Hans Abrahamsen - "Let Me Tell You" (2013)Interpreted by Barbara Hannigan (singer), Andris Nelsons (conductor) and the Berlin Philharmonic.If I may start with an advice, wait to listen to this one when you're in a quiet place, in peace. This is due to the ASMR nature of the music, conjuring ambience through very delicate noises, scratches, surprises. Especially because Barbara Hannigan's voice in not merely singing, but shimmering, fluttering, echoing, becoming aether to put you in trance. She's otherworldly. And the music is goddamn tingly, nothing else really does it like this.
"Let Me Tell You" is a song cycle about Ophelia, from Shakespeare's
Hamlet, telling her story through the words written and spoken by her in the book, but out of order. Totalling around half an hour of lenght, it's divided in three parts with two or three song in each. It flows like a perfect album from start to finish, so I highly recommend listening to it all. Don't worry, you'll find it on Youtube.
Despite being released quite recently (2013) for the lifespan of classical music, an era when classical is almost completely out of popular culture, this piece quickly gained a lot of recognition and widespread success, deservedly earning the status of an instant classic, and being regarded as one of the most relevant classical pieces of the century, putting Hans Abrahamsen definitely in the map as a revered name.
This is the final song of the cycle,
"I will go out now", the greatest payoff, the most transcendental.