Recording of the Week, Gustavo Dudamel conducts Dante, a new ballet by Thomas Adès

Based on Dante's La Divina Commedia, Thomas Adès's three-part ballet was a co-commission by the Royal Ballet and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with the premiere of part one, Inferno, given in May of 2019 by the latter orchestra under conductor Gustavo Dudamel. However, in an ironic twist of fate, the ensuing global pandemic meant that the rest of the work, Purgatorio and Paradiso, was itself forced to remain in limbo for some time, until the first performance of the complete triptych in October 2021 at Covent Garden. Given the circumstances of its creation, it is fitting that this premiere audio recording (a video release of the original Royal Ballet production notwithstanding) should be given by Dudamel and the LA players.

You can imagine the opportunity that Inferno, with Dante's almost gleeful depiction of the nine circles of Hell and the gruesome punishments meted out to the eternally damned, affords to a composer, especially for someone as endlessly inventive as Adès, and indeed the entire 45-minute section is full of morbid, macabre delights. From the alarm bells of the opening 'Abandon Hope', to the use of whip and rattles to represent the sound of 'The Selfish' being perpetually stung by wasps, it's teeming with a vivid array of colourful textures.

Adès is certainly aware of the legacy of those who have come before him, not least Franz Liszt, who was inspired by the Italian poet's work on multiple occasions. In something of a sly in-joke, for the section entitled 'The Thieves', Adès "steals" a piano piece by Liszt, Grand galop chromatique, presenting it in a riotous version for full orchestra. To call it merely an arrangement does it a disservice: it is a tour de force not only of orchestration (with Adès throwing in slithering glissandos for trombones and strings to illustrate the serpents and other assorted reptiles who are devouring the unfortunate, larcenous fellows), but also for Dudamel and his orchestra, who dash off the incredible demands placed upon them with seeming ease and exuberant abandon.

After such extended anguish comes the relatively calm, soul-searching respite of Purgatorio, beginning with the sound of waves and the addition of a pre-recorded cantor and congregation intoning ancient Syrian prayers, followed by a slightly sinister jig led by the contrabassoon. The section named 'The Healing Fire' is particularly affecting, with fervent voices and strings indicating that we have moved beyond the realm of unceasing suffering, and yet still retaining an undercurrent of restlessness that suggests the journey is not yet over. Similarly, the gentle trumpet melody (subsequently taken up by the cantor and then horns) that introduces 'The Heavenly Procession' is movingly transcendent in its simplicity and directness of expression. This euphoria is augmented further during 'The Ascent', with peals of bells and ecstatic brass inducing an ever-increasing sense of exaltation that sets up perfectly the final movement, Paradiso.

For this closing part, Adès builds on Dante's notion of concentric spheres containing planets and stars to provide us with an utterly sublime conclusion. Dizzying, swirling passages alternate with more hypnotic sections that make us feel as if we are floating through space: a cosmic voyage not so much through Heaven as through "the heavens". Perhaps inevitably, the last two minutes see the introduction of a wordless female chorus: a cliché, to be sure, but a satisfying one nonetheless, and another nod to Liszt's Dante Symphony or even to Neptune from Holst's The Planets, which both similarly utilise the timbre of distant upper voices to conjure the mystic majesty of the empyrean expanse.

Of course in this audio recording we do not have the extraordinary choreography of Wayne McGregor or the magnificent visuals of the production, but this merely allows the radiance of Adès's music to take centre-stage and to shine forth all the more brilliantly. I adore this glorious piece, and I hope you will too.