Thomas Adès

All compositions

Three Berceuses from The Exterminating Angel

viola and piano

Year
2018
Duration
00:09:00
Category
  • Viola

Commission

Three Berceuses from ‘The Exterminating Angel’ (for viola and piano) was commissioned for Lawrence Power, by Verbier Festival; Moritzburg Festival; BBC Radio 3; Aspen Festival; UKARIA Cultural Centre, South Australia; Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Amsterdam; and underwritten by The Viola Commissioning Circle, supported by its Underwriting Members:

Barbara & Michael Gwinnell | Rosemary & Jeremy Cook
David & Elizabeth Challen | John and Gilly Baker
Christopher & Julia Hum | The Boltini Trust
Alan Sainer | Graham Nicholson
Vernon Ellis Foundation | Peter and Jenny Smart
Nicholas & Judith Goodison | Erica Stary
Christopher & Lorna Bown | Anonymous
Andrew Collender | David Green

Programme notes

Initiated by the Viola Commissioning Circle, for Lawrence Power, this set of Three Berceuses was arranged for viola and piano by Thomas Adès from his opera The Exterminating Angel. They are based on some of the opera’s most exquisite and memorable music – the first two drawing on the yearning melancholy duets of the doomed lovers Beatriz and Eduardo, the last a version of Silvia’s eerie berceuse macabre from Act III, in which she cradles a dead lamb, thinking she is rocking her son to sleep (‘It’s very late now, Yoli, it’s bedtime’).

Availability

Score and part on special sale from the Hire Library

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