Thomas Adès: Alchymia
Mark Simpson (basset clarinet); Quatuor Diotima
Orchid Classics ORC100264 (digital only/EP) 23:29 mins
The Kings Place premiere of Alchymia, Thomas Adès’s first major chamber work since the 2010 string piece The Four Quartets, was a stand-out event in 2021. There was, of course, not a lot of competition in terms of live concerts that year, and a cynical critic (what’s that?) might postulate that the multiple five-star reviews that followed reflected that reality. Listening to Quatuor Diotima and Mark Simpson – the commissioners and original performers at the London event – again in this new recording happily puts any of those concerns to bed. Scored for string quartet and basset clarinet – an instrument similar in appearance and timbre to the soprano version, but with an extended lower range (featured in Adès’s 1990 Chamber Symphony, which actually began life as a basset clarinet concerto) – the music takes melodic and narrative inspiration from Tudor and Stuart London. The opening movement, A Sea-Change, refers to the part in Shakespeare’s The Tempest when the king’s eyes are transformed by water into pearls; the oil-and-vinegar interplay between clarinet and strings is a colourful swirl that never properly integrates. So far, so Adès. The following movements take us into more complex spaces: The Woods So Wild (referencing the song used by Byrd) sees a virtuosic melody passed from Simpson to strings, while Lachrymae, based on a John Dowland theme, slowly unfolds through flawless ensemble playing. In the final Divisions on a Lute-song, the reinvented barrel-organ melody used in the final scene of Berg’s opera Lulu twists and turns itself into clever knots that disappear when tugged. Claire Jackson