Totentanz (Adès)

Its world premiere was given in the Royal Albert Hall during The Proms on July 17, 2013 and was performed by the baritone Simon Keenlyside, the mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Adès.

Totentanz is set to an anonymously authored text that appeared under a 15th-century frieze in St. Mary's Church, Lübeck, that was destroyed by a British air raid in World War II.

[3]Reviewing the United States premiere, Martin Bernheimer of the Financial Times remarked, "The 40-minute Totentanz [...] represents a clever dance of death predicated on harmonic, rhythmic and, occasionally, melodic complexity.

He added, "Despite an imprecise performance here, it's clear that with Totentanz, this composer takes a dizzying leap beyond his finest earlier scores — Asyla (1997) and Tevot (2007) — and adds to a lineage of musical death-dances, including those of Liszt and Saint-Saëns.

Despite describing it as Adés's "most fully realized large-scale score to date," Grella nevertheless observed, "Totentanz works musically, is fascinating and powerful throughout, though it's [sic] language still is at one remove from touching the listener intimately.