Marking their US tour finale, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Chief Conductor Sir Simon Rattle returned to Carnegie Hall on Friday evening for a second programme, featuring Thomas Adès’s formidable one-movement symphony Aquifer (2023-24) as its centerpiece. Commissioned by the orchestra for Rattle’s inaugural season, with support from Carnegie Hall and Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien, the Adès novelty was given in its soaring US premiere performance, bookended by Prelude and Liebestod from Richard Wagner’s groundbreaking opera Tristan und Isolde (1857-59) as well as Ludwig van Beethoven’s life-affirming Symphony No. 6 in F major, op. 68 Pastorale (1807-08).
Written for large orchestra of three flutes, piccolo, three oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contraforte, four horns, three trumpets, piccolo trumpet, three trombones, tuba, six percussion, piano, harp and strings, the seventeen-minute Aquifer is a masterly scored, ever-transforming orchestral entity, recalling – perhaps not in sound but definitely in form and character – Jean Sibelius’s monolithic late works, the Seventh Symphony (1918-24) and Tapiola (1926), alongside Claude Debussy’s constantly morphing orchestral fabrics of Jeux de vagues (from La Mer, 1903-05) and the ballet Jeux (1912).
Although the music is neither descriptive or programmatic per se, Adès’s chosen title refers to an underground layer of stone absorbing water and allowing it to flow. This, in turn, can be seen as allegory of the incessant musical flow, manifesting itself in shooting geysers and hidden undercurrents alike. Despite its layered scoring, which keeps the entire orchestra quite busy from start to finish, there is remarkable translucence embedded throughout the fabric.
The 527-measure score opens with three Vivacissimo, con grande energia waves for full orchestra, followed by variations for strings and winds, colored by vibraphone, piano and harp. This shape-shifting dialogue carries the sonic tension for some hundred measures, until the music cools down for a brief Pesante section of dazzling color, scored for strings and timpani. Horn calls re-initiate Tempo primo, heralding organic build-ups recalling those of Tapiola, perhaps. Actualizing the sonic potential abounded in, more pronounced rhythmic shapes and motives emerge from the orchestra, culminating in gorgeous percussive interjections. Here and there, one hears echoes from Dante (2019-20) and Tevot (2007), as Adès’s new symphony heads for its zenith – the resplendent return of the horn fanfares. Summoned by their calls, the orchestra bursts into massive C major tutti, crowned by full percussion with big rattle, held high by the BRSO harpist Magdalena Hoffmann.
Given in thunderous US premiere performance, Aquifer was sounded out with soaring symphonic splendor and magnificence, its rhythms ever clearly articulated and dynamics well attuned. Worthy of Sibelius, Adès’s organic transitions were realized with skill and commitment by the orchestra with Rattle, giving rise to towering musical journey. A new symphonic classic in the making, received with thrill and joy by the Carnegie Hall audience, Aquifer is a celebration orchestral virtuosity, owned by the BRSO under Rattle.
The evening’s operatic opener, Wagner’s Tristan Prelude and Liebestod sat well with the new Adès score. Although the two works come from notably different aesthetic milieus, both composers set new standards for orchestral expressivity, while demonstrating impeccable craft and knowledge over the resources embedded. As Wagner’s revolutionary harmonies unfolded in the course of the Prelude, the orchestra and Rattle clad the music in layers of refined color, recalling the sheer textural feast of previous evening’s truly one-of-a-kind Mahler Sixth. In Liebestod, one could hear the orchestra sing on each and every phrase as only the best opera orchestras do, to wondrous effect.
Although composed mainly in 1807-08, Beethoven’s earliest sketches for what was to become known as the Pastoral Symphony date back to 1802. Although not entirely unprecedented, the composer’s blueprint for a programmatic symphony went on to inspire an entire musical genre, starting with Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, op. 14 (1830), which, coincidentally, was also heard on Friday just a few blocks up from Carnegie Hall, performed by the New York Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Cast in five movements, of which the last three are played attacca, Beethoven’s narrative soundscapes are scored for duple winds, with piccolo, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani and strings. Piccolo and timpani only appear in the fourth movement thunderstorm, while trumpets and trombones are tacet throughout the first two movements.
Opening the ca. forty-minute symphony in the manner of a folk-song, the upbeat Allegro ma non troppo first movement celebrates – according to the composer’s subtitle – the Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside. First violins introduce the singing main theme from the outset, echoed by second violins and harmonized by lower strings. The exposition builds up towards first tutti, followed by ingenious motivic development. Across its sunlit skies, occasional cloud formations pass, with fleeting suggestion to darker forces of nature.
The Andante molto mosso second movement presents us with Scene by the brook, its idyllic vistas closing with proto-Messiaenic birdsong cadenza for woodwinds, recalling real-life sounds the composer was no longer able to hear. Haydnesque scherzo ensues, its dancescapes celebrating the Merry gathering of country folk. In the midst of stomping dance, distant echoes of wind and rumble are heard, and soon the orchestra breaks into Storm and Thunder. Timpani and brass add some befitting onomatopoeia, until tempestuous textures cool down, summoning the orchestra into elated Shepherd’s song, filled with Cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm. To what extent everything in the symphony is, in fact, innate psychology is certainly debatable. Either way, the symphony is an absorbing affair.
Performed in Johnathan Del Mar’s urtext edition long championed by Rattle, the BRSO delivered an outing of remarkable vividness, rooted in historically informed practices, idiomatically transferred to modern instruments. Embracing Beethoven’s rhythmic vigor and airy lyricism with agility and sensitivity, the orchestra rendered praiseworthy performance with their Chief Conductor at the helm. Rendered with admirable clarity, the symphony’s instrumental trajectories were ever intelligibly paced under Rattle’s solid overall design.
As a homage to the late Mariss Jansons, with whom the BRSO last visited the US in the fall of 2019, the orchestra and Rattle greeted their cheering audience with a splendid encore, Antonín Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance in C major, op. 72, no. 7 (1886).
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Sir Simon Rattle, conductor
Richard Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from “Tristan und Isolde” (1857-59) for orchestra
Thomas Adès: Aquifer (2023-24) for orchestra (US premiere)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F major, op. 68 “Pastorale” (1807-08) for orchestra
Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
Friday 3 May 2024, 8 pm
© Jari Kallio
AIM - Adventures in Music 
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