Symphony No. 7 (Glass)

A Toltec Symphony (also known as Symphony No. 7 "A Toltec Symphony") is a 2005 symphony by Philip Glass. The National Symphony Orchestra commissioned Glass to write it to commemorate the 60th birthday of conductor Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin conducted the debut concert on January 20, 2005 at the Kennedy Center, which Philip Glass attended.

Composition

The symphony is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, rattle, tom-tom, wood block, glockenspiel, piano, celesta, harp, violins, violas, cellos, basses, organ, and chorus.

At 30 minutes long, it has three movements:

The Corn
The Hikuri (the Sacred Root)
The Blue Deer

Inspiration

Glass said that he wrote the symphony about Mesoamerica and the life of Native Americans centuries before the arrival of European explorers. The first movement, "The Corn," focuses on the interplay between Mother Nature and those she provides for. "The Hikuri (the Sacred Root)" is not a root (it is a cactus) that grows in the northern and central Mexican deserts and is thought to be a gateway to the spiritual world, hikuri. Finally, the last movement is about "the holder of the Book of Knowledge," whom every truth-seeking person must face.

Glass has integrated three transcendental concepts of ancestral culture (Huichol) : The first is the " corn " which means, desire to return to the innocence before adulthood (the connection with Mother Earth); the second, the hikuri is the sacred vision of corn and Blue Deer, and this represents the third symbolism, from this world to the hereafter can do it, because when get the blue deer, stop being ordinary, and the man will be transformed.

External links

Philip Glass

Compositions	Music in Twelve Parts Glassworks String Quartet No. 2 The Light Passages Itaipu Songs from Liquid Days Aguas da Amazonia

Operas	Einstein on the Beach Satyagraha The Photographer Akhnaten The Civil Wars The Juniper Tree The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 1000 Airplanes on the Roof Hydrogen Jukebox The Voyage Monsters of Grace White Raven In the Penal Colony Galileo Galilei The Sound of a Voice Waiting for the Barbarians Appomattox Kepler The Perfect American

Symphonies	Symphony No. 1 (Low) Symphony No. 2 Symphony No. 3 Symphony No. 4 (Heroes) Symphony No. 5 (Choral) Symphony No. 6 (Plutonian Ode) Symphony No. 7 (A Toltec Symphony) Symphony No. 8 Symphony No. 9 Symphony No. 10

Concertos	Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tirol) Piano Concerto No. 2 (After Lewis and Clark) Harpsichord Concerto Violin Concerto (withdrawn) Violin Concerto No. 1 Violin Concerto No. 2 (American Four Seasons) Cello Concerto No. 1 Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra

Related articles	List of compositions by Philip Glass Philip Glass Ensemble Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts Minimal music Robert Wilson Dennis Russell Davies David Henry Hwang Errol Morris La Monte Young Steve Reich Terry Riley Kronos Quartet Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread

Symphonies by Philip Glass

No. 1 (Low) No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 (Heroes) No. 5 (Choral) No. 6 (Plutonian Ode) No. 7 (A Toltec Symphony) No. 8 No. 9 No. 10

List of compositions by Philip Glass

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