Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T08:08:21.168Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

London, Royal Albert Hall Proms 2003

MacMillan, Adams, Kancheli

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2004

Extract

The title of James MacMillan's Symphony No. 3, Silence, could easily mislead. An avowedly religious work from a devotedly Catholic composer, the symphony does not stand back in contemplative reverence before God. On the contrary, in choosing as his inspiration Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel of the same name, MacMillan has drawn upon a text that admirably meets and mirrors the fundamentals of his own musical personality. Endo's novel deals with Western attempts to convert the inhabitants of 17th-century Japan to Catholicism and their bloody failure. The agents of the Lord are defeated by the violent resistance of the Japanese and the inhospitable terrain. Struggle, hope, grace, martyrdom, defeat. MacMillan's devotees will recognize his trademarks in a dramatic new piece, albeit one whose narrative is rather more oblique than Isabel Gowdie or Veni, Veni Emmanuel.

Type
FIRST PERFORMANCES
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)