Nagasaki (Schnittke)

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Nagasaki is an oratorio composed by Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke in 1958, at the age of 25. It was Schnittke's graduation composition in the Moscow Conservatory, and the topic was suggested by his teacher Evgeny Golubev.

The work was considered

Cape Philharmonic conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes.[2]

Form

It consists of five movements, on Soviet and Japanese lyrics:

  1. "Nagasaki, City of Grief" (Anatoly Sofronov)
  2. "The Morning" (
    Tōson Shimazaki
    )
  3. "On that Fateful Day" (A. Sofronov)
  4. "On the Ashes" [Yoneda Eisaku)[notes 1]
  5. "The Sun of Peace" (Georgy Fere)

Recordings

Notes

  1. ^ Yoneda Eisaku, Yoneda is the family name, is a Japanese poet and one of victims of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, not of Nagasaki hence he wrote poems about Hiroshima not Nagasaki but Schnittke applied his two verses from Kawa yo Towa ni Utsukushiku (川よ　とわに美しく), Yoneda's second poetry collection published in 1952.[3][4] Words are taken from Kōhai ni Tachite, 1(荒廃に立ちて　その一) and Kawa yo Towa ni Utsukushiku, 1(川よ　とはに美しく　その一). The first and second stanzas in the text of the fourth movement are from Kōhai ni Tachite, 1 and the third and fourth from Kawa yo Towa ni Utsukushiku, 1.[5][4]The former are relatively correctly translated from Yoneda's original but the latter altered by the Russian translator. Especially Yoneda's original poem is almost not included in the fourth stanza to be able to say it is effectively a new poem by the translator.

References

  1. ^ Program notes by Calum MacDonald for the work's performance in the 2009 BBC Proms
  2. G. Schirmer
    's website
  3. ISBN 4-8120-1568-5
    , pp.168-173.
  4. ^ a b The booklet text in Alfred Schnittke Symphony No.0・Nagasaki, BIS CD-1647
  5. ISBN 4-8120-1568-5
    , pp.26-27, 32-33.

See also


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