Thomas Ades

Ades, Tevot, Violin Concerto, Berlin Philharmonic/Rattle et al (EMI)

British music has been in good form in the last decade or two. John Tavener is now the old guard, his Protecting Veil a masterpiece and popular success; James Macmillan now middle-aged, whose Veni, Veni Emmanuel is a regular concert item and Seven Last Words from the Cross a sublime personal favourite of mine and so, how time flies, Thomas Ades (b.1971) is the big noise although it might seem that he's been around for some years, because he has.

Tevot is a big noise, too. The notes usefully explain that,

'Tevot' is a Hebrew word that connotes both musical bars and Biblical 'arks', Noah's miraculous vessel and the Ark of the Covenant. And Ades is quoted as saying that the earth is an ark carrying us through the chaos of space in safety.

I think I remember Lieutenant Pigeon using a similar metaphor to enlighten us on the conceptual complexity of Mouldy Old Dough. But, even so, one does wonder if Ades' meaning isn't alarmingly optimistic. After the obligatory soft and loud, one hears lush passages of strings and restful horns, trumpets more remote suggesting endless space but what I mainly hear is a film soundtrack to a story about a spaceship but nothing particularly profound.

The Violin Concerto 'Concentric Paths', soloist Anthony Marwood with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, is more successful, the notes referring us to Ariel, shimmering and then darker. But jumpy outbursts of sound do not automatically make a piece dramatic. When one hears such interjections in every other contemporary concert on Radio 3, they become a default compositional device and not very shocking at all. There is no doubting Marwood's virtuoso playing, though, and it has periods of fine music and concentrated playing. The notes tell us that 'the exhausted soloist (is) reduced to noise making at the bottom of the violin's register' but, here, for once, if that is so, I'd prefer it to be more so and, if he's that exhausted, how come he has enough energy to give us the final movement of over 5 minutes.

Three Studies from Couperin give us some hope or expectation of some more satisfying baroque orderliness and the pastiche captures the necessary mood accurately but these pieces aren't the reason for the CD, and the little fillers at the end aren't supposed to be a disc's highlights. Nicely done but not essential when we could listen to Couperin himself whenever we choose.

Overture, Waltz and Finale from the opera Powder Her Face are sassy, showy and theatrical but by this time I'm wondering whether I care, I'm afraid.

So, with apologies. If sometimes, some items didn't disappoint just a little bit then it would be less of a thrill when other things give us that rare feeling that goes down your back and makes you feel more alive than what you thought you were.

This isn't it, for me, and if Thomas Ades is the leading light of his generation then I am grateful for the music that the composers of my own age and the generation before them provided. It might be asked why anybody would take the time to review something that they don't particularly like but also refuse to demolish. I think it's to show that there is an in-between area and that one just can't enthuse about everything. What would be the point of that.