ボルグストレム: 交響詩集

ヤルマル・ボルグストレムはクリスチャニア(現オスロ)で熱心な音楽愛好家の父のもとに生まれ、15歳の時にはすでにヴァイオリニストとしての優れた才能を発揮していました。オスロでヨハン・スヴェンセン、マティアス・リンデマンに師事し作曲と音楽理論を学び、2年間ライプツィヒに留学。帰国後は作曲家、教育者、批評家として活動した後、再度ライプツィヒとベルリンで13年を過ごします。1903年にノルウェーに戻り、数多くの作品を書き上げましたが第二次世界大戦後、それらのほとんどは忘れられてしまいました。しかし、21世紀になってようやく2作の歌劇をはじめとしたいくつかの作品が演奏されるようになり、注目が高まっています。このアルバムには同世代のリヒャルト・シュトラウスを思わせる大胆な「思考」と、ワーグナーの《パルジファル》を想起させる瞑想的な「ゲッセマネのイエス」、この2曲の交響詩を収録。グリーグ作品を得意とする指揮者オードランの演奏です。
ナクソス・ジャパン

The Norwegian composer Hjalmar Borgstrom was well enough known in his own time to have had his portrait painted by Edvard Munch, thoughtfully included for physical album buyers in the booklet for this CPO release. He ran into trouble, though, for his rejection of Norwegian national elements, something for which he was criticized by Edvard Grieg. Instead, Borgstrom, who spent a good chunk of his life studying in Germany, became a follower of Wagner, and listeners reactions to this music may depend on how they feel about that composer. Indeed, the second work on this album, Jesus i Gethsemane, Op. 14, gives an idea of what might have happened if Wagner had taken up the Passion story in instrumental music. There is a "fear" leitmotif and a good quotient of what the Snopes website has called "glurge." Even more portentous is the opening tone poem, Tanken, Op. 26. There is a spoken prologue (not performed here, but included in the booklet), followed by five movements that depict -- get this -- "Cosmic space engenders the idea," "Man and woman at the tree of knowledge," "Difficult times of distress. The idea grants those laden with grief the consolation of idealism," "The demon of desire is transformed into the caricature of the idea in order to lead humankind astray," and finally, "The idea toils under the yoke of materialism. The globe bursts. The idea, in its original form, returns to cosmic space." Would one guess any of this from the music? No, but one is keenly aware from the episodic structure that some kind of heavy story is being told. The whole thing is far enough over the top to have made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2024, and the music is aided by suitably heated performances from the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra under Eivind Aadland. Certainly, anyone interested in the intellectual orbit of Wagnerism should hear this music; those hoping for a musical descendant of Grieg, maybe not. ~ James Manheim