ロドリゴ・ルイス: ヴィーナスとアドーニス

グレイス・デイヴィッドソンが歌う
シェイクスピアの詩を基にした連作歌曲!

ビルボード・チャートにランク・インしている近年人気のメキシコの現代作曲家ロドリゴ・ルイス。彼がウィリアム・シェイクスピア作の『ヴィーナスとアドーニス』からインスピレーションを受け連作歌曲にした作品を、シェイクスピア生誕460周年を記念して世界初録音しました。2020年に完成したこの作品は、メキシコの作曲家が作った初の連作歌曲となり、また英語を含むシェイクスピアのみのテキストを基にした唯一の連作歌曲となりました。

イギリスのソプラノ、グレイス・デイヴィッドソンとピアノのジョージ・ハーバートのデュオはこの叙情的な作品をより新鮮で情熱的な作品に仕上げています。
東京エムプラス

The publicity for this setting of passages from Shakespeares long and rather raunchy youthful poem Venus and Adonis quotes the BBC to the effect that the writing of composer Rodrigo Ruiz is "unabashedly tonal." That is true enough, and one also learns that this is the first Mexican song cycle and the first setting of Venus and Adonis as a song cycle. None of these facts, however, quite get to the peculiar quality of this music. Ruizs music is not tonal in the contemporary British crossover sense but rather lands somewhere between the songs of Haydn and Schubert. He is not just unabashedly tonal but unabashedly diatonic. After hearing decades of Shakespeare settings that seek to capture the text in fine shades of extended tonality, it is wholly unexpected to hear it this way, but there is more. From the foregoing, one might think Ruiz was some kind of throwback or ultraconservative composer, yet curiously, the music does not come off that way. It turns out that tonality is the only really retro feature of these settings. His phrase structures have a good deal of freedom; they may be squarish, and then, to serve the text, they may not be. His rhythms freely break across the barlines when needed. This is a case where sampling is a great help in finding out what the music sounds like; it is really one of a kind. Soprano Grace Davidson, coming herself from the British crossover sphere, is actually ideal in this music; her deadpan, largely vibrato-free singing matches what is really a kind of minimalist language. The Signum label sound from the Britten Studio at Englands Snape Maltings complex strikes the right intimate note on an unusual release indeed. ~ James Manheim