アメリカのチェロ作品集

バーバーから現代作品まで!アメリカのチェロ作品集!

20、21世紀アメリカのチェロとピアノのための作品を収録。バーバーは調性で書かれたロマンティックな音楽。第2楽章の緩徐楽章では弦楽のためのアダージョを思わせる抒情的な旋律が魅力的。バーンスタインの盟友としても知られるルーカス・フォスのカプリチオはジャズ、カントリー・ミュージックの要素と現代音楽が融合された痛快な一作。ケンジ・バンチの「壊れた音楽」は予想されるほど破壊的ではなく、ストリート・ミュージックの要素が取り入れられたファンキーな作品。最後にチェリスト、クランシー・ニューマンの自作自演「メソッドから狂気へ」で締めくくられる。
東武商事株式会社

From Method to Madness: The American Sound takes its title from a work both composed and played by cellist Clancy Newman. It is not clear whether the four works here are supposed to represent some kind of abstract "American Sound," but they do hang together well and have an entertaining sense of energy that breaks boundaries. This is most explicit in Newmans work, which lives up to its title with its orderly opening disrupted by anarchic, jazzy energies, but all of the other works combine contrasting elements in entertaining ways. Samuel Barbers early Cello Sonata in C minor pushes the tonality but contains several examples of his purely tonal melodic gift; Lukas Foss Capriccio for cello and piano is a humorous work that seems to poke a bit of fun at its own modernist elements; and Kenji Bunchs Broken Music for cello and piano features abrupt rhythms that keep threatening to cohere but then veer off the tracks once again. Not one of these pieces is terribly familiar, which is odd considering the general paucity of music for cello, and all of them are enjoyable for anybody. Newman and Natalie Zhu have good performance chemistry, and the Albany labels sound from the famed Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in New York is superb. ~ James Manheim