‘Most famous British composer since Britten’
NewsThat’s how the Berlin Philharmonic are describing Thomas Ades, who is conducting them this month.
Most famous, really?
So Birtwistle, Tippett, Turnage, John Tavener, Rebecca Saunders, Rachel Portman and Jocelyn Pook are chicken liver?
Not to mention Andrew Lloyd Webber.
How little they know, who only Berlin know.
Here’s an extract from a fawning website interview with Ades.
Thomas Adès is currently the best-known and most successful composer in England. His tonally sensual works, which oscillate between irony and melancholy, have long been part of the repertoire of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Now Thomas Adès is joining the orchestra as a conductor for the first time. In our interview, he explains what the program of this concert is all about, what role the big drum plays and why his work is like that of an architect.
You know concert life from two perspectives: as a composer and as a conductor. What is more exciting for you – a debut as a conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker or the world premiere of a new work?
These are two completely different things – and each exciting in its own way. I’ve known the Berliner Philharmoniker for 20 years, but they’ve never seen me on the podium. Standing on the podium together will be exciting for both sides and hopefully it will deepen our relationship. I look forward to the direct collaboration because it gives me the opportunity to present two of my compositions and two works that are very close to my heart.
Malcolm Arnold?
Patrick Doyle
God no, his audiences didn’t need to try to enjoy him. Adès makes you work for it. And then wonder how you got old, so quickly.
For a journalist you really don’t seem to get the whole idea of promoting your work, do you?
What exactly would you expect The BPO to put on their website?
“Above average but definitely not the best English composer, loved by some but not by others, conducting us next week. Come on and take a chance”
Dear lord.
When John Williams conducted the BPO the brochure said only: “Come hear an old man conduct his incidental music”
The description itself is meaningless. For one, most famous doesn’t (necessarily) equate to best. Also, how do they go even go about measuring those attributes? Recordings, performances, talk on the street, Google results? It’s like when travel publications recommend a sight and the first sentence is something like “it’s the most visited museum in X”. It’s filler copy in both cases.
“Most famous….” — In Britain? Or outside of Britain?
There is a big difference here. In most European music capitals we hardly ever get to hear popular British works (e.g. Vaughan Williams or William Walton).
From a non-British perspective Adès is the most important British composer of the last three decades.
I’m sure this is true: we tend to forget just how parochial many continental “musical capitals” can be.
Ugh….those who’ve made it to the top of the stratosphere…through legitimate means or otherwise. Life is different up there I guess….nothing much we mere mortals can do.
They can do whatever they want and all we powerless can do is watch or complain or both.
But such puffery is hardly unique to the Berlin Philharmonic or to Mr Adès. How often have you read a programme note bestowing exaggerated claims to the greatness of a performer, conductor or composer. Indeed, only the other day, I read, “His blog, Slipped Disc, is among the most widely read cultural sites online, breaking exclusive stories and campaigning against human abuse and acts of injustice in the cultural industries.” I forget now to whom who it was referring.
Well said!
Max.
Don’t understand your comment.
Sir James MacMillan is internationally famous and in certain genres more famous than Thomas Ades.
James hasn’t written an opera as far as I know – or if he did, never seen it. His music is more Scottish than British.
James MacMillan has written an opera called “The Sacrifice”. A recording is available on Chandos.
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010572
The article describes Ades as a British composer rathen than an English one and so describing MacMillan as British is fair. He campaigned to preserve the Union in the 2016 referendum.
https://catholicherald.co.uk/people-are-fascinated-by-the-baffling-aspects-of-christian-belief-an-interview-with-sir-james-macmillan/
HM Queen Elizabeth II will receive the new British Prime Minister in Scotland on Monday.
Adés is a musicians musician.
Quite right here. The comment below that he is only a “decent” conductor is belied by his relationships in Vienna, Amsterdam,Boston, etc. I’ve heard him a couple of times in Boston and believe he’s the real deal on the podium – more than sufficient technique with which to express unusually insightful and fresh ideas, with the orchestra hanging on his every gesture. Can’t wait to hear him in Cleveland later this season.
They say that he is *currently* the best-known and most successful *in England*. So not ‘the most successful British composer since Britten’.
Same difference. Europeans always mix up England with Britain and then the United Kingdom. Even had Edinburgh in England!
Like British seem to forget they’re Europeans.
Speaking as a trained linguistician, I can say that the problem is the “English” language. Many people who speak it as mother-tongue are automatically labelled as English. It happens all the time!
George Benjamin …
With the best will in the world, I’ve never been able to “get” Adès. Anyway, what has fame got to do with it, even if that ridiculous claim was anywhere near true?
Calling a contemporary classical composer “most famous” or “best known”, not to mention “most successful”, is a questionable kind of praise. Indeed, all those superlatives probably fit Sir ALW better than most, but then he can hardly be called “classical”. As for all others mentioned here by our host, in my opinion Thomas Ades may indeed be the finest of them all and the most brilliant since Benjamin Britten.
You forgot John Rutter.
Quite right.
Quite right as in John Rutter is indeed forgettable?
A little unfair I think as some choirs really like his music. But it does sound a little ‘popular’.
Oh, lucky.
I was going to mention John Rutter before I read your comment! His music is very popular especially in the vocal world.
You do have a point about Andrew Lloyd Webber.
If the Berliners are willing to program and record (on DG no less) John Williams, I don’t see what high ground it can possibly claim not to give the same treatment to ol’ Andy Lloyd.
Who wouldn’t want to see Netrebko in a cat costume meowing Memory backed up by Adès conducting the Berlin Philharmonic captured on DVD by Deutsche Grammaphone?
Not to mention Sandy Goehr, 90 this year (but nothing of his at this year’s Proms) and, until recently, still composing. Incidentally, Goehr was himself favourably compared to Britten following the successful premiere of his cantata The Deluge. Looks as though, for some, Britten still represents a benchmark for our claims to having composers of international stature.
Let me try to understand what you’re saying here.
You’re saying that Rebecca Saunders, Rachel Portman, and Jocelyn Pook are as famous as either Britten or Ades?
You’re saying that “the most famous since Britten” means the same thing as “the only famous since Britten”?
I’d question your reading comprehension, but I’m sure it’s fine. It’s just that you don’t care.
No wonder you’re a joke among serious readers.
Portman and Pook are Oscar winners. Globally much more famous. Saunders is in demand everywhere. The joke is on you.
Pretty sure Pook has not won an Oscar actually.
French musician here. I’ve never heard of Pook, hardly about R.Saunders, and know Portman’s name only for her “Little Prince” (to be frank, I thought she was american). But I could name 8-9 works by Adès (even played one) and saw a performance of “Powder her face”. And yes, the missing name here is G.Benjamin.
I am interested to learn that Michael Giacchino is a more famous American composer than John Adams. It hadn’t occurred to me.
I think it is fair to say that no other British composer since Britten has combined such a high measure of both critical approval AND popular recognition as Adès now maintains. Birtwistle’s music is too forbidding, Davies’s vast output too uneven for consideration in this regard. Saunders is impressive indeed, but her career is firmly anchored on the Continent.
They’ll say anything to sell anything. Where are the great composers now? There aren’t any.
Stephen MacKenzie?
Tom Adès write some good music (not to everyone’s taste) and is a decent conductor and pianist. That should be enough; everything else is flimflam.
Typed into google…’most famous British living classical composer’. Top result was from classicfm – ’10 British composers who shaped the nation’s classical music legacy’. There are only three living composers included on the list and Ades isn’t one of them, along with just about all the other composers mentioned here. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/british-composers-shaped-nation-classical-music-legacy/
I’d have thought Peter Maxwell Davies would have made the list.
I agree. At the Schott Music shop in London there are piano practice rooms named after Maxwell Davies and Tippett! And also Lutyens (named after Elizabeth Lutyens).
The ultimate accolade.
Adès who?
Y Rutter ??
Last time I looked, the only noticeable British composers were Lennon and McCartney. But they more than made up for the Taveners and what-have-you.
Whether or not Lennon and McCartney are deemed to be the best British composers, it is fair to say that their music will still be being played in 100 years time, which is more than can be said for most of the composers referred to in this discussion. And the condescending, snotty nosed attitude displayed by some to ALW is typical of the classical music elite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIIYJ6S-J3k
There is also Cheryl Frances Hoad and Sally Beamish. But no comments so far appear to acknowledge that Thomas Adès is a really good contemporary composer. Andrew Lloyd Webber has written some tuneful melodies but doesn’t have the depth of Adès.
I believe that Sir Michael Tippet is better known, even internationally, though. It would have been better if the Berlin Philharmonic website had said that Adès is one of Britain’s foremost living composers, not *the* best one.
You take the PR division of the Berlin Phil too seriously. Here’s another untenable proposition I heard uttered by a lover of classical music who considers the Berlin Phil too exhibitionistic. He belongs to the generation that felt so happy when Barbirolli was invited to conduct Mahler. Listen to him:
“Any city that revels in film festivals will ruin other cultural activities.” How do you argue with somebody like that?
Nobody mentioned the gentle giant Oli Knussen. Sigh….