On 5 September Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra give the UK premiere of Thomas Adès’ Aquifer. Writing in the New York Times, Joshua Barone called the 17-minute piece “compact and intense” following its world premiere in Munich on 14 March 2024; the title describes a geological structure which can transmit water.
It is cast in one movement built from seven sections. It begins by welling up from the deepest notes, before the theme is presented first by the flutes, building to three statements that use more and more of the orchestra. After a breakdown, the theme returns in a slower second section, albeit with more unstable rhythms and harmony; the third section is built on a crawling chromatic bass line. It accelerates into the fast-flowing fourth section, from which emerges a mysterious stillness. The fifth section builds towards a return of the opening material, lapsing then – as before – into a darker slow section with a dragging character. The fast-flowing music breaks through again, culminating in an ecstatic coda.
Following the premiere in Munich in, orchestra and conductor gave the Austrian debut of the 17-minute work with the BRSO at the Musikverein on 16 March; the US premiere, at Carnegie Hall, followed on 3 May. On 30 August Rattle and the orchestra will present the work at the Grafenegg Festival.
Aquifer will receive its Irish premiere at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, on 7 September, from Rattle and the BRSO, followed by its Finnish premiere from Nicholas Collon and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra on 11 October. Adès will conduct the work as part of his ongoing two-season residency with the Hallé Orchestra at the Bridgewater Hall on 21 November and in at Nottingham’s Albert Hall on 27 November.
Simon Rattle has championed Adès’ music for over a quarter of a century. In 1997 he commissioned Asyla – which would subsequently win the Grawemeyer prize – for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and has conducted the work internationally over 35 times, including at his 2002 inaugural concert with the Berlin Philharmonic, with whom he later premiered Tevot in 2007. In 2020 Rattle conducted the world premiere of Adès’ Dawn with the London Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms.