European American Music Distributors Company is a member of the Schott Music Group

Thomas Adès’s Song Cycle Növények Premieres at Wigmore Hall with IMS Prussia Cove

Dec. 21, 2022

On November 26, Thomas Adès's Növények, seven Hungarian poems for mezzo-soprano and piano sextet, premiered at Wigmore Hall as part of the IMS Prussia Cove 50th anniversary series of concerts. The 17-minute piece was performed by Hungarian mezzo-soprano Katalin Károlyi, the Ruisi Quartet, Graham Mitchell (double bass) and Joseph Havlat (piano). The concert was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on November 29.

Növények is Thomas Adès’s first set of original songs in nearly thirty years, since Life Story (1993) and Five Eliot Landscapes for soprano and piano (1990). In this cycle, Adès sets four great Hungarian poets: Attila József (1905-1937), Miklós Radnóti (1909-1944), Sándor Weöres (1913-1989) and Otto Orbán (1936-2002). He writes of the piece:

"The word Növények means plants, but with the sense of ‘things that grow’ rather than ‘things that are stuck in the ground’. All the poems use botanical images as metaphors for aspects of the human condition. The metaphor is particularly direct in the case of Radnóti, who was murdered by Hungarian troops loyal to the Nazis. His last poems, including ‘Gyökér’, were found in a notebook in his coat pocket when his body was exhumed over a year later."

‘Gyökér’ – ‘Root’ – provided the germ for the larger work. Adès composed the work in 2020 for Katalin Károlyi and four percussionists; it premiered on film. Its instrumentation was partly inspired by György Ligeti’s Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedűvel ('With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles'), which was also premiered by Károlyi.

The rest of the ensemble for Növények was hand-picked from musicians Adès has worked with at IMS Prussia Cove. Adès has a longstanding relationship with the International Musicians Seminar, which he described in the July issue of The Strad. It was at IMS Prussia Cove where Adès was taught by György Kurtág, whose music Adès has recorded and performed to acclaim as a pianist. Notably, the concert featured a world premiere by Kurtág: Circumdederunt… in memoriam Rita Wagner, performed by cellist Steven Isserlis.

Növények was commissioned by IMS Prussia Cove with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, with additional support from The Nicholas Berwin Charitable Trust and The Fidelio Charitable Trust; and the generous assistance of The Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust, Jonathan Gaisman, Gilbert and Helen McCabe, The Overli Foundation and The Martin Smith Foundation.

The Wigmore Hall weekend also saw Thomas Adès appear as a pianist on November 27, performing Bartók’s Contrasts for violin, clarinet and piano with musicians from Prussia Cove. Additionally, on November 26, Adès gave a masterclass featuring the De Beauvoir Piano Trio and Cristian Sandrin.

Thomas Adès's setting of Weöres’ poem ‘Az ág’ (‘The branch’), the fourth song in the cycle, exists in a version for piano written for Víkingur Ólafsson and was released by him earlier this year on his Deutsche Grammophon album From Afar.


Soprano Corinne Byrne and pianist Timothy Long perform Thomas Adès's Life Story

To learn more about Thomas Adès, visit: fabermusic.com.


Thomas Adès
Növények (2020-22)
Seven Hungarian Poems for mezzo-soprano and piano sextet
texts by: Attila József; Miklós Radnóti; Sándor Weőres; Otto Orbán; English translations by Thomas Adès
pno-2vn.va.vc.cb
17'

News