 Jerry
Goldsmith, composer of the scores to The Mummy, Star Trek: The
Motion Picture, Air Force One, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Poltergeist,
Chinatown, and many more, leads the London Symphony Orchestra
and The London Voices in world premiere recordings of his concert
music. Featured is Christus Apollo: Cantata Celebrating the Eighth
Day of Creation and the Promise of the Ninth, set to a text by
world renowned science fiction writer Ray Bradbury.
Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated
Man, The Martian Chronicles and numerous other award-winning
novels, collections, and poems, wrote the text to Christus Apollo
in 1969. That same year, the California Chamber Symphony asked
Goldsmith to compose a cantata based on Bradbury’s text.
The piece consists of four sections separated by narration. Reading
the narration is Sir Anthony Hopkins, who won the Oscar for his
portrayal of depraved serial killer Hannibal Lecter in Silence
of the Lambs.
Goldsmith composed the compelling score to
Christus Apollo using the 12-tone system. "I feel that there
is a great relationship between impressionism and dodecaphonicism,"
he says in the booklet notes, "and that was the musical
language I wanted for Christus Apollo." Goldsmith further
comments that while "in today’s musical climate,"
the 12-tone system is virtually obsolete, he found it to be a
liberating way of expressing his most heartfelt feelings when
he was composing thirty years ago.
"Author Ray Bradbury, who was present
for the recording sessions, praised Goldsmith’s setting
of his text: "Music takes a thing that is already in flight
and makes it fly higher, I believe," he said. "I was
very pleased with the wonderful accidents that caused me to write
this long poem. But then the music comes along and says, ‘You
think you’re flying? Well, listen to this. This will make
you fly even higher." Bradbury also applauded the other
participants in the recording. "[Anthony] Hopkins is a fantastic
actor, and I was very pleased to have him working on it. All
these art forms are the collaboration of a team...All of us are
working together, and we never operate on separate tracks, and
we don’t let our egos get in the way. It’s a wonderful
collaboration." Radiant mezzo-soprano Eirian James brings
beauty and drama to the contralto solos.
Also featured on this recording are two other
concert pieces by Goldsmith. Music for Orchestra, another 12-tone
piece, was written in 1970 at the request of Leonard Slatkin
for the Saint Louis Symphony. The year was not a happy one for
the composer, as he was in the midst of a divorce and his mother
was very ill with cancer. "All of my personal turmoil—pain,
anger and sorrow—went into writing Music for Orchestra..."
he said. Fireworks (A Celebration of Los Angeles) was composed
for the finale of Goldmith’s first concert series with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 1999. Goldsmith
calls it "a grand celebration of my childhood, growing years,
my years of maturity, and all the events that climaxed with my
first appearance at the Hollywood Bowl." |