Thomas Adès video

British composer and performer Thomas Adès as he prepares for the Traced Overhead Festival

• Category

  Music

[FlorestanEusebius1]

This video is extremely misleadingly edited as it discusses Ades' music while he rehearses Stravinsky's 'Les Noces' in the background, apparently leading many people in this thread to believe that the music is Ades' own; it's not. To clarify: it's by Stravinsky.

[japanesesweet]

this is video is terribly misleading!

LES NOCES by Stavinsky.

[muslit]

i'm more interested in the stravinsky

[MrAgnostikos]

I've tried and tried, but I can't find anything much to like in Ades' music. The poor fellow is overpraised and underjudged. (A fan of his thought that I would have to like Ades, or at least couldn't criticize, because "Don't you realize? He's...GAY!" Didn't realize, thought he was melancholy, sad, or just mopey. His music is oddly emotionally inexpressive, formulaic;often overly dense; lacking development; episodic- more juxtaposed than composed. But maybe it's better than it sounds.......

[dziady1]

If only he were inventive he would be interesting otherwise he is a bore and that air head commentator does drone on and on .

[Emyr Honeybun]

You've clearly heard none of his music if you think it's complex. His music has a direct expression that is easy to understand, especially in comparison to some of the total serialists like Boulez or composers of new complexity like Ferneyhough. You need to listen to his music more and you'll find out what he's trying to say

[stephencraigen]

I've just noticed...is this Oli Rudland? If so, you supervise a couple of my friends and I'm friends with Helen, which is quite funny.

What you said was true...I was only objecting to the fact you used the Rite as an example, since for inventiveness that has, in my view, never been surpassed since...it did kind of reinvent the wheel after all. And come on, for hiding behind complexity he is no way as guilty as Ferneyhough! :P

[stephencraigen]

And so you presume that no one derives aesthetic pleasure from his work? Yes, like quite a lot of composers you have to delve through the crap, but there's some good stuff in there. Powder Her Face is cool. The Ecstasio of Asyla is written out stupidly but is enjoyable regardless and shows an injection of good humour. A lot of what he has written though is just a bit average.

[24foxstar]

His musics is crap and it won't survive. He's one of these composers who hide behind complexity. There's just no melodic or harmonic invention worth writing home about when you uncover it. Just because there's loads of notes on the page doesn't mean it sounds good. Just because it is superficially 'relevant' doesn't mean it's meaningful. People who don't see this are weak minded and unable to separate aesthetic pleasure from intellectual curiosity and/or ideology.

[stephencraigen]

That's a terribly ignorant comment if by that reasoning you assume him to be a bad composer.

[24foxstar]

but has Ades written anything as good as 'The Rite of Spring' yet? Nope, and never will.

[Jenni Roditi]

This is not Ades music!