In Seven Days

In Seven Days: Concerto for Piano with Moving Image is a piano concerto by the British composer Thomas Adès. The work was commissioned by the Southbank Centre and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was given its world premiere by the pianist Nicolas Hodges and London Sinfonietta under Adès at the Royal Festival Hall on April 28, 2008. An optional video accompaniment was created for performance with the piece by Adès's then parter Tal Rosner.

In Seven Days has a duration of roughly 28 minutes and is composed in seven movements:

The movements musically recount each of the seven days of the Biblical creation myth as detailed in the Book of Genesis.

The work is scored for solo piano and a large orchestra comprising three flutes (2nd doubling alto flute and piccolo; 3rd doubling piccolo), three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, four percussionists, and strings.

In Seven Days has been praised by music critics. Reviewing the United States premiere, Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Full of the life of our own times yet so rooted in the past that it feels like family, Ades' music operates on so many different parts of the brain at once that it overpowers critical faculties. Brightly bopping scores tickle the pleasure centers. Ingenious counterpoint stimulates the logic-leaning synapses of the left brain. Musical fantasy and illogic mess with the right brain. By this point, who has a enough gray matter left for anything else?" He added, "In Seven Days occupies a more mature space than the earlier works. But the freshness has not grown stale."Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times called the piece "terrific" and observed, "As the creation saga unfolds, the music is at once reverent and playful. Galumphing basses and low brass evoke the creatures of the land, while twittering flutes and crazed piccolo announce the creatures of the sky. Long episodes evolve in arcs of brilliant piano writing where restless, filigreed, spiraling figures cascade down the keyboard." He added:

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