Thomas Adès continues to transcend predictability and amaze with the technical sophistication and expressive depth of each new composition. The four orchestral works recorded here were written between 2005 and 2007, although one of them is a suite arranged for full orchestra of three pieces from his 1995 chamber opera Powder Her Face. Tevot, the longest work, takes its title from the Hebrew word for arks, suggesting imagery of vessels -- the Ark of the Covenant and Noah's Ark -- but which in contemporary usage also refers ...
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Thomas Adès continues to transcend predictability and amaze with the technical sophistication and expressive depth of each new composition. The four orchestral works recorded here were written between 2005 and 2007, although one of them is a suite arranged for full orchestra of three pieces from his 1995 chamber opera Powder Her Face. Tevot, the longest work, takes its title from the Hebrew word for arks, suggesting imagery of vessels -- the Ark of the Covenant and Noah's Ark -- but which in contemporary usage also refers to musical bars. It is certainly harmonically and rhythmically complex music, but for the curious, attentive listener, it's not hard to follow, and it makes sense as a richly variegated but coherent artistic experience. Its opening imagery evokes an awe-inspiring cosmic vastness, but about two-thirds of the way through, its various elements coalesce into a striking stretch of music of delicate equipoise and serenity. The Berliner Philharmoniker, for whom the piece was written, plays...
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