Structural continuities in the first movement of Thomas Ades's 'Violin Concerto (Concentric Paths)' Op. 23

This essay focuses on the first movement of Thomas Ades's Violin Concerto (Concentric Paths) Op. 23. The analysis has three primary goals: first, to demonstrate how various points of emphasis or 'punctuations' provide an overall harmonic structure that functions as the framework of the movement; second, to establish the pre-compositional foundation of the procedures used by Ades to develop melodic and harmonic material within the framework; and third, to explore how this structure and the procedures relate to the notions of continuity and goal-directedness as described in the literature, particularly in John Roeder's article "Co-operating Continuities in the Music of Thomas Ades" (2006).