Thomas Adès: Full of Noises

For the past 12 years, music critic Service and Adès have been talking about the ways that Adès—the brilliant composer, conductor, and pianist—conjures his musical inventions from the sounds swirling in his head, how he reimagines the music of the past, from Beethoven to Ligerti, and the ways that his music explores the intersections of music and literature. Throughout 2011, the two met at Adès’s London home and recorded the interviews gathered in this new collection, which ranges over many of the same subjects and offers us a glimpse of Adès’s creative mind at work. Reflecting on the central theme of stability and equilibrium in music, Adès observes that “the music we listen to is the residue of an endless search for stability... that’s the way I understand everything in musical history.” Exploring the reasons he starts composing a certain piece of music, Adès reveals that he’s always been preoccupied by the “why” and “how” of composition. Early on, he thought that writing a new opera was “purely the creation of an alternative reality” into which one can escape. Now, however, he’s come to the conclusion that “you try to create a simulacrum of the real world, a reflection. The piece is a way of trying to make the real world real again, in a sense.” Energetic, honest, and warm, these conversations between friends reveal the intricacies of the creative process and a deep and abiding love of music. (Oct.)