Glass had been planning a piano piece to accompany Alan Ginsberg’s readings of his poem Plutonian Ode but on Ginsberg’s death he put it aside. He revived the project when Carnegie Hall and the Brucknerhaus Linz commissioned a symphony to mark his 65th birthday.

The Symphony’s movements follow the poem’s development from, to quote Glass, ‘passionate outcry against nuclear contamination’ via ‘a turn towards healing’ to ‘an epiphany arrived at through personal transformation’. Ginsberg made several preparatory recordings, so it has been possible to include a second disc with his voice dubbed over the symphony. Poets are not always the best interpreters of their work but it is interesting to compare the phrasing of Glass’s settings with Ginsberg’s recitation – to hear how Glass sometimes acknowledges line divisions where Ginsberg, respecting sense rather than structure, continues across them – and to compare the emotional weight each gives certain images. That said, over the whole work Ginsberg’s recitation begins to pall, although it’s still preferable to the soprano part. Glass sets many notes at the upper extreme of the range, producing shrill, strained effects that I’m not convinced were an intentional illustration of the radioactive horrors envisaged by the poem, and Flanigan’s vibrato was so pronounced and wavery I felt queasy.

There are some pleasures to be had, in sonorous low strings and orchestral climaxes that shudder with thunderous brass and percussion and shimmer with high woodwind. These may be a little bombastic for some tastes but, undeniably, they are viscerally exciting.