About this Piece

This work is a musical structure in one movement, requiring seven sections. In the first section, beginning with an introduction in which the material wells up from the deepest notes, the theme is presented first by the flutes and then builds to three statements in all using more and more of the orchestra. After a breakdown, the slower second section presents the theme again but with more unstable rhythm and harmony. There follows a slow section with a crawling chromatic bass line. This culminates in an acceleration into the fast-flowing fourth section, which in turns slows to a mysterious stillness. From there the fifth section builds with all elements gradually combining towards a return to the opening material, which again breaks down to a darker slow section with dragging movement, from which the music escapes into a reprise of the fast-flowing fourth section, culminating in an ecstatic coda.

—Thomas Adès