グレインジャー: 戦士たち

イギリスで活躍し、様々な編曲作品・レア作品を録音してきたジェフリー・サイモンが、1989年に母国オーストラリアのメルボルン交響楽団を振り、オーストラリアの作曲家パーシー・グレインジャーの珍しい管弦楽作品を録音した1枚。バレエ音楽として構想された「戦士たち」を中心に、グレインジャーの特徴の1つである民謡をテーマにした作品などを収録。後半4曲は当時世界初録音となった作品。
東京エムプラス

The Melbourne Symphony was the first to record The Warriors in 1980, back in an era where Percy Graingers innovative spirit as a composer was more speculated about than known. The Warriors in itself is like shock therapy in terms of indoctrination into Graingers pioneering experimentalism; composed at the same time Charles Ives was also exploring such resources, The Warriors is an imaginary ballet scored for multiple instrumental groups, three pianos, and an extensive battery of both pitched and non-pitched percussion. There is a similar high-end audio recording of The Warriors by John Eliot Gardiner on Deutsche Grammophon, which pairs it with Gustav Holsts The Planets; Geoffrey Simons program is all Grainger, containing several of the best orchestral works he left us. Hill Song No. 1, Graingers own personal favorite among his compositions, is heard in its final, 1923 incarnation, and this was its first recording. Hill Song No. 1 is an amorphous, constantly shifting mass of folk-derived melody that expands and contracts like some sort of metaphysical squeezebox, and there was certainly nothing else like it on earth when Grainger first put it down on paper in 1901. The orchestral version of Hill Song No. 2, much shorter and more conventional in form, is likewise included for good measure. Among the others, Graingers Irish Tune from County Derry is heard in a 1920 orchestration thats a tad more bitter than the familiar one dished up for Stokowski in the late 1940s. The Danish Folk Music Suite (1928), Peter Sculthorpes arrangement of Beautiful Fresh Flower (1935) and Graingers gorgeous setting of Colleen Dhas (1904) fill out the program. This disc, originally made for ABC Classics in Australia in 1989, was reissued in the SACD format on Simons label Cala in 2007.