Thursday, November 8, 2012

The "rich & strange" music of Thomas Adès...

On the occasion of the Met "Live in HD" broadcast of The Tempest
by Thomas Adès, here's a poem inspired by one of his orchestral works.

Simon Rattle paired Mahler's 5th Symphony with Adès' 4-movement symphonic tone poem
Asyla (the plural of Asylum) for his first program as the new director of the Berlin Philharmonic a decade ago. It's 3rd movement is a symphonic evocation of club music, and its title, Ecstasio is as rich a play on word as is Asyla.

Asyla

III. what is this
sound coming

out of even
the stems

of these
flowers?

and is
this ecstasio
imagined
or
palpably real

as Hamlet’s wound
or doubt
or disgust…

IV. so much

depends upon
a piano

tuned to another
key like

the crossed
purposes of
lovers or

parents

or gods.

The
thing is

simply

to find it.
(after Adès)

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