Thomas Adès conducted the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in a performance of Lieux retrouvés for cello and orchestra, with Nicolas Altstaedt as soloist, and Dawn, a ‘chacony for orchestra at any distance’, on 28 June at the Philharmonie. The programme also included music by Debussy, Sibelius, and Mark Simpson. RSB previously toured Adès’ Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with Kirill Gerstein and Vladimir Jurowski in August 2023, visiting the BBC Proms and Grafenegg Festival. The concert will be broadcast 27 July.
Originally written as a cello and piano work for Steven Isserlis in 2009, Lieux retrouvés is four pictures of places recalled, lasting 17 minutes. It evokes flowing waters, mountainous peaks, and sunlit amble through the countryside. The finale’s cityscape – ‘La ville’ – is a ghoulish homage to Offenbach, animated by a ‘cancan macabre’. Altstaedt previously performed Lieux retrouvés with Adès and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in November 2024, as part of Adès’ residency at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. The pair present the work again with The Hallé and RSO Wien in spring 2026, alongside Kurtág’s Double Concerto.
Dawn is a 7-minute work conceived with flexible instrumentation, with scope for the placement of its players placed around the hall in myriad ways. In the piece Adès imagines “the sunrise as a constant event that moves continuously around the world”, the chaconne providing the means for this perpetual musical revelation. It premiered at the 2020 BBC Proms with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra and has since appeared Finnish Radio Symphony and Nicholas Collon (who made the world premiere recording), the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel, the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest with Martyn Brabbins, and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer.
A new recording of Dawn from Adès and The Hallé was released on 4 July on the orchestra’s own label, alongside the world premiere recording of Adès’ Aquifer and Tower, as well as Shanty - Over the Sea for strings. Adès also conducts the premiere recording of Oliver Leith’s Cartoon Sun, as well as William Marsey’s Man with Limp Wrist. Listen to the album here.