Lines taken from the last of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets provided the title for this, Thomas Adès’s first large-scale orchestral score. Composed in 1993, this ten-minute work is built around a single melody which, after emerging from a delicate, airy tintinnabulation is transformed through numerous ingenious combinations and permutations. The composer calls this intricately crafted work a ‘consolation’ for orchestra and the work ends with an allusion to Liszt. The work was commissioned to mark the 150^th anniversary of the Cambridge Music Society and was first performed in Ely Cathedral in 1994 before being taken up a year later at the BBC Proms by the Hallé Orchestra.

‘Intimate, meditative music, elaborately and lovingly worked’
The Observer (Andrew Porter), 6 August 1995