanished or vanishing “idylls”. The Piano Quintet (2001) * to discover over this time is that music only gets odd-numbered are all aquatic, and would splice 1 I [11.43] more and more mysterious. I am very grateful if played consecutively.’ 2 II [4.35] for this enjoyable collaboration to Signum, Tim 3 III [3.00] Oldham, Steve Long at Floating Earth, and my In the first movement the viola is a gondolier friends the Calder Quartet. poling through the other instruments’ moonlit The Four Quarters (2011) World Premiere Recording 4 I. Nightfalls [7.06] water, with shreds of shadowy waltz drifting 5 II. Serenade: Morning Dew [3.12] Thomas Adès, 2015 in now and then. Next, under a quotation 6 III. Days [3.50] from The Magic Flute (‘That sounds so 7 IV. The Twenty-Fifth Hour [3.51] The Chamber Music delightful, that sounds so divine’ sing of Thomas Adès Monostatos and the slaves when Papageno Arcadiana (1993) plays his bells), comes a song for the cello 8 I. Venezia notturno [2.39] These three works are not only in classic under glistening harmonics. The music is 9 II. Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schon [1.22] genres but themselves becoming classics, with stopped twice in its tracks by major chords, 0 III. Auf dem Wasser zu singen [2.35] Arcadiana as close as any modern quartet to and slips away whistling something from the q IV. Et...(tango mortale) [3.53] joining the repertory. The Calders included it Mozart score. ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’ w V. L’Embarquement [2.34] on their debut album, between the Ravel (To be Sung on the Water) takes its title and a e VI. O Albion [3.27] and Mozart’s last quartet, and have played it figuration from a Schubert song, though here r VII. Lethe [2.27] often since. They have also been proponents of the song is Adès’s own, over which water the Piano Quintet, with Gloria Cheng, and were seems to be falling in drops, with increasing Total timings: [56.17] the second team to play The Four Quarters, antagonism between the elements. within a few months of its première. The tango centrepiece – the non-idyll – relates CALDER QUARTET Adès wrote Arcadiana in 1993 and gave it to Poussin’s paintings in which shepherds in a THOMAS ADÈS PIANO * a favourite form, of several sound pictures, classical landscape make out the inscription distinct and characterful, being drawn out of on a tomb: ‘Et in Arcadia ego’, which could be www.signumrecords.com - 3 - understood as voiced by the deceased (I too all engaged in the one unfolding process. (rising) turns into another (falling), but it treble, from which a slow descent completes was in Arcadia) or by Death (Even in Arcadia There is a strong invitation to understand remains a crux right through the piece. The the exposition. I am there). Like those paintings, Adès’s that process in terms of sonata form, with an violin tries several approaches to it before Arcadian sequence at once beguiles and exposition that is even repeated, followed by gaining access to a new, higher world of Development starts with the piano tackling threatens, not least here, in what is its development and recapitulation. Beneath this regular quavers, which is where the piano the first subject as the strings pursue their longest section. Still in the Louvre, the guise the music is in constant evolution (as comes in, obliged to do so at a lower level (B, own course. Emphatic crescendos then carry following movement relates to Watteau’s is indeed very often the case in Beethoven or to the violin’s initial C), and then the trio the music towards a sequence of force and ‘L’Embarquement pour Cythère’ (Boarding for Schubert); it is also far from classical norms enters lower still, at B flat. Thus the music astonishing ordered complexity, where the Cythera, an island sacred to Aphrodite) and in its texture, much of it being composed in builds itself from the top down, and the three strings are all independent of the piano’s changes darkness to light, with high cadences layers that, though they certainly act on one layers are also proceeding in different metres. common time and of each other, careering and song phrases turning into water music another, follow independent courses set by through time signatures such as 4/5 (four that splashes out from Debussy’s response to their own harmonic and metrical guidelines. The texture begins to fall apart and is quintuplet crotchets to the bar) or 1/7, as well the same picture, L’Isle joyeuse. From Venice, brusquely set aside for a ticking machine in the as more regular measures. When this has Vienna and Paris, ‘O Albion’ comes to England So it is at the start, a kind of non-fugue in strings over rumbling piano, from which the settled down attention turns to the second for a meditation on ‘Nimrod’ from Elgar’s which the first violin, the piano and the second subject emerges in the form of subject, and soon the strings assume Enigma Variations. (The first performance remaining string trio enter in turn with what beautiful harmonic exchanges between strings responsibility alone, through harmonic terrain of Arcadiana was given at the Cambridge is partly the same material – a scalewise rise and piano, now metrically aligned. These that moves from the darkly rich to the tensely Elgar Festival.) Lethe, in Greek mythology, is of three chords and then a descent through a progressions gradually come to crystallize glistening (violins and viola only, sul tasto the river of forgetting, as Adès remembers in different scale in quicker notes – and partly into a song in A major on the piano, sounding and without vibrato). the trajectory of his cello song, taken up by not, for each new entry has to adapt to a as if it might be a quotation from Brahms, the other instruments and gradually lost. constantly altering environment, which itself though Adès’s model was the second subject As the strings come to buzzing rest on and seems to come out of the slightly wonky from the opening movement of Beethoven’s around middle B flat, the piano returns, and His Piano Quintet of 2001 is in some ways harmonies and the rhythmic skid of the basic ‘Pastoral’ Sonata, to which he was drawn before long the broken chords of the opening quite different, not sectional and scenic but a idea. As Adès puts it, the violin goes two for its initial instability and because ‘the are back. The recapitulation is compact, and continuous, abstract span. It is, however, as steps down a corridor and, at the third, finds whole movement feels like one long organic includes a delectable C majorish passage full of striking imagery as its predecessor, and a door that will not open: F, the first stopped process’. His own continues with developments with string harmonics before the final sometimes of similar imagery: tightly worked note on the violin’s top string, one of the of the song leading to downward scales seesawing ends on an upbeat. cascades in the high treble, interlocked textures instrument’s ‘roughest’ notes, ‘the grit in the that have each instrument in its own rhythm, coming undone, a moment of repose, but now oyster’. Here it is the point where one harmony and so to a magical uprush into the high

- 4 - - 5 - The Four Quarters (2011) returns to the now identifiable as stars, are still there at fortissimo chords on the nagging thirteen-beat Arcadian model of brilliant evocation by means the darkening close. rhythm. Then quiet again, the music unwinds. of tight construction, the central metaphor this time being the diurnal cycle. ‘Nightfalls’, All the remaining movements are shorter, Finally, ‘The Twenty-Fifth Hour’, in a time the first movement, opens on two planes, the ‘Morning Dew’ being emphatically the scherzo, outside time, restores high-treble lustre and violins playing harmonics in a regular pattern mostly pizzicato. Though Adès in this work dance, the time signature of 25/16 being divided of short-short-long while the viola and cello maintains the same time signatures in all into groups of 8+3+8+6. Now one may feel are in harmony, far below and slower. These parts, the four instruments are on their own not only that the violin-harmonic image from planes are utterly distinct, and yet they tracks through stretches of this movement, the first movement is back but that it has seem not only to complement but also to now and then arriving at the same spot with grown into a bright melody, spinning in resemble one another, in that the intervals some surprise, but then happily joining in a changing harmonic currents, resolving at times on which the violins keep hesitating are also bit of ostinato. The second time this happens, into scales, speeding up, reaching into a passage those with and towards which the lower the first violin goes off into bowed playing, of magnificent triadic harmony, slowing down instruments grope. More than that, the followed by the others, still otherwise again and coming to stillness on a D major scintillant anapaest that the violins go on independent, but they cannot get the old music chord so beautiful it just has to be repeated. turning (Adès suggests it may also be heard out of their fingers. as a dactyl, long-short-short) seems to be a © Paul Griffiths basic motif for the whole quartet, one that ‘Days’ is a study in monotony, but within a will be refracted and reflected through context, of course, of constant change. The different rotating prisms as the work unfolds. second violin begins by repeating middle C CALDER QUARTET Here it makes a slow journey downwards, sharp to a repeating rhythm of short-short-long, into the second violin and viola parts, leaving short-long, short-long, short-long (thirteen The Calder Quartet, called “outstanding” and the first violin to join the cello in harmony. beats, therefore), placed against a shifting “superb” by the New York Times, performs a A more turbulent energy carries the music frame of time signatures, the other instruments broad range of repertoire at an exceptional up again, and the violins reprise their chain playing in harmony mostly below, until they level, always striving to channel and fulfill of lights, which so quickly turns into nocturnal are drawn into the second violin’s rhythm the composer’s vision. Already the choice of harmony in up to seven parts. This also rises, and disturb its equanimity. After this it is many leading composers to perform their in register and agitation, to precipitate scalewise motion that comes forward as an works – including Christopher Rouse, Terry another short reprise, and the lights, perhaps alternative, until, startlingly, everyone arrives at Riley, Peter Eotvos, and Thomas Adès – the

- 6 - - 7 - group’s distinctive approach is exemplified release The Edge of Light featuring Messaien THOMAS ADÈS From 1999 to 2008 he was Artistic Director by a musical curiosity brought to everything and Saariaho with pianist Gloria Cheng, and of the Aldeburgh Festival. they perform, whether it’s Beethoven, Mozart, the Emmy-Award winning main title theme to Thomas Adès was born in London in 1971. Haydn, or rock shows with bands like The Da Vinci’s Demons by Bear McCreary. His compositions include two operas, Powder As a conductor Thomas appears regularly with, National or Vampire Weekend. Winners of a 2014 Her Face (Cheltenham Festival and the Almeida among others, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Avery Fisher Career Grant, they are known The group worked directly with Thomas Adès Theatre, London, 1995), and The Tempest Boston Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, for the discovery, commissioning, recording on a performance of Arcadiana as part of (Royal Opera, Covent Garden, 2004). His the Royal Concertgebouw, Melbourne and and mentoring of some of today’s best emerging the Green Umbrella Series at the Walt Disney orchestral works include Asyla (CBSO, Sydney Symphonies, BBC Symphony, and City composers (over thirty commissioned works to Concert Hall. The relationship evolved into 1997), Tevot (Berlin Philharmonic and Carnegie of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In opera, date), the group continues to work and collaborating on concerts together at the Hall, 2007), Polaris (New World Symphony, he has conducted The Rake’s Progress at the collaborate with artists across musical genres. Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s Konserthuset Miami 2011), Violin Concerto Concentric Paths Royal Opera House, London and the Zürich Inspired by innovative American artist in 2009, the Melbourne Festival in 2010, and (Berliner Festspiele and the BBC Proms, 2005), Opera, and made his debut at the Metropolitan Alexander Calder, the Calder Quartet’s desire at CAL Performances in 2011. Of the In Seven Days (Piano concerto with moving Opera New York conducting The Tempest. to bring immediacy and context to the works Stockholm performance, the Guardian said, image – LA Philharmonic and RFH London Future plans include conducting The Tempest they perform creates an artfully crafted musical “the Calder Quartet played the most insightful 2008), and Totentanz for mezzo-soprano, baritone at the Vienna State Opera (2015) with the experience. and moving performance of Thomas Adès’s and orchestra (BBC Proms, 2013). Vienna Philharmonic, and Totentanz with Arcadiana I’ve ever heard.” the Boston Symphony, Los Angeles and Recent seasons includes debuts for the His chamber works include the string quartets New York Philharmonic Orchestras and the Calder Quartet at New York’s Mostly Mozart The Calder Quartet formed at the University Arcadiana (1993) and The Four Quarters (2011), Concertgebouworkest, Amsterdam. Festival, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of Southern California’s Thornton School of Piano Quintet (2001), and Lieux retrouvés Washington Performing Arts Society, London’s Music and continued studies at the Colburn for cello and piano (2010). Solo piano works His recent piano engagements include solo Wigmore Hall, The Edinburgh Festival, The Conservatory of Music with Ronald Leonard, include Darknesse Visible (1992), Traced recitals at Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium), Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, The Mozarteum and at the Juilliard School, where it received Overhead (1996), and Three Mazurkas (2010). New York and the Barbican in London, and in Salzburg, Cal Performances, The Cleveland the Artist Diploma in Chamber Music Studies Choral works include The Fayrfax Carol (King’s concerto appearances with the New York Orchestra at the Cleveland Museum of Art, as the Juilliard Graduate Resident String College, Cambridge 1997), America: a Prophecy Philharmonic. Earlier this season he appeared The Melbourne Festival, The Adelaide Festival, Quartet, and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns (New York Philharmonic, 1999) and January throughout Europe with Ian Bostridge in a the Ojai Festival, and the Sante Fe Chamber Eisler Berlin with Eberhard Feltz. Writ (Temple Church, London 2000). tour of Schubert’s Winterreise in Vienna, Music Festival. The quartet recently appeared Luxembourg, Hamburg, Paris, Budapest, Bilbao on the Grammy-nominated Harmonia Mundi and Warsaw.

- 8 - - 9 - His many awards include the Grawemeyer and his DVD of the production from the Award for Asyla (1999); Royal Philharmonic Metropolitan Opera was awarded the Diapason Society large-scale composition awards for d’Or de l’année (2013), Best Opera recording Asyla, The Tempest and Tevot; and Ernst von (2014 Grammy Awards) and Music DVD Siemens Composers’ prize for Arcadiana; Recording of the Year (2014 ECHO Klassik British Composer Award for The Four Quarters. Awards). He coaches Piano and Chamber His CD recording of The Tempest from the Music annually at the International Musicians THE CALDER QUARTET Benjamin Jacobson & Andrew Bulbrook violins Royal Opera House (EMI) won the Contemporary Seminar, Prussia Cove. Jonathan Moerschel viola category of the 2010 Gramophone Awards; Eric Byers cello

Recorded in All Saints Church, East Finchley, London, from 28th – 30th April 2014

Gasparo da Salo viola “ex-Adam” c.1590 on generous loan from the Stradivari Society of Chicago Producer & Editor – Tim Oldham Recording Engineer – Andrew Mellor Recording Assistant – Robin Hawkins

Cover & Tray Images – © Mark Hagen Session Photography – © Andrew Mellor Design and Artwork – Woven Design www.wovendesign.co.uk

P 2015 The copyright in this CD booklet, notes and design is owned by Signum Records Ltd © 2015 The copyright in this CD booklet, notes and design is owned by Signum Records Ltd

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SignumClassics, Signum Records Ltd., Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, Middx UB6 7JD, UK. +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 E-mail: [email protected] www.signumrecords.com

- 10 - - 11 - ALSO AVAILABLE on signumclassics

Dance Adès: In Seven Days The Smith Quartet Nicolas Hodges piano SIGCD236 London Sinfonietta Thomas Adès conductor SIGCD277

“ ... an exuberant collection of 14 short pieces, each by a “The ingenuity and dazzling colours of Adès’s wheeling rhythmic different composer. All are played with vim and technical and harmonic cycles are jaw-dropping, as is the performers’ brilliance … the variety of response to the rhythmic impulse is virtuosity.” The Telegraph impressive.” The Times

Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000

- 20 - CTP Template: CD_INL1 COLOURS Compact Disc Back Inlay CYAN MAGENTA Customer SignumClassics YELLOW Catalogue No.SIGCD413 BLACK Job Title: 25th

SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD413 THE TWENTY-FIFTH HOUR

THE CHAMBER MUSIC OF THOMAS ADÈS (b. 1971)

Piano Quintet (2001) * HOUR TWENTY-FIFTH THE ADÈS: 1 I [11.43] 2 II [4.35] 3 III [3.00]

The Four Quarters (2011) World Premiere Recording 4 I. Nightfalls [7.06] 5 II. Serenade: Morning Dew [3.12]

CALDER QUARTET / ADÈS 6 III. Days [3.50] 7 IV. The Twenty-Fifth Hour [3.51]

Arcadiana (1993) 8 I. Venezia notturno [2.39] 9 II. Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schon [1.22] 0 III. Auf dem Wasser zu singen [2.35] CALDER QUARTET / ADÈS / QUARTET CALDER q IV. Et...(tango mortale) [3.53] w V. L’Embarquement [2.34] e VI. O Albion [3.27] r VII. Lethe [2.27]

Total timings: [56.17] ADÈS: THE TWENTY-FIFTH HOUR

CALDER QUARTET THOMAS ADÈS PIANO *

LC15723

Signum Records Ltd, Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, SIGCD413

CLASSICS Perivale, Middx UB6 7JD, United Kingdom. P 2015 Signum Records DDD SIGCD413 © 2015 Signum Records www.signumrecords.com 24 bit digital recording 6 35212 04132 1 SIGNUM