Posted by Tabernacles E. Townsfolk (@billstrudel) on April 15, 2026, 5:20 p.m.
This is about as trippy as classical music gets:
Thomas Adès - Tevot (Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle)?si=fbgvX6oWK7iJWaVH
Listen actively with headphones or in your stereo’s sweet spot at a good volume.
There’s one violin note towards the end, that predominates in the following violin concerto, that really is a showpiece for a good pair of speakers. My 2007 recording directed by the composer, ripped bit-perfect to FLAC (no MP3 rolloff) and played through a Sound Blaster AE-9 DAC output, is excellent. I’m using fairly new Klipsch RP-500M Mk2 monitor speakers with horn tweeters and those high notes are about as sweet and pure as anything I’ve heard in my life. They cost $300 for compact-sized bookshelves with five-way binding posts (not those spring-clip connections). List price is $599.99, but something tells me it’s one of those things that hasn’t been offered for full price in years.
Thomas Adès : Violin Concerto - Concentric Paths, Op.23, for Violin and Orchestra(2005)
Pekka Kuusisto, Violin
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Conductor
WDR Sinfonieorchester
?si=qhav1CNxH5IFdWCx
Oddly, I picked up another Adès recording, a piano quintet paired with Schubert’s Trout quintet. The similarity ends there, as the Schubert is so good I played it out before I had left home, while the Adès is tuneless noise. Totally different from his mid 2000s works, at least.