Arcadiana Op.12 (1994)

1 Venezia notturna

2 Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schön

3 Auf dem Wasser zu singen

4 Et… (tango mortale)

5 L’Embarquement –

6 O Albion

7 Lethe

Thomas Adès’s Arcadiana takes its title from Poussin’s painting Et in Arcadia – a mediation on mortality which is also recalled in the fourth movemt. Grouped round this central dance of death are allusions to six idylls. Most of them carry musical associations in their titles – the gondoliera in the first, Mozart’s Kingdom of the Night in the second, a water-borne Schubert song in the third, Debussy’s “Isle joyeuse” in the melodious fifth. For the ear, however, the most readily identifiable echo occurs in the Elgarian O Albion. The closing evocation of the river of oblivion is perhaps the most imaginatively scored of all.