The Great Beyond

Abstract

In the decade ending in 2016, Adès has gravitated toward larger-scale works including Tevot (2007), Totentanz (2013), and The Exterminating Angel (2016). The increasingly cosmic ambition of these works reflects a more “philosophical” footing for Adès’s largest works. Despite the heterogeneity of these pieces, each of these works carefully balances its subjective and objective dimensions. Each of them features a different primary means of musical signification: Tevot operates largely through the use and development of autonomous musical material, Totentanz relies heavily on stylistic allusion and the pre-existing musical technique of limited aleatory, and The Exterminating Angel is a combination of both strategies. Taken as a whole, what emerges from these pieces when viewed in this light is the way in which Adès increasingly uses musical styles and materials to engender subjective experiences which point to truths outside of the objectively observable—his own kind of great beyond.