Thomas Adès’s Darknesse Visible for piano solo (1992) is a 7-minute explosion of John Dowland’s lute song In Darknesse Let Me Dwell (1610). No notes have been added; indeed, some have been removed. Patterns latent in the original have been isolated and regrouped, with the aim of illuminating the song from within, as if during the course of a performance.

Adès transforms the piano into an instrument that's alchemically capable of s...