Composed for Simon Rattle’s inaugural season because the orchestra’s chief conductor and unveiled on Thursday on the Herkulessaal, it appears to pack as a lot into its 17 minutes as Beethoven did in his “Pastoral” Symphony, which was on the second half of the night. (This system, which opened with the Prelude and “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” travels with the ensemble and Rattle to Carnegie Corridor on Could 3.)
Right here, once more, is Adès the maximalist, for higher and worse. “Aquifer” could also be straightforward to hearken to, however it’s not really easy to rapidly perceive. (On one web page within the rating, there are 39 simultaneous traces of music.) There could also be a touch, although, at illustration and kind within the title, just like his violin concerto “Concentric Paths.”
“Aquifer” begins foundationally, with the rumbling of voices rising to the best within the orchestra. From there, it unfolds in seven sections which can be delineated not by motion breaks however by tempo; they’re as seamless because the three acts of “The Exterminating Angel.” There are episodes of flaring phrases and passages that swing slowly, brassiness that recollects Ravel’s “Boléro” and a falling, two-note motif that subtly, however coincidentally, presaged the birdcalls of the “Pastoral” Symphony.
Because the tempo adjustments, the momentum by no means lets up, whether or not foregrounded or subterranean. Compact and intense, “Aquifer” couldn’t be longer than its working time with out sporting itself out. After a chromatic chorale that begins within the winds and builds to incorporate all the orchestra, the piece euphorically sprints to a climactic end that featured, in case you can consider it, Rattle enjoying a rattle.
That might have been a comic book bit to highlight the conductor for whom “Aquifer” was written. Or it may have been a logistical selection; the rating requires six percussionists, however these last measures embrace seven percussion devices. Both manner, after the performances in Paris and Munich, it feels secure to belief that, at this level, Adès is aware of precisely what he’s doing.
