エクソダス ～ タル、カウフマン、ルビン: 管弦楽作品集

「ジ・オーケストラ・ナウ」!
同世代のユダヤ人作曲家たちの作品集!

20世紀を代表する指揮者レナード・バーンスタインの伝記映画『マエストロ』を観たことがあるなら「ジ・オーケストラ・ナウ」を見聞きした事があるでしょう。映画のタングルウッド音楽祭のシーンに登場するのがまさにこのオーケストラです。「ジ・オーケストラ・ナウ」はニューヨークを中心とする大学院レベルの指揮者、教育者、音楽家によって設立された、世界中の活気に満ちた若い音楽家で構成されるオーケストラです。ユダヤ系アメリカ人指揮者のレオン・ボットスタインと共に世に知られていない作品を取り上げ広める活動も積極的に行っています。

フーゴ・カウダー、ハンス・エーリヒ・アポステル、アドルフ・ブッシュの作品を取り上げた前作「失われた世代」(AV2684)に続いてAvieレーベルから2作目のリリースとなる今作は、20世紀の最初の10年間に生まれた3人のユダヤ人作曲家の管弦楽作品を取り上げます。ヨセフ・タル、ウォルター・カウフマン、マルセル・ルビンの3人はホロコーストから逃れた共通点を持ちますが、その後はそれぞれまったく異なる軌跡を辿って新たな人生とキャリアを歩みました。ここに収録された作品は3人の作曲家が各々の新しい環境に適応しながら、自分たちの声を見つけようともがいていた1940年代の作品です。
東京エムプラス

Several of the Jewish composers who fled Nazi Germany for the U.S. and Britain are well known, and some of the former group are largely responsible for film music as it is known today. However, Jews also left for other lands, and here, conductor Leon Botstein and his group The Orchestra Now (here stylized as TON) have revived works of three of those. This ensemble can be counted on for offbeat programming, and so it is here. Josef Tal left for Mandatory Palestine, later to become the state of Israel. His Exodus for baritone and orchestra (Noam Heinz is excellent in the solo part here) is just what it sounds like -- a programmatic depiction of the biblical Book of Exodus. Although Tal was a follower of Schoenberg earlier in his career, this is a piece of straight Romantic program music, perhaps intended to aid in the national ambitions of the Jewish state. It is in five linked movements, respectively representing a state of servitude, a prayer, the Exodus, the Parting of the Red Sea (a coda memorializes the Egyptian pursuers), and a celebratory dance. To these ears, this varied, exciting score is the strongest of the three. Tals work is followed by the Indian Symphony of Walter Kaufmann (unconnected with the philosopher of the same name), a composer who headed for what was then Bombay, worked for All-India Radio, taught Zubin Mehta, and wrote music prolifically. This work is said to be based on an Indian raga, but to the untutored ear, it sounds like a lot of pentatonic scales; The Beatles may have had more creative solutions to the vexing problem of fusing Western and Indian musical languages. Last comes the Symphony No. 4 ("Dies Irae") of Marcel Rubin, who spent the World War II years in Mexico. Little of that culture seems to have rubbed off on him; his symphony deploys music based on a Bertolt Brecht poem and, curiously, the Catholic Dies irae chant in the only one of the three works to address the European tragedy directly. Listeners may have their own preferences about these three works, which are certainly not dull, and Botstein and his musicians are to be commended for reviving them. The Orchestra Now hardly sounds like a student group, even an advanced one; these are fully competent performances. ~ James Manheim