Philip Glass: Symphony No.6 "Plutonium Ode"

注目新譜登場！フィリップ・グラス65歳の誕生日記念作品！
交響曲第6番は、フィリップ・グラスが65歳の誕生日を迎えるにあたり、カーネギー・ホールとBrucknerhaus Linzから依頼されて作られた記念作品。
題材は、グラスの友人であるアメリカのビートニク詩人、故Allan Ginsberg(アラン・ギンズバーグ；1926～97)の作品『Pollution Ode』。3つの部分からなる詩であることから、曲も3つのムーブメントより構成されています。最初のムーブメントでは核の保有、環境汚染についての激しい抗議が、2番目のムーブメントでは救い・癒しが、最後の部分では自身で思索するうちある真実に行き着く過程が描かれています。
The three movements of the symphony follow the three parts of the poem, and follow, also, the passage of the poem-the first movement a passionate outcry against nuclear contamination and pollution, the second a turn towards healing, and the final movement an epiphany arrived at through personal transformation.

本盤は、R=デイヴィス＆リンツ・ブルックナー管による、ブルックナーハウス大ホール[リンツ]における演奏。2004年11月、2005年3、5月の収録とミキシングによりCD化されました。2枚組からなる充実作。名門オケの豊かなサウンド。初演時にも共演した、ソプラノのL.フラニガンの歌唱ぶりも特筆ものといえるでしょう～彼女は、イタリア・オペラから現代作品、合唱作品など、広いレパートリーを持っています。また、2枚目では演奏と共に、故、A.ギンズバーグの語りによるテープが…。そして、最終トラックの深い世界へ。

世界初演は、2002年2月3日にカーネギー・ホールで行われました。指揮は、グラスと親密な関係を保っているR=デイヴィス。万全なる理解者によって指揮再現された作品、名門オケによる充実したパフォーマンス。ソプラノ歌手、L.フラニガン(Lauren Flanigan)との共演となります。

"以下に、グラス自身のデイヴィスへのコメントを転載させていただきました。
“We met in about 1978, having been introduced by a mutual friend. Dennis had just been appointed to the Stuttgart Opera and was interested in presenting Satyagraha, my new opera. Dennis understood that part of his mission as an American conductor in Germany was to bring some American music there, which he intended to do. At the time I had recently written Einstein on the Beach, which was a very well known work. After we met, Dennis said 'yeah, I'll do it' and gave the German premiere of Satyagraha.”
“Dennis had a lot do to with my writing orchestra music. He knew me as an opera composer first. He said to me early on, in the late '80s, 'I'm not going to let you be one of those opera composers that never writes a symphony'. Low Symphony was first, and he performed and recorded it. He's recorded every symphony I've written so far, except the Symphony No. 6, of course.”
以下は、グラスが、この作品の完成に至る経緯、ギンズバーグとのコラボレーションについてコメントしたものです。
During the last ten years of Allen's life we had performed frequently together in poetry/music collaborations. Allen was a superb reader of his own work and I was often inspired to compose new piano music for these occasional collaborations. In the case of Hydrogen Jukebox, we developed an evening length "opera" which was designed by Jerome Sirlin and directed by Ann Carlson. We presented that work in over 30 cities as part of an international tour.
It had been our plan to make a new, major collaboration based on his epic poem Plutonium Ode (1978). Before he died in 1997, Allen had made several recordings for me of the poem in preparation for the new work. At that time I had in mind simply an extended piano work to accompany Allen in live performance. I put aside the project in 1997, feeling that I wouldn't want to go ahead without Allen. A few years past and the commission of a new symphony from Carnegie Hall and the Brucknerhaus Linz reawakened my interest in the project. I felt, then, that Plutonium Ode was unfinished business between Allen and myself and this would be the opportunity to complete it. By then, the piano music I had originally imagined had grown to a full orchestra and Allen's resonant s (C)Philip Glass