Composer: Thomas Adès
Performer: Kirill Gerstein, Mark Stone, Christianne Stotijn
Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Thomas Adès
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Release: 2020
Size: 1.04 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
01. 1. –
02. 2. –
03. 3. –
Totentanz
04. Der Prediger
05. Der Tod
06. Der Tod zum Papst – Der Papst
07. Der Tod zum Kaiser – Der Kaiser
08. Der Tod zum Kardinal – Der Kardinal
09. Der Tod zum Konig – Der Konig
10. Der Tod zum Monch – Der Monch
11. Der Tod zum Ritter – Der Ritter – Der Tod zum Burgermeister – Der Burgermeister
12. Der Tod zum Arzt – Der Arzt – Der Tod zum Wucherer – Der Wucherer
13. Der Tod zum Kaufmann – Der Kaufmann
14. Der Tod zum Kuster – Der Kuster – Der Tod zum Kuster
15. Der Handwerker – Der Tod zum Handwerker
16. Der Tod zum Bauer – Der Bauer
17. Der Tod zum Madchen – Das Madchen
18. Der Tod zum Kind – Das Kind
Written in 2018 for his favorite pianist Kirill Gerstein, Thomas Adès’s Concerto for Piano has been a worldwide success. Commissioned by the Boston Symphony, where the piece premiered on March 7, 2019, and where it was recorded, it is already part of the program of fifty soon-to-be concerts in Europe and in the US, all to be performed by its exclusive dedicatee.
A twenty-minute-long piece with a classical three-movement structure, the concerto mixes every genre and influence with kaleidoscopic and skillful talent. The new piece includes many influences, mainly hinting at Twentieth-century piano concertos, such as works by Ravel, Prokofiev, Bartók, Poulenc, and Rachmaninov, as well as Gershwin’s jazzy style, peppering the whole composition. This new piece takes the past into account and will be recognizable to traditionalist audiences of classical music concerts.
The second part of the album, that Thomas Adès, one of the most well-known and performed contemporary composers, also dedicates to himself, includes his Totentanz (“Dance of Death”) for mezzo-soprano, baritone, and orchestra. The piece was composed in 2013 for the famous London Proms’ series to celebrate Britten and Lutosławski’s hundred-year anniversary, two essential composers of the twentieth century. Recorded during a concert that took place in Boston in 2016, Totentanz is inspired by a famous mural in Lübeck’s Saint Mary’s Church, bombed by the allied forces in 1942. Adès’ Totentanz is part of a rich tradition where the fragility of the human condition is explored in relation to contemporary tragedies. Written on anonymous texts from the 15th century, the Totentanz consists of drinking songs on the theme of death embodied by the baritone. Throughout the work, we witness the reactions of different individuals of humanity faced with death – preacher, pope, emperor, cardinal, king, monk, knight, doctor, usurer, businessman, sacristan, craftsman, farmer, daughter, child – who are embodied by the mezzo-soprano. When the Pope and Emperor appear jaded, the King is panicked while the peasant, fatalist, accepts his fate…