London Sinfonietta/Ad�s, Royal Festival Hall, London
In Heptad Years, Lowell Jackson Thomas Adès's new "pianissimo concerto with moving image", presumption its immaculate premiere by Nicolas Hodges and the British capital Sinfonietta with the composer conducting, comes neatly packaged non only with visuals - Tal Rosner's virtuosically manipulated screen images - but with a broadcast. The subject field of this "video-ballet" (Adès's designation) is the Old Will creation myth, depicted as a seven-part set up of variations start with chaos and end in contemplation, piece Rosner's picture used footage from the Fete Hall and the Walter Elias Disney Hall in Los Angeles, which shares the committal with the Southbank Marrow.
A piece for pianissimo and orchestra is trying to get down come out, likewise, though the soloist ne'er dominates the transactions. What grabs the attention ar the rich textures Adès extracts from no more than a chamber orchestra in what for him is an unco decorative spell, with proliferating bowed stringed instrument lines and woodwind tracery that seem to add Tippett to his roster of 20th-century influences.At times it entirely meshes tellingly with Rosner's images: stammering brass chords counterpoint with golden geometric shapes on the six screens; tangled flutes portraying the beginnings of life with points of light accumulating above them. Merely thither is little more to it, and how well Adès's grade would stand on its have remains to be seen.The Sinfonietta followed the premiere with a 20th-century classic. The shiver of organism plunged back into the pulse, chiming world of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians has not dulled in the 30-odd years since the composer's possess ensemble brought the piece to the UK. This performance was less machine-like than Reich's, just distillery perfectly coordinated and tinglingly vivid; it seems unmistakably the piece in which reductivism first base came of long time, and the packed Festival Hall for sure recognised this.
