Glass: Symphony No. 6 - Plutonian Ode - with Allen Ginsberg

Orange Mountain Music's latest recording of the music of Philip Glass - its 19th - is the world premiere recording of his Symphony No 6 'Plutonian Ode'. This major work was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and Brucknerhaus Linz to celebrate Glass's 65th birthday in 2002 and first performed then under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies. Davies also directs this recording with the Austrian ensemble of which he is Chief Conductor, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz. Outstanding American soprano Lauren Flanigan - named by Time magazine as "the thinking man's diva" - is the soloist here, as she has been at every live performance of the symphony. It sets the anti-nuclear, Gnostic-influenced Plutonian Ode (1978) by the late Allen Ginsberg, the famous 'Beat' poet and Philip Glass's friend. Ginsberg (1926-1997) defied classification: he was a spiritual seeker, founder of a major liter-ary movement, champion of human and civil rights, photographer and song-writer, political gadfly, teacher and co-founder of a poetics school. He is best remembered for the poem Howl. The three movements of the Symphony No 6 follow the three parts of Plutonian Ode, and follow the passage of the epic poem. The first movement is a passionate outcry against nuclear contamination and pollution; the second, a turn towards healing; and the final movement an epiphany arrived at through personal transformation. Glass comments: "During the last ten years of Allen's life we had performed frequently together in poetry/music collaborations. Allen was a superb reader of his own work and I was often inspired to compose new piano music for these occasional collaborations. It had been our plan to make a new, major collaboration based on his epic poem Plutonium Ode (1978). Before he died in 1997, Allen had made several recordings for me of the poem in preparation for the new work." One of these recordings of Ginsberg's resonant speaking voice - on top of a repeat performance of the Symphony No 6 - makes up the welcome bonus CD. Glass and Davies's working relationship spans more than a quarter century, including the debut performances of Glass's first six symphonies and the recent world premiere of Symphony No 8.