Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop.
I - (♪ = 120-32) - Dolcissimo sempre (𝅘𝅥 = 60-6) - Più agitato (𝅘𝅥 = 72-80) - Tempo I (𝅘𝅥 = 60-6) - Più agitato (𝅘𝅥 = 72-80) - Tempo I (𝅘𝅥 = 60-6) - (attacca): 0:00
II - (𝅘𝅥 = 72-88 | 𝅗𝅥 = 36-44) - (attacca): 5:33
III - (9/8 𝅗𝅥.𝅘𝅥. - 3/4 𝅗𝅥. = c.44-50 | 9/8 𝅘𝅥. - 3/4 𝅘𝅥 = 132-50) - Tutta forza - (attacca): 8:59
IV - Quieto (𝅘𝅥 = c.72): 10:50
Adès's Chamber Symphony was composed in 1990, when he was still a Cambridge undergraduate. It was premiered at the Cambridge Festival of Contemporary Music on February 24 of 1991, performed by the Contemporary Music Festival Ensemble conducted by the composer. Its success gained Adès the first recognitions as a composer, which led to a rapid rise to a commanding position in British and international musical life. The work's title, its scoring for fifteen solo players and its compression of four movements into one all inevitably invite comparison with the pioneering First Chamber Symphony of Schoenberg.
However, Adès's piece has a distinctive sound-world of its own, a deftly and imaginatively spun web including fleeting allusions to jazz and the tango, and even to a familiar Romantic horn-call figure. Its unusual colouring is partly explained by the fact that Adès originally set out to write a concerto for basset-clarinet, the instrument with an extended lower register for which Mozart is thought to have written his Clarinet Concerto; but, he says, "during the course of composing the accompanying chamber ensemble became infected with the personality of the solo instrument, until the whole group represented in my mind a super-basset-clarinet with strings and a constant rhythm section."
In particular, the basset-clarinet acquires a twin in the form of the deeper bass clarinet, which replaces the usual bassoon in the woodwind quartet; the line-up is completed by three brass, five strings, two percussionists, and a pianist doubling on accordion (though in this performance the parts are taken by separate players). The first movement begins with an introduction in which there emerges, over continuous percussion, a little figure of a turning semitone, a motto that is to run through the whole piece. This leads to a sonata-form movement with a first subject led by the two clarinets, rising from their lowest registers, and a contrasting second subject of high, delicate sonorities.
The development section ratchets up the tempo and the tension to reach a brief climax; and, after a simultaneous recapitulation of the first and second subjects, there is another climax in which the semitone motto appears prominently. The slow second movement grows, like the first, out of continuous percussion and the motto figure, towards a high, bright culmination at which the basset clarinet makes common cause with the upper woodwind. The third movement is a flickering scherzo, with a forceful climax in which the motto is prominent. The fourth movement, marked quieto, is a coda described by the composer as "a serene overview of the preceding music, as if from a great height".
Picture: "The Twenty Fourth V.N. Painting (1992) by the English painter David Hockney.
Source: tinyurl.com/2chy7y3q
To check the score: tinyurl.com/22y5pz79
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop.
I - (♪ = 120-32) - Dolcissimo sempre (𝅘𝅥 = 60-6) - Più agitato (𝅘𝅥 = 72-80) - Tempo I (𝅘𝅥 = 60-6) - Più agitato (𝅘𝅥 = 72-80) - Tempo I (𝅘𝅥 = 60-6) - (attacca): 0:00
II - (𝅘𝅥 = 72-88 | 𝅗𝅥 = 36-44) - (attacca): 5:33
III - (9/8 𝅗𝅥.𝅘𝅥. - 3/4 𝅗𝅥. = c.44-50 | 9/8 𝅘𝅥. - 3/4 𝅘𝅥 = 132-50) - Tutta forza - (attacca): 8:59
IV - Quieto (𝅘𝅥 = c.72): 10:50
Adès's Chamber Symphony was composed in 1990, when he was still a Cambridge undergraduate. It was premiered at the Cambridge Festival of Contemporary Music on February 24 of 1991, performed by the Contemporary Music Festival Ensemble conducted by the composer. Its success gained Adès the first recognitions as a composer, which led to a rapid rise to a commanding position in British and international musical life. The work's title, its scoring for fifteen solo players and its compression of four movements into one all inevitably invite comparison with the pioneering First Chamber Symphony of Schoenberg.
However, Adès's piece has a distinctive sound-world of its own, a deftly and imaginatively spun web including fleeting allusions to jazz and the tango, and even to a familiar Romantic horn-call figure. Its unusual colouring is partly explained by the fact that Adès originally set out to write a concerto for basset-clarinet, the instrument with an extended lower register for which Mozart is thought to have written his Clarinet Concerto; but, he says, "during the course of composing the accompanying chamber ensemble became infected with the personality of the solo instrument, until the whole group represented in my mind a super-basset-clarinet with strings and a constant rhythm section."
In particular, the basset-clarinet acquires a twin in the form of the deeper bass clarinet, which replaces the usual bassoon in the woodwind quartet; the line-up is completed by three brass, five strings, two percussionists, and a pianist doubling on accordion (though in this performance the parts are taken by separate players). The first movement begins with an introduction in which there emerges, over continuous percussion, a little figure of a turning semitone, a motto that is to run through the whole piece. This leads to a sonata-form movement with a first subject led by the two clarinets, rising from their lowest registers, and a contrasting second subject of high, delicate sonorities.
The development section ratchets up the tempo and the tension to reach a brief climax; and, after a simultaneous recapitulation of the first and second subjects, there is another climax in which the semitone motto appears prominently. The slow second movement grows, like the first, out of continuous percussion and the motto figure, towards a high, bright culmination at which the basset clarinet makes common cause with the upper woodwind. The third movement is a flickering scherzo, with a forceful climax in which the motto is prominent. The fourth movement, marked quieto, is a coda described by the composer as "a serene overview of the preceding music, as if from a great height".
Picture: "The Twenty Fourth V.N. Painting (1992) by the English painter David Hockney.
Source: tinyurl.com/2chy7y3q
To check the score: tinyurl.com/22y5pz79
