Dante

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Thomas Adès’ Dante—a ballet score in three acts based on Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia—was recorded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel in concert at Disney Hall for this premiere recording. Dante was first performed at the Royal Opera House as part of Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project for the Royal Ballet, with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and with designs by visual artist Tacita Dean. “In any new shortlist of great ballet scores by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, Prokofiev, Britten, and Bernstein, Dante must newly be included for its musical invention alone,” exclaims the Los Angeles Times. “There is not a second in its 88 minutes that doesn’t delight. All of it is unexpected and wanted.” The collectable limited vinyl two-LP edition includes artwork by Dean and photography from the Royal Ballet’s performance. Grammy Winner for Best Orchestral Performance.

Description

Grammy Winner for Best Orchestral Performance

Thomas Adès’ Dante—a ballet score in three parts based on Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia—was recorded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel at a concert performance last spring at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Nonesuch Records releases the album, the work’s premiere audio recording, on April 21, 2023. Dante was first performed at the Royal Opera House as part of Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project for the Royal Ballet, with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and with designs by visual artist Tacita Dean. In addition to the digital version, Nonesuch releases a collectable limited-edition two-LP vinyl edition of the album, featuring artwork by Dean and photography from the Royal Ballet’s performance; the artwork and photography are also in the CD packaging.

“In any new shortlist of great ballet scores by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, Prokofiev, Britten and Bernstein,” says the Los Angeles Times, “Dante must newly be included for its musical invention alone. There is not a second in its 88 minutes that doesn’t delight. All of it is unexpected and wanted.”

The piece’s three parts are “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso.” Section XII. of “Inferno,” The Thieves—devoured by reptiles, is available today and can be heard below. In speaking of “Inferno,” Adès called it “a grateful tribute to Franz Liszt, the composer of hell and demonic music.”

Dante is inspired by the alternately chilling and sunlit landscapes of La Divina Commedia. Written in the fourteenth century, this seminal Italian poem recounts an initiatory journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise. McGregor and Adès bring the medieval Christian fantasy to life with a narrative arc about a young woman named Beatrice who embodies a promise of love and hope.

Thomas Adès exemplifies a generation of composers who have drawn upon the long history of symphonic music but rethought those traditional forms with a postmodern eye and sometimes ironic distancing. Adès , a prodigious composer, conductor, and pianist, was born in London in 1971. His singular body of work is crowned by three critically acclaimed operas: Powder Her Face (1995), The Tempest (2004), and The Exterminating Angel (2016) as well as the ballet Dante (2019–20). The recipient of numerous awards, including the 2015 Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the 2000 Grawemeyer Award (for his 1997 orchestral work Asyla), Adès was Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival for a decade and has conducted many of the world’s greatest orchestras, including Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, the Los Angeles Philhamonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the London Symphony Orchestra. In 2016 he became the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Artistic Partner; he premiered his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with Kirill Gerstein as soloist with that orchestra in March 2019. He performs worldwide as a pianist, and coaches annually at the International Musicians Seminar, Prussia Cove.

Redefining what an orchestra can be, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is as vibrant as Los Angeles, one of the world’s most open and dynamic cities. Led by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, this internationally renowned orchestra harnesses the transformative power of live music to build community, foster intellectual and artistic growth, and nurture the creative spirit. This is the fourth recent recording by the orchestra on Nonesuch: the others were the Louis Andriessen pieces The only one and Theatre of the World and Steve Reich’s Runner/Music for Ensemble and Orchestra. Additionally, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recordings of The Gospel According to the Other Mary and Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, with Yuja Wang, released on Deutsche Grammophon, are included in last year’s John Adams Collected Works Nonesuch boxed set. Nonesuch also released an LA Phil recording of Adams’ Naive and Sentimental Music in 2002. The label most recently recorded the LA Phil’s January 2023 performances of Adams’ Girls of the Golden West, conducted by the composer.

Gustavo Dudamel is driven by the belief that music has the power to transform lives, to inspire, and to change the world. Through his dynamic presence on the podium and his tireless advocacy for arts education, Dudamel has introduced classical music to new audiences around the globe and has helped to provide access to the arts for countless people in underserved communities. He currently serves as the Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Music Director of the Opéra National de Paris and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. Dudamel’s bold programming and expansive vision led the The New York Times to herald the LA Phil as “the most important orchestra in America—period.”

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Dmitriy Lipay
Engineered and Mastered by Alexander Lipay and Dmitriy Lipay
Recorded April 28-30, 2022 at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA

Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso performed by arrangement with Faber Music, London

The Royal Ballet photography by Elliott Franks; Foteini Christofilopoulou; Tristram Kenton; ROH, Andrej Uspenski; Richard Davies
Thomas Adès photography by Marco Borggreve
Gustavo Dudamel photography by Danny Clinch for the LA Phil
Sleeve and booklet design by Martyn Ridgewell
Sleeve images courtesy Tacita Dean, Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris
Liner note by Charles Arrowsmith

The first performance of The Dante Project, comprising Inferno: Pilgrim, Purgatorio: Love, and Paradiso: Poema Sacro, was staged at the Royal Opera House in London in October 2021. The Dante Project was a co-production between The Royal Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet.

The Dante Project
Wayne McGregor, Choreography
Thomas Adès, Music
Tacita Dean, Design
Lucy Carter and Simon Bennison, Lighting Design Inferno: Pilgrim
Lucy Carter, Lighting Design Purgatorio: Love and Paradiso: Poema Sacro
Uzma Hameed, Dramaturgy
Edward Watson, Dante
Gary Avis, Virgil
Sarah Lamb, Beatrice
Artists of The Royal Ballet: Sinners, Penitents, and Celestial Bodies
Kevin O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, London

Album Status
Artist Name
Thomas Adès
Los Angeles Philharmonic
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, Music & Artistic Director

First Violin: Martin Chalifour, Nathan Cole, Bing Wang, Akiko Tarumoto, Rebecca Reale, Michele Bovyer, Rochelle Abramson, Camille Avellano, Minyoung Chang, Miika Gregg, Tianyun Jia, Jordan Koransky, Mischa Lefkowitz, Edith Markman, Ashley Park, Stacy Wetzel, Justin Woo
Second Violin: Lyndon Johnston Taylor, Mark Kashper, Kristine Whitson, Johnny Lee, Dale Breidenthal, Ingrid Chun, Jin-Shan Dai, Chao-Hua Jin, Jung Eun Kang, Nickolai Kurganov, Varty Manouelian, Michelle Tseng, Suli Xue, Gabriela Peña-Kim, Sydney Adedamola
Viola: Teng Li, Dale Hikawa Silverman, Ben Ullery, Dana Lawson, Richard Elegino, John Hayhurst, Ingrid Hutman, Michael Larco, Hui Liu, Meredith Snow, Leticia Oaks Strong, Minor L. Wetzel, Jarrett Threadgill
Cello: Robert deMaine, Ben Hong, Dahae Kim, Jonathan Karoly, David Garrett, Barry Gold, Jason Lippmann, Gloria Lum, Serge Oskotsky, Brent Samuel
Bass: Christopher Hanulik, Oscar M. Meza, David Allen Moore, Ted Botsford, Jack Cousin, Jory Herman, Brian Johnson, Peter Rofé, Michael Fuller
Flute: Denis Bouriakov, Catherine Ransom Karoly, Elise Shope Henry, Sarah Jackson
Piccolo: Sarah Jackson
Oboe: Marion Arthur Kuszyk, Anne Marie Gabriele, Carolyn Hove
English Horn: Carolyn Hove
Clarinet: Boris Allakhverdyan, Burt Hara, Andrew Lowy, David Howard
E-Flat Clarinet: Andrew Lowy
Bass Clarinet: David Howard
Bassoon: Whitney Crockett, Shawn Mouser, Michele Grego, Evan Kuhlmann
Contrabassoon: Evan Kuhlmann
Horns: Andrew Bain, Gregory Roosa, Amy Jo Rhine, Elyse Lauzon, Ethan Bearman
Trumpet: Thomas Hooten, James Wilt, Christopher Still, Jeffrey Strong
Trombone: David Rejano Cantero, James Miller, Paul Radke
Bass Trombone: John Lofton
Timpani: Joseph Pereira
Percussion: Matthew Howard, James Babor, Perry Dreiman, Wesley Sumpter
Keyboard: Joanne Pearce Martin
Harp: Emmanuel Ceysson
Librarians: Stephen Biagini, Benjamin Picard, KT Somero
Conducting Fellows: François López-Ferrer, Enluis Montes Olivar, Camilo Téllez, Chloé van Soeterstède

Recorded voices in Purgatorio:
Khazan Gabriel A. Shrem, and the Khazan and congregation of the Great Ades Synagogue, Jerusalem (Used by permission)

Los Angeles Master Chorale
Grant Gershon, Artistic Director
Jenny Wong, Associate Artistic Director

reissues?
new-release
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2LP+MP3
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34.00
UPC
075597906134
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2CD+MP3
Price
21.00
UPC
075597906158
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96/24 HD FLAC
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13.00
UPC
075597906103
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MP3
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12.00
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075597904284

News & Reviews

  • The first recording of John Adams’ 2017 opera, Girls of the Golden West, is out now on Nonesuch. It tells the story of the California Gold Rush not through familiar time-worn myth, but in the words and deeds of real people. Longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars drew from original sources from the era—letters, journals, newspaper articles, and familiar song lyrics—to create the libretto. The composer leads the LA Phil in this recording made in Disney Hall, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale led by Grant Gershon and a cast featuring Davóne Tines, Julia Bullock, Paul Appleby, Hye Jung Lee, Elliot Madore, Daniela Mack, and Ryan McKinny.

  • Girls of the Golden West, John Adams’ eighth music theater work to be released by Nonesuch, is due April 26. The composer leads the LA Phil in this recording made in Disney Hall, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale led by Grant Gershon. You can hear the aria "Wagon Ride," featuring Davóne Tines and Julia Bullock, now. For the opera, which tells the story of the California Gold Rush, longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars drew from original sources from the era—letters, journals, newspaper articles, and familiar song lyrics—to create the libretto. The cast also includes Paul Appleby, Hye Jung Lee, Elliot Madore, Daniela Mack, and Ryan McKinny.

  • About This Album

    Grammy Winner for Best Orchestral Performance

    Thomas Adès’ Dante—a ballet score in three parts based on Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia—was recorded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel at a concert performance last spring at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Nonesuch Records releases the album, the work’s premiere audio recording, on April 21, 2023. Dante was first performed at the Royal Opera House as part of Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project for the Royal Ballet, with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and with designs by visual artist Tacita Dean. In addition to the digital version, Nonesuch releases a collectable limited-edition two-LP vinyl edition of the album, featuring artwork by Dean and photography from the Royal Ballet’s performance; the artwork and photography are also in the CD packaging.

    “In any new shortlist of great ballet scores by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, Prokofiev, Britten and Bernstein,” says the Los Angeles Times, “Dante must newly be included for its musical invention alone. There is not a second in its 88 minutes that doesn’t delight. All of it is unexpected and wanted.”

    The piece’s three parts are “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso.” Section XII. of “Inferno,” The Thieves—devoured by reptiles, is available today and can be heard below. In speaking of “Inferno,” Adès called it “a grateful tribute to Franz Liszt, the composer of hell and demonic music.”

    Dante is inspired by the alternately chilling and sunlit landscapes of La Divina Commedia. Written in the fourteenth century, this seminal Italian poem recounts an initiatory journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise. McGregor and Adès bring the medieval Christian fantasy to life with a narrative arc about a young woman named Beatrice who embodies a promise of love and hope.

    Thomas Adès exemplifies a generation of composers who have drawn upon the long history of symphonic music but rethought those traditional forms with a postmodern eye and sometimes ironic distancing. Adès , a prodigious composer, conductor, and pianist, was born in London in 1971. His singular body of work is crowned by three critically acclaimed operas: Powder Her Face (1995), The Tempest (2004), and The Exterminating Angel (2016) as well as the ballet Dante (2019–20). The recipient of numerous awards, including the 2015 Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the 2000 Grawemeyer Award (for his 1997 orchestral work Asyla), Adès was Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival for a decade and has conducted many of the world’s greatest orchestras, including Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, the Los Angeles Philhamonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the London Symphony Orchestra. In 2016 he became the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Artistic Partner; he premiered his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with Kirill Gerstein as soloist with that orchestra in March 2019. He performs worldwide as a pianist, and coaches annually at the International Musicians Seminar, Prussia Cove.

    Redefining what an orchestra can be, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is as vibrant as Los Angeles, one of the world’s most open and dynamic cities. Led by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, this internationally renowned orchestra harnesses the transformative power of live music to build community, foster intellectual and artistic growth, and nurture the creative spirit. This is the fourth recent recording by the orchestra on Nonesuch: the others were the Louis Andriessen pieces The only one and Theatre of the World and Steve Reich’s Runner/Music for Ensemble and Orchestra. Additionally, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recordings of The Gospel According to the Other Mary and Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, with Yuja Wang, released on Deutsche Grammophon, are included in last year’s John Adams Collected Works Nonesuch boxed set. Nonesuch also released an LA Phil recording of Adams’ Naive and Sentimental Music in 2002. The label most recently recorded the LA Phil’s January 2023 performances of Adams’ Girls of the Golden West, conducted by the composer.

    Gustavo Dudamel is driven by the belief that music has the power to transform lives, to inspire, and to change the world. Through his dynamic presence on the podium and his tireless advocacy for arts education, Dudamel has introduced classical music to new audiences around the globe and has helped to provide access to the arts for countless people in underserved communities. He currently serves as the Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Music Director of the Opéra National de Paris and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. Dudamel’s bold programming and expansive vision led the The New York Times to herald the LA Phil as “the most important orchestra in America—period.”

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Los Angeles Philharmonic
    Gustavo Dudamel, Music & Artistic Director

    First Violin: Martin Chalifour, Nathan Cole, Bing Wang, Akiko Tarumoto, Rebecca Reale, Michele Bovyer, Rochelle Abramson, Camille Avellano, Minyoung Chang, Miika Gregg, Tianyun Jia, Jordan Koransky, Mischa Lefkowitz, Edith Markman, Ashley Park, Stacy Wetzel, Justin Woo
    Second Violin: Lyndon Johnston Taylor, Mark Kashper, Kristine Whitson, Johnny Lee, Dale Breidenthal, Ingrid Chun, Jin-Shan Dai, Chao-Hua Jin, Jung Eun Kang, Nickolai Kurganov, Varty Manouelian, Michelle Tseng, Suli Xue, Gabriela Peña-Kim, Sydney Adedamola
    Viola: Teng Li, Dale Hikawa Silverman, Ben Ullery, Dana Lawson, Richard Elegino, John Hayhurst, Ingrid Hutman, Michael Larco, Hui Liu, Meredith Snow, Leticia Oaks Strong, Minor L. Wetzel, Jarrett Threadgill
    Cello: Robert deMaine, Ben Hong, Dahae Kim, Jonathan Karoly, David Garrett, Barry Gold, Jason Lippmann, Gloria Lum, Serge Oskotsky, Brent Samuel
    Bass: Christopher Hanulik, Oscar M. Meza, David Allen Moore, Ted Botsford, Jack Cousin, Jory Herman, Brian Johnson, Peter Rofé, Michael Fuller
    Flute: Denis Bouriakov, Catherine Ransom Karoly, Elise Shope Henry, Sarah Jackson
    Piccolo: Sarah Jackson
    Oboe: Marion Arthur Kuszyk, Anne Marie Gabriele, Carolyn Hove
    English Horn: Carolyn Hove
    Clarinet: Boris Allakhverdyan, Burt Hara, Andrew Lowy, David Howard
    E-Flat Clarinet: Andrew Lowy
    Bass Clarinet: David Howard
    Bassoon: Whitney Crockett, Shawn Mouser, Michele Grego, Evan Kuhlmann
    Contrabassoon: Evan Kuhlmann
    Horns: Andrew Bain, Gregory Roosa, Amy Jo Rhine, Elyse Lauzon, Ethan Bearman
    Trumpet: Thomas Hooten, James Wilt, Christopher Still, Jeffrey Strong
    Trombone: David Rejano Cantero, James Miller, Paul Radke
    Bass Trombone: John Lofton
    Timpani: Joseph Pereira
    Percussion: Matthew Howard, James Babor, Perry Dreiman, Wesley Sumpter
    Keyboard: Joanne Pearce Martin
    Harp: Emmanuel Ceysson
    Librarians: Stephen Biagini, Benjamin Picard, KT Somero
    Conducting Fellows: François López-Ferrer, Enluis Montes Olivar, Camilo Téllez, Chloé van Soeterstède

    Recorded voices in Purgatorio:
    Khazan Gabriel A. Shrem, and the Khazan and congregation of the Great Ades Synagogue, Jerusalem (Used by permission)

    Los Angeles Master Chorale
    Grant Gershon, Artistic Director
    Jenny Wong, Associate Artistic Director

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Produced by Dmitriy Lipay
    Engineered and Mastered by Alexander Lipay and Dmitriy Lipay
    Recorded April 28-30, 2022 at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA

    Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso performed by arrangement with Faber Music, London

    The Royal Ballet photography by Elliott Franks; Foteini Christofilopoulou; Tristram Kenton; ROH, Andrej Uspenski; Richard Davies
    Thomas Adès photography by Marco Borggreve
    Gustavo Dudamel photography by Danny Clinch for the LA Phil
    Sleeve and booklet design by Martyn Ridgewell
    Sleeve images courtesy Tacita Dean, Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris
    Liner note by Charles Arrowsmith

    The first performance of The Dante Project, comprising Inferno: Pilgrim, Purgatorio: Love, and Paradiso: Poema Sacro, was staged at the Royal Opera House in London in October 2021. The Dante Project was a co-production between The Royal Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet.

    The Dante Project
    Wayne McGregor, Choreography
    Thomas Adès, Music
    Tacita Dean, Design
    Lucy Carter and Simon Bennison, Lighting Design Inferno: Pilgrim
    Lucy Carter, Lighting Design Purgatorio: Love and Paradiso: Poema Sacro
    Uzma Hameed, Dramaturgy
    Edward Watson, Dante
    Gary Avis, Virgil
    Sarah Lamb, Beatrice
    Artists of The Royal Ballet: Sinners, Penitents, and Celestial Bodies
    Kevin O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, London