Thomas Ades: In Seven Days

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It is hard to imagine a closer collaboration...There are moments of calm, but much of this music captures an intense beauty through finely wrought ideas...As well as making for a compelling spectacle... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2012, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 5th Dec 2011
Catalogue No: SIGCD277
Label: Signum
Series: London Sinfonietta
Length: 42 minutes

This item is currently out of stock at the UK distributor. You may order it now but please be aware that it may be six weeks or more before it can be despatched.

Adès: In Seven Days

Work length28:55

$7.50

$10.50

Nicolas Hodges
London Sinfonietta
Thomas Adès

i. Chaos – Light – Dark

Track length8:24

$1.50

$2.10

ii. Separation of the waters into sea and sky

Track length4:13

$1.00

$1.40

iii. Land – Grass – Trees

Track length5:35

$1.00

$1.40

iv. Stars – Sun – Moon

Track length3:16

$1.00

$1.40

Fugue. v. Creatures of the Sea and Sky

Track length3:05

$1.00

$1.40

Fugue. vi. Creatures of the Land

Track length2:29

$1.00

$1.40

vii. Contemplation

Track length1:53

$1.00

$1.40

Thomas Adès, Conlon Nancarrow: Nancarrow Studies

Work length13:38

$2.50

$3.50

Rolf Hind, Thomas Adès

Study No. 6

Track length3:39

$1.00

$1.40

Study No. 7

Track length9:59

$1.50

$2.10

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About

CD + DVD

The London Sinfonietta combine two works from Thomas Adès, one of the most distinctive and popular voices in modern composition. Both works feature accompanying films (by Tal Rosner and Sophie Clements) that are included in this CD/DVD set.

'In Seven Days' is a musical interpretation for piano and orchestra of the biblical ‘creation’ by Thomas Adès, composed in collaboration with a film-piece by the artist and filmmaker Tal Rosner. Both music and film evoke the processes of the creation rather than the objects described in the movement titles, using simple elements in repeated and evolving contexts in a perpetual state of flux, change and growth.

The 'Piano Studies' Nos 6 & 7 are arrangements of player-piano works by the American composer Conlon Nancarrow. An influential figure to generations of composers, Nancarrow’s studies for the player-piano (or pianola) allowed him to generate music of extreme rhythmic complexity in a multitude of inventive ways. These arrangements for two pianos by Thomas Adès capture the strange magic of the originals, where fragmented musical ideas are played off against each other in a wild, almost jazz-like way. The works are accompanied by film-visualisations by Tal Rosner and Sophie Clements.

DVD Extra: Thomas Adès and Tal Rosner in conversation

Reviews

May 2012

It is hard to imagine a closer collaboration...There are moments of calm, but much of this music captures an intense beauty through finely wrought ideas...As well as making for a compelling spectacle on DVD, the performance is also effective as an independent CD in this combined set. Nicolas Hodges is on sterling form, and the London Sinfonietta is wonderfully incisive.

4th February 2012

the most accessible [music] Adès has written in more than 20 years as a published composer. It continues his preoccupation with symphonic metamorphosis, dancing over various romantic idioms in an ultra-tonal pastiche that, however retro on the surface, is unmistakably Adès in its seamlessness, intricacy and ecstatic momentum.

May 2012

Evocative without being merely descriptive, In Seven Days is a highly cohesive work that understatedly fulfils its intention. The piano-writing is expertly integrated into the ensemble, Nicolas Hodges amply exploiting the judicious range of timbral possibilities...Tal Rosner's video designs are a pleasure to watch as they pursue various off-symmetrical guises

16th December 2011

Thomas Adès' take on the Biblical creation-myth in the seven-part "video-ballet" In Seven Days focuses on processes rather than things, shifting from the rising string motif, clotted piano and woodwind, and epic horns of "Chaos - Light - Dark", through successive hierarchies of order to the calm satisfaction of "Contemplation"...It's as absorbing as always with Adès

19th January 2012

The ingenuity and dazzling colours of Adès’s wheeling rhythmic and harmonic cycles are jaw-dropping, as is the performers’ virtuosity.

16th December 2011

Like alchemists, Adès and Rosner transform basic elements into a glittering wonder...all is exuberance as blobs dance, circles pulse and spindles multiply into an emerald jungle, in perfect time to the mounting waves of Adès’s score. An exciting creation about creation: that’s In Seven Days...Bold and delightful, this release would make an admirable gift for a discerning Christmas stocking.

Thomas Ades: In Seven Days

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