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Thomas Adès: Orchestral Suites
LPO–0131
Total playing time: 69:58
Released: 4 April 2025
Recorded at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall:
Luxury Suite from Powder Her Face on 11 April 2018;
Five Spells from The Tempest & Inferno Suite on 22 February 2023
Thomas Adès conductor
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Pieter Schoeman leader
(Luxury Suite from Powder Her Face)
Ania Safanova guest leader
(Five Spells From The Tempest, Inferno Suite)
Producers Tim Thorne, Floating Earth (tracks 1–8);
Andrew Walton, K&A Productions (tracks 9–21)
Engineers Mike Hatch, Floating Earth (tracks 1–8);
Deborah Spanton, K&A Productions (tracks 9–21)
Executive Producers Elena Dubinets, David Burke, Graham Wood
Publisher © Faber Music Ltd, London
℗ 2025 London Philharmonic Orchestra Ltd.
© 2025 London Philharmonic Orchestra Ltd
Thomas Adès: Orchestral Suites
Luxury Suite from Powder Her Face
(World premiere recording)
Five Spells from The Tempest
(World premiere recording)
Inferno Suite
(World premiere recording)
Thomas Adès conductor
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Thomas Adès CBE is a prodigious English composer, conductor and pianist, described by The New York Times in 2007 as ‘one of the most accomplished and complete musicians of his generation’.
This album features three orchestral suites adapted from their operas by the composer. Luxury Suite from Powder Her Face centres on an elderly Duchess (in all but name the notorious real-life Duchess of Argyll) on the brink of eviction from her hotel room, looking back over her salacious career. Five Spells from The Tempest is drawn from Adès’s 2003 opera based on Shakespeare’s play, while Inferno Suite, based on Dante’s The Divine Comedy, centres on the protagonist’s journey through the fires of hell.
Available on:
Powder Her Face – II. Scene with Song
Download digital booklet
Reviews
Battered by wild storms, stung by wasps, suspended in ice, almost eaten by snakes: we hardly got out alive from Thomas Adès’s tumultuous concert ...
The Times
Concert Review
It’s a shapely precis, flecked with glistening instrumental colours, and a welcome memento of what is Adès’s finest stage work to date
The Guardian
Concert Review
… a performance full to the brim of the decadence pervading Adès’ lavish score, from the wailing woodwinds and melting notes of the tango …Adès and the superb LPO blazed a trail through incandescent outbursts and reflective sobriety, showing sardonic wit and a measure of poignancy ...
Bachtrack
Concert Review