2015
This Midnight Hour
Anna Clyne
A twelve-minute orchestral piece from 2015 that races out of the dark and drifts into a hushed waltz, now one of the most played new works in the repertoire.
What to listen for
The opening is all motion. Low strings rush upward in a fast, churning line, and the music seems to be chasing something it cannot see. Brass and percussion cut across the surge in hard blocks, and the pulse stays relentless for several minutes.
Listen for the way the churning eventually thins out. The busy strings drop away and single instruments are left exposed, with long held notes and quiet, rocking figures underneath. The energy has not disappeared, it has gone underground.
The passage most listeners remember arrives near the end. A viola takes up a slow, plain melody in three, a waltz that sounds like it is being remembered rather than danced. The orchestra gathers around it, warm and full, and for a stretch the piece becomes openly lyrical after all that agitation.
The close is the biggest surprise. Everything settles, and a solo voice enters wordlessly, floating above the last quiet chords before the sound fades out. Some performances place the singer offstage or in the balcony, so the voice can seem to come from nowhere in particular.
The whole piece runs without a break, roughly twelve minutes, and moves as one continuous arc from drive to stillness.
The story
Anna Clyne, born in London in 1980 and long based in the United States, wrote This Midnight Hour in 2015 on a joint commission from the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France and the Seattle Symphony. The score is prefaced by two poems, one by the Spanish writer Juan Ramón Jiménez and one by the French poet Charles Baudelaire, and Clyne has described the music as visual rather than narrative, images rather than a plot.
The first performances took place in France in late 2015, with the American premiere following in Seattle. The piece traveled quickly. Within a few years it had been taken up by orchestras across Europe and North America and became one of the most frequently programmed orchestral works by any living composer, helped by its compact length and its placement as a concert opener. Clyne has since served as composer in residence with several American orchestras.
First time hearing it?
- About twelve minutes, played straight through with no pauses, so there is nothing to wonder about between movements.
- The moment people wait for: the slow viola waltz late in the piece, after all the early rushing.
- A wordless solo voice enters at the very end, sometimes placed offstage or away from the orchestra.
- Standard large orchestra with active percussion. No soloist stands at the front despite the exposed solos.
- Often programmed first on a concert, before a concerto or symphony.
Written by OrchestraFinder, reviewed September 2026.