Symphony No. 6, Plutonian Ode [Import]

Philip Glass (Composer), Dennis Russell Davies (Conductor), Bruckner Orchester Linz (Orchestra), Lauren Flanigan (Performer), Aleen Ginsberg (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Lauren Flanigan, Aleen Ginsberg
• Orchestra: Bruckner Orchester Linz
• Conductor: Dennis Russell Davies
• Composer: Philip Glass
• Audio CD (November 7, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Orange Mountain Music
• ASIN: B000BRF9T4
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,664 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Plutonian Ode is Outstanding, May 20, 2006

By 

Marvin Cohodas "Glassoperaphile" (Vancouver, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Symphony No. 6, Plutonian Ode (Audio CD)

I'm not surprised to see the love-it or hate-it polarity of these reviews. I come to Glass from opera and am thus not intimidated by the operatic quality of the work and the soprano voice. I also think it is important to compare the music with Ginsberg's text which is in itself fairly inaccessible without the footnotes Ginsberg provided in his publication. But the point is that Philip Glass has taken a kernel of meaning in the Ginsberg poem that has become more significant and compelling as time has passed, and then expanded it musically so that the meaning becomes infinitely more powerful, convincing, and moving. It is also unfair to insert the poem into western religious spheres as some reviewers (on Amazon and not) have done. Ginsberg was and Glass still is heavily involved in Tibetan Buddhism, the imagery of which becomes increasingly prominent as the poem develops. The soprano voice then makes particular sense as the vajra, translated as thunderbolt or diamond, that here cuts directly through to a certain truth.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A piece which achieves new heights...., March 8, 2006

By 

Richard G. "Richard G." (NYC via Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Symphony No. 6, Plutonian Ode (Audio CD)

I first heard Symphony No.6 'Plutonian Ode' at its world premiere at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.
As with many premieres, works are often under-rehearsed and/or suffer from a lack of experience with the piece. This is a general indictment I have toward a lot of new music.
However, this may have been the case with the performance, which I, in tern, held against the piece. Last November, at the same time as Orange Mountain Music's release of this album, I had another chance to hear this symphony. I was less than excited, but I WAS excited about hearing the piece with which is was programmed: the world premiere of Glass' Symphony No.8 for orchestra-this time with the Bruckner Orchester Linz performing.
This time around, I recognized Symphony No.6 as nothing less than a masterpiece. Not only has the piece grown with the artists, Davies and Flanigan, but the orchestra (which had know the piece for years now), embraced the music with virtuosity and a european sophistication which lends itself very well to this most american of composers.
It was really like a new world. Flanigan's word's have meaning...the transformation of Ginsberg's character undergoes a very sincere voyage to personal transformation in the face of something ugly in the world.
There have been mixed reactions to the second disc featuring Ginsberg's narration of the original poem. At the very least it lends different perspectives to each recording.

A real masterpiece. A true example of how Glass continues to amaze!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Angry Angel, February 23, 2007

By 

David B. Edmonston (Bowling Green, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Symphony No. 6, Plutonian Ode (Audio CD)

In "Symphony No. 6, Plutonian Ode," Glass takes as his libretto the late Bohemian poem of that name by Allen Ginsberg. This is Ginsberg's outrageous "howl" against thermonuclear weapons, which he personifies as the specter of "plutonium" and forcefully confronts in the poem. Right from Glass's dissonant opening measures that roll toward us like black storm clouds, we feel the dark power of the specter. With level eye, this poem sees the horror of mankind's own creation of a powerful weapon against itself and addresses this specter eye-to-eye with a malediction, a curse, an incantation for its extinction. This poem is both pagan and prayerful, and the music fully engages its angry, impassioned, and even hopeful moods. With loud, staccato rhythms played against a powerful soprano voice--I hear an angry angel--the poet's visceral malediction is brought home on the evil specter:

"I call your name with hollow vowels, I psalm your Fate close by, my breath near deathless ever at your side

to spell your destiny. I set this verse prophetic on your mausoleum walls to seal you up Eternally with Diamond Truth! O doomed Plutonium."

Ginsberg paints the sweetness of life on earth, the "tranquil politic [populace]" under "blue sky transparent rising empty deep & spacious to a morning star" and juxtaposes this scene of innocence to the "Satanic [war] industries projected sudden with Five Hundred Billion Dollar Strength." Glass delivers these statements with characteristic luscious orchestral colors interspersed with jarring dissonance.

At the beginning of Movement III Glass gives the listener an instrumental reprieve that opens in the sweetest mood, using few instruments, simple repetitive melodies, and close harmonies in his signature minimalist style. But subtly tension grows in the music, and the listener feels the evil more strongly as the powerful specter roars back in the percussion with unexpected harshness. The text then invokes the blessings of all including "you Congress and American people,/ you present meditators, spiritual friends and teachers...."

"enrich this Plutonian Ode to explode its empty thunder through earthen thought-worlds

Magnetize this howl with heartless compassion, destroy this mountain of Plutonium with ordinary mind and body speech,

thus empower this mind-guard spirit..."

Glass delivers this spell with pounding chords and musical hammer blows. Then he gives the last word to the soprano, who softly closes the symphony for the shaken listener.

To me this is some of Glass's most exciting music. But I warn the faint-of-heart that "Plutonian Ode" will disturb his comfortable stasis and set his teeth on edge as it looks in the eye of this technological horror.