Sergei Prokofiev's symphonic sketch Autumnal

“The critics,” Sergei Prokofiev fumed, “talk about drizzle, falling leaves and quote verses, but none of them realise that this is not about the outside world, but about inner life, and that such ‘autumnal moods’ are also conceivable in spring or summer.” One reason for the 19-year-old's autumnal melancholy may have been the death of his father, who passed away in 1910 at the age of 64. In addition to the personal loss, this also meant that the family had to give up their estate and Prokofiev was now financially on his own. The sad background to its creation is reflected in the dark atmosphere of the short orchestral piece. Prokofiev later admitted that he was still strongly influenced by Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Rachmaninoff at that time and that, in particular, ‘the gloom’ of the work "came from some of Rachmaninoff's moods, mainly from The Isle of the Dead and the Second Symphony. The fact that he nevertheless cared deeply about this early piece is revealed by the fact that he revised it again in 1914 and 1934.

Although the Autumn Sketches are not limited to descriptions of nature, they evoke autumnal images. The frame section begins with a circling figure in E minor played by the clarinets and bass clarinets (later joined by the strings), which may be reminiscent of swirling wisps of fog. Only gradually do figures from the woodwinds and brass emerge in front of it. The contrasting middle section begins with a gesture from the strings, which, after pale, faster figures played on the bridge and swaying aimlessly up and down, rise to a typically Prokofievian, wide-ranging cantilena as the climax of the piece. After the music of the framing section is resumed, a chromatically descending line in the cellos, traditionally a musical symbol of sadness and pain, confirms in the final bars that the title of the work is to be understood metaphorically as feelings of mourning and farewell.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Thomas Adès

"My work is the only way to try to understand what it feels like to be inside someone else's head. When I compose, that means asking myself, among other things, 'Is that how it feels for you? For Thomas Adès, composing is therefore a glimpse into the mind – no wonder that the music of the composer, born in London in 1971, has been described as a kind of musical surrealism, since surrealism focuses on the dreamlike, the unconscious and the absurd. But Adès' music seems surreal above all because he openly draws on a wide variety of musical styles and genres when composing. As a result, one repeatedly thinks one is hearing something familiar, but it seems dreamlike and alienated. According to musicologist Richard Taruskin, the familiar suddenly seems to ‘hang in the air in a bizarre way and thus seems strangely new’ in Adès' music.

A “proper” piano concerto
The piano concerto was written at the suggestion of pianist Kirill Gerstein. According to Adès, he wanted to compose a “proper piano concerto” for him – and what he means by that becomes clear when reading his own description of the work:
“The first movement, Allegramente, begins with the presentation of the theme by the piano and then by the tutti. A march-like transition leads to the more expressive second theme, which is first played by the piano and then taken up by the orchestra. The development section revisits the first theme before a mini octave cadenza leads to the recapitulation in fortissimo. This is followed by a solo cadenza based on the second theme, played first in tremolo and then spread over many octaves, with the piano accompanied first by the horn and then by the entire orchestra. The movement ends with a coda based on the first theme and the march.”

First theme, second theme, development, cadenza: the vocabulary alone reveals Adès's strong commitment to tradition. However, it is only when the music is heard that it becomes clear to what extent it subverts this tradition in terms of its form: the first theme, for example, is reminiscent of an exaggerated and dreamlike distorted version of Gershwin's song I Got Rhythm – the traditional framework is thus filled in a decidedly “untraditional” way.

Circling without breaking out

The slow second movement is a kind of passacaglia, i.e. a series of variations over a constant bass or chord structure. The low winds introduce the powerful main theme in sombre B flat minor. Subsequently, it seems as if the music is trying to escape this sombre B flat minor. But whenever it finally seems to succeed, the music reverts to the main melody and its key of B flat minor, from which there is apparently no escape. The movement seems to circle within itself.

Finally, the third movement is a bizarre and absurd pianistic flight over an abyss: “The finale, Allegro giojoso, begins with a triad 'alarm” and a tumbling theme for piano and orchestra. It is interrupted by the rumbling entry of a clarinet solo, which announces a parodic canon. There is strife and disagreement regarding the key, which is ended by the renewed “alarm”. Finally, the piano presents a new theme in the style of a ball bouncing down a staircase and develops it into a chorale climax. The tumbling material is further developed, and the alarm sounds from several directions, leading to a dead end, a slowing of the tempo and a new slow (grave) section in triple time with a falling theme. This leads to an abyss into which the piano plunges with the tumbling theme, and into a coda that brings together all the themes and, with the “alarm”, brings about the resolution of the conflict.

Thomas Adès’ Aquifer

Thomas Adès once said of his Finnish colleague Jean Sibelius that he was downright “obsessed with nature – you always have the feeling that he is on the edge of an immeasurable wilderness.” With his orchestral piece Aquifer, Thomas Adès has also chosen a natural phenomenon as the title for an orchestral work. Aquifers (from the Latin aqua = water and ferre = to carry) are layers of rock that conduct groundwater. Rock and water, forces of nature, shape the sound of this music in every respect: it knows the darkness in which everything takes place deep underground, but also the bright bubbling of water, the hardness of rock and the gentle flowing and trickling.

Progressive fusion
Thomas Adès explains his composition as follows: "An aquifer is a geological structure that can conduct water. This work is a musical structure consisting of a movement in seven sections. In the first section (with an introduction in which the material bubbles up from the lowest notes), the theme is first presented by the flutes and then builds to a total of three statements, with more and more parts of the orchestra joining in. After a break, the theme reappears in the slower second part, but with less rhythmic and harmonic stability. This is followed by a slow passage with a creeping chromatic bass line. This accelerates into the fast-flowing fourth section, which in turn slows down to a mysterious silence. From there, the fifth section builds up, with all elements gradually coming together and finally returning to the initial material, which disintegrates again in a darker, slow passage with a sluggish movement. From here, the music takes refuge in a reprise of the fast-flowing fourth section and culminates in an ecstatic coda.

Jean Sibelius' Seventh Symphony

Jean Sibelius' symphonic legacy was actually supposed to be his Eighth Symphony. Invoices from 1933 prove that the musical material comprising several movements had already been copied and reproduced by copyists. The international music world was waiting for this Eighth, which Sibelius had already announced and which was to be premiered in the USA. But this premiere never took place. According to Aino, the composer's wife, he consigned the manuscript to the flames of his fireplace in the mid-1940s, probably due to what he perceived as overwhelming public expectations. Thus, the Seventh Symphony became Sibelius' symphonic legacy. Its extraordinary brevity (22 minutes in length) and its equally unusual single-movement form were unprecedented, but continue to serve as a model for numerous composers to this day.

The history of the Seventh’s creation is convoluted and complicated. According to Sibelius researcher Kari Kilpeläinen, Sibelius changed the concept and even the title of the work several times; when it was completed, it was initially called ‘Fantasia sinfonica I’: ‘At least at times, according to the sketches, four movements were planned instead of three. The symphonic work apparently focused on a motif that was originally intended for the adagio of the Fifth Symphony. […] The motif developed into the second movement (adagio) of the Seventh Symphony, which then became so significant that it, together with material from the planned first and fourth movements of the symphony, ultimately resulted in a single-movement work. Sibelius had not originally intended to compose a ‘fantasy’, but the material and the development of the musical ideas led him to this solution. His remark in 1918 […] that he was ‘a slave to his themes’ had become reality.”

Four in one
This also helps us understand how symphonic the piece is, which Sibelius eventually titled “Symphony No. 7” a year later: the composer endows the single movement with the characteristics that define the four movements of a symphony (sonata movement, slow movement, scherzo, finale). However, in contrast to Arnold Schoenberg's famous Chamber Symphony, Op. 9 (1906), which is also in one movement, this single movement is no longer based on classical forms, but distributes sections that introduce themes and those that develop themes throughout the entire work. In this way, the various musical ideas can emerge organically from one another.

The beginning of the symphony itself is an example of such organic growth: after an initial impulse from the drum, a simple ascending scale is heard, into which more and more string instruments gradually join in. The multifaceted unfolding of the string sound, but also of the full orchestral sound, is a compositional device that characterises the entire symphony, particularly striking as a tonally sophisticated layered accompaniment to the majestic trombone theme, which recurs twice more in the course of the work and, as a kind of main theme, also fulfils an important structuring function. In his sketches, Sibelius wrote the name ‘Aino’ under the theme, which is both a Finnish mythological figure and the name of Sibelius' wife.

Solemn force

Sibelius had originally intended to use another slow theme for strings from the beginning for a (never completed) symphonic poem entitled Kuutar (roughly, Moon Goddess), which he had labelled Tähtölä (Star Place). The fact that music with such a programmatic background found its way into the Seventh may be the reason why this imposing work, with its solemn string chorales and powerful climaxes, does indeed sound in places as if Sibelius had wanted to write a “star symphony”. Thomas Adès also considers the Seventh to be the symphonic “non plus ultra”: “Sibelius’s symphonies are fascinating because, in my opinion, they arise from a conflict: between the symphonic impulse to close a circle and the inner need to lose oneself in the endless horizon of trees or lakes or song or whatever – into the unexplored. […] With the Seventh, one has the feeling that he manages to do it again at the end, but after this exertion of energy, he can go no further.”

Ulrich Wilker

Dr Ulrich Wilker studied musicology, German language and literature, and theatre, film and television studies at the University of Cologne. He also obtained his doctorate in Cologne with a thesis on Alexander Zemlinsky's one-act opera Der Zwerg (The Dwarf). After holding several academic positions, he joined the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe as a concert dramaturg in 2022. Since 2024, he has been a dramaturg specialising in concerts at Theater Aachen.