Album: Inon Barnatan, Darknesse (Visible Avie)

On Darknesse Visible, the Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan offers a compelling programme of pieces inspired by poems, their interpretations occupying the netherworld between light and dark.

Taking its title from Milton, Thomas Adès's “Darknesse Visible” is a still, resonant deconstruction of a John Dowland tune, which is left hanging in mid-air like a slow-motion explosion; equally impressive is Debussy's “Suite Bergamasque”, in which a clutch of melancholy dances cluster around his most famous, limpid piece, “Clair de Lune”. Elsewhere, Ronald Stevenson's piano précis of Britten's “Peter Grimes” encapsulates its grim fatalism, while Ravel's suite “Gaspard de la Nuit” subtly depicts the nymphs, gnomes and corpses haunting his dreams.

Download: Darknesse Visible; Suite Bergamasque