Thomas Adès ‎– ''Life Story'' / Catch, Darkness Visible, Still Sorrowing, Underneath Hamelin Hill, Five Eliot Landscapes, Traced Overhead, Life Story / EMI Classics Debut / EMI Classics ‎Audio CD 1997 Stereo

UPC 724356969926

Thomas Adès CBE (born 1 March 1971) is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).

This first release by the wunderkind composer of British music, Thomas Adès (born in 1971), documents a restless imagination combined with a knack for uncovering attractive timbres, compelling harmonies, and a vital sense of storytelling in music. There's no one voice here, as Adès experiments with each piece as a new sound world, and the success of these youthful trials supports Adès's reputation. His Opus 1, Five Eliot Landscapes--published when he was 17--shows him confident and sensitive at word setting, allowing clean articulation from bright soprano Valdine Anderson. In his rhythmically off-kilter Opus 4, Catch, we hear influences of Ligeti, but as seen from a thoughtful distance; Adès is remarkably self-aware when dipping into his broad inspirations. Still Sorrowing (Op. 7) is the most striking: the piano's middle register is muted with a strip of Blu-Tac, creating gamelan-like effects. But it's no gimmick. The piece, beautifully played by the composer, is a 10-minute wonder of pale colors and bittersweet emotion. Life Story sets a Tennessee Williams poem about pillow talk and incineration for the pop-voiced soprano Mary Carewe. This might be considered more of a "sound experience" than his follow-up CD Living Toys and his opera Powder Her Face. Yet it's vividly recorded and unmissable at budget price. --Pierre Ruhe