Barbican, London
Thomas Adès curated and conducted a dazzling concert of contemporary works by Alex Paxton and Poul Ruders, plus his own Aquifer alongside a radiant Sibelius 3
By this point in October there is no escaping the shorter days, lower light and autumn drizzle, but this concert by London Symphony Orchestra – the first in a short series of LSO programmes this season and next curated by the composer and conductor Thomas Adès – seemed calculated to dispel any seasonal gloom, its intense burst of vivid orchestral colours and effervescent noisiness functioning as the musical equivalent of a Sad lamp.
The UK premiere of Alex Paxton’s World Builder, Creature set the tone from the glittering musical box of its opening, as upper woodwind flitted and skimmed the surface and lower brass ambled around the depths. The score’s intricate textures were almost miraculously lucid. Muted trumpets seemed to have escaped from a big band, a piano splashed around anarchically amid the strings and moreish rhythmic grooves emerged only to be abruptly halted. At one point an elephantine tuba blared into one of these sudden stoppages before a whole new cluster of ideas emerged, bright and delightfully bonkers, as Adès leapt around gamely on the podium.
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