The Quartet have had a long relationship with Adès’s music, having recorded his Arcadiana quartet on their debut ECM CD (2016), and featuring his Four Quarters concerts earlier this year. About this new work, Adès writes in his program note: 

Wreath – for Franz Schubert is a single-movement work for string quintet. The central string trio of violin, viola and cello play arco throughout, a gradually unfolding "lifespan" of entwined "blooms." The outer violin and cello outline them in pizzicato. The players are loosely coordinated, but within specific boundaries, so that within certain limits no two performances would be the same, and the duration is flexible: between fifteen and thirty minutes, depending on the players, or maybe the weather.

The inescapable relation to Schubert's double-cello quintet will be clear, especially to its slow movement. At a recent (devastating) performance of it I was fascinated over again by the role of the second cello—at once lead singer, commentator and umpire.

I am most grateful to the great Danish String Quartet for giving me the time and encouragement to realize and develop this new path in my work.

The DOPPELGÄNGER project previously featured works by Bent Sørensen, Lotta Wennäkoski and Anna Thorvaldsdottir. The new works have been commissioned by the Danish String Quartet with the support of Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures, Vancouver Recital Society, Flagey in Brussels and Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam.