Thomas Adès has always tended to be as qualitatively erratic as he is consistently overhyped, but his new orchestral piece Aquifer finds him back on the right side of accomplishment. The title refers to a subterranean stratum through which water can flow, and it’s a superb descriptor for both the nature and the behavour of Adès’ musical material.
In terms of nature, a compelling aspect of the work is the way the orchestra continually acts as a singular organism. They all move as one, in a form of onward motion that proves mesmeric, sometimes twisting into sinewy curves and contortions, elsewhere pushing on at speed. It’s an episodic work, which enables Adès to explore more fully the implications and possibilities of this mass movement. Thus the metaphorical water, when not flowing like quicksilver, undergoes miraculous changes of constitution, either becoming stodgy and viscous or aerated and effervescent.
In terms of behaviour, perhaps the defining feature of Aquifer is the way that its material doesn’t simply flow, but constantly gets caught, such that at regular intervals the music keeps going round and round in circles (in terms of overall progress, a kind of semi-literal treading water). However, due to the discrete character of the work’s episodes, this circularity comes across in different ways. Around three minutes in, during a ruminative sequence, the group dynamic suggests a communal attempt to work together. Accompanying crashes are ambivalent, signs of either triumph or frustration. Four minutes later, over a bassline figuration the cyclic nature comes to resemble a passacaglia. By ten minutes in, the orchestral homogeneity has become something of a paradox, the music opening out, its breadth seemingly at odds with the dense closeness of the players, while the circling music becomes the basis for a gradual stilling of things.
Even when the piece springs in the opposite direction, growing in strength and fullness, becoming climactic and finally letting rip, still things get stuck and turn on the spot, which makes the fifth episode’s final sagging feel like a reaction to one attempt too many to break the pattern. There are distinct hints of Gloria Coates’ music in the subsequent section, when Adès causes the strings to undulate weirdly, as if weighted down, resulting in a glissando-ridden melody. It’s a nice passage, again cyclic, now with a lovely dirty accompaniment. It arrives at another still moment, whereupon Adès seemingly casts a spell on the horns, who push the music on in what’s an almost implausible moment, as if he were actively overriding his own orchestra’s inherent tendencies. If Aquifer has a weak spot, it’s here, right at the end, in a decidedly odd coda that, after its crashy splashy mayhem has subsided, leaves one with an impression that this was music so inclined towards darkness and circularity that it became necessary to step in and bolt on something different.
In some ways it’s an amusing denouement – not so much resolving the situation as sidestepping it completely – yet considering how organic and consistent the preceding 17 minutes of music were, there’s something unsatisfactory about this last-minute intervention. All the same, Aquifer is an engrossing orchestral tapestry that finds Adès less dependent on well-worn tricks and tropes that figure in so much of his output, exploring more imaginative and effective musical territory. The UK première of Aquifer was given by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle.
Just as qualitatively erratic as Adès – and arguably even more overhyped – is Julius Eastman, whose Symphony No. II, composed in 1983 and circuitously subtitled “The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved”, also received its first UK performance at the Proms. That subtitle testifies to the fact that Eastman wrote the work as a kind of post-relationship reflection, dedicating it, and physically giving the manuscript, to his former lover, writer R. Nemo Hill. The tone of the piece is perhaps best indicated by its unusual instrumentation, weighted heavily in the lower registers: the winds require two bass clarinets and three each of contrabass clarinets, bassoons and contrabassoons; the brass eschew horns and trumpets, comprising three trombones and three tubas, while the percussion consists of six timpani actually played by six timpanists.
Though highly original and personal, the work is instantly redolent of two other compositional voices. One is Messiaen; the symphony brings to mind his various ‘ecstatic’ movements where everything is slow, highly concentrated and meditative. Interestingly (and fittingly, considering its subject), the example it most strongly suggests is ‘Demeurer dans l’Amour’ from Éclairs sur l’Au-Delà…, though as that work wasn’t completed until 1991 it can’t have been an influence. The other, more obvious voice the symphony brings to mind is Charles Ives. Eastman takes a similar approach in terms of superimposition, though where Ives quotes from and alludes to well-known tunes, Eastman has an array of melodies and chords of his own devising, named for their subtextual connotations (another Messiaen connection): “Julius’ Love for Nemo”, “The Constant Faithfulness of the Friend Chord”, “Nemo’s care for Julius whenever he was sick”, “Nemo and Julius in the park; Summer time”, etc. Though unfamiliar, the sense of superimposition is nonetheless clear; these chords and themes are layered and juxtaposed to form the narrative, which is in essence a tragic exercise in nostalgia and heartbreak.
The tone of the work is leaden, its trajectory not so much downward as toward a numb acceptance. The opening melodies are answered first by beautiful but heavy, dense chords, then by oscillating timps and brass, conveying a grim kind of stoic grandeur. From there the orchestra splits (becoming its most Ivesian), and a potential climax is shied away from, pulling back into dronal repose. Two solo violins duet together, their beauty contrasting with what follows: vague, slow, low chords. These stark juxtapositions – almost like veering between colour and monochrome – are now verticalised: melodic lines re-emerge, in a fugato sequence (“Julius’ and Nemo’s sexual involvement”) but, unlike the earlier duet, here the strands become more and more polarised. The sense of distance accompanying what apparently was a time of exquisite pleasure is echoed after when a cor anglais obliquely sings (“The sexual union of Julius and Nemo”) while the harmonies turn dark and strange, everything being subsequently wiped out in a huge roll from all six timpanists. The melody is by now high and desperate (over another drone), eventually petering out to leave a series of concluding wind chords which, defying the score’s indication of “The Comfortableness of Julius with his Friends”, close the symphony in a blank, neutralised, exhausted daze.
It’s an extraordinary work, lyrical and complex, personal yet universal. We’re fortunate that R. Nemo Hill preserved the score so carefully, and no small amount of kudos has to go to musicologist Luciano Chessa for editing Eastman’s manuscript, getting it ready for performance (the original score lacks any time signatures, tempo, dynamics and barlines). There’s evidently no sign of a Symphony No. 1 (i can’t help wondering whether the spelling of the number 2 as “II” may be suggestive of two figures, rather than being a literal numeral), making this Eastman’s only symphonic work, as well as his last large-scale composition. Its UK première was given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dalia Stasevska, who have also recorded a studio version (taken at a slightly slower pace), included in Dalia’s Mixtape, a hotchpotch of contemporary works released between March and September.
Editor’s note
Full score
This isn’t the first time Adès has ended that trademark ever-restless tonal circling of his with a big fat major-key splurge: I’m thinking in particular of Tevot (perhaps the closest thing I’ve heard to this piece in terms if it’s behaviour more generally). Whether it ever works convincingly, that remains the question…