普拉契多·多明戈（Placido Domingo）
这张专辑，表达了我的内心，对教宗若望保禄二世（Papst Johnnes Paul Il）深深的崇敬之意。我还非常清楚地记得，那年，墨西哥的一家报纸让我就这位在罗马刚刚继任的波兰籍新教宗发表看法时，我脱口而出：共产主义的终结即将开始。新教宗和波兰工会主席瓦文萨(Lech Walesa)同样，有着真正过人的力量，去维护生命的神圣性，并为争取人的基本权利而斗争。教宗若望保禄二世，是我所认识的人当中最伟大的一位。
真庆幸，我能数度同他相遇！最后一次是在梵蒂冈。他感谢了我们在安科纳（Ancona）的一次活动中的演唱。当时，我们还唱了一首以他的诗为词，意大利作曲家马可· 图尼诺(Marco Tunino)谱曲的歌儿。在他的感召下，我萌生出想读到他更多诗作的愿望。我知道在服务于教会之前，年轻的若望保禄二世曾是一名演员和作家。
我和我儿子普拉契多一起着手寻找——普拉契多是个作曲家——最先找到的是教宗创作的一本极妙的、关于冥想《圣经》的宗教诗集《沉思》（Trittico Romano）。我想，如果能把这些诗歌谱曲并录制成一张CD该多棒啊！我们就这样从选择一些适宜谱写简单旋律的诗歌开始——尽管它们每首都很富于音乐性。
这些诗歌分别用意大利语，西班牙语和英语写出。Madre这首是说他自己的母亲吗？还是我们所有生活在世界上的人们共同的母亲哪？无论如何它打动了我的心。还有许多诗歌表达了对天主的爱，对劳作的尊重。在一首写制造武器的工人的诗中他说，他们不是发动战争的人，而只是普通的手工业者。在诗歌里，教宗还追忆了他为他的祖国波兰而战斗的岁月。
这些歌曲当然不只是为男高音而作。我邀请了五位艺术家共同参与。乔许·葛洛班（Josh Groban）的美妙音色我一直非常欣赏，多年的好友安德烈· 波切利（Andrea Bocelli）为能参与录制而感到高兴；和英国南威尔士出生的次女高音卡特琳娜·詹金斯（Katherine Jenkins）举办过的那次跨界音乐（crossover music）会，成为我们这次合作的契机。我儿子写了一首非常好听的歌，再适合维尼沙·威廉姆斯（VenessaWilliams）不过了！她曾在我的推介下出演了《卡门·琼斯》（Carmen Jones）。普拉契多自己有一副漂亮高亢的好歌喉，他演唱了一首他和乔治·卡兰雷利（jorge calandrelli）共同创作的歌曲。乔治是位音乐家，在这张专辑的录制中起到非常关键的作用。
伦敦交响乐团是一支非常出色的乐团。他们的表现总是令我肃然起敬：刚进录音棚时，这些乐谱对他们来说是完全陌生的，但只用了三个小时，这张前所未有的杰作就录制完成了。
这张专辑对我来说意义非凡。当然，这不仅仅因为我是个天主教徒。更重要的是，它纪念了一个伟大的人，一个将自己的整个生命奉献到服务于大众和天主之中去的人。
姜乙乙译
以上文字的英文版 By Plácido Domingo
This recording has grown out of my great respect and reverence for Pope John Paul II. I well remember being asked by the newspapers in Mexico, on the day he was installed in Rome, what I thought about this Polish Pope, and I replied, almost without thinking, that this was the beginning of the end for Communism. He was a parallel force with the Polish trade union leader Lech Walesa, fighting for the poor and against injustice. And he was the greatest human being I have ever known. I had the great privilege of meeting him several times. The last occasion was at the Vatican, when he wanted to thank us for a performance at a meeting at Ancona, Italy; it had included a piece by the Italian composer Marco Tutino that was a setting of one of the Pope's poems. I told His Holiness that I would very much like him to let me see more of his poems. I knew that when he was young, before he entered the Church, he had been an actor and also a writer. With my son Plácido, who is a composer, I looked for these poems. First we found a beautiful collection of religious poetry, the Roman Triptych Meditations, but these were complicated meditations on the Bible. Though I thought it would be marvellous to make a CD of them, I felt we should start with a selection that had more popular appeal. We continued our search until we found some poems that could be set to simpler melodies. Yet although they are popular, they also have depth. One poem, "Madre", may have been intended for his own mother or for mothers in general, but in any case it speaks directly to our hearts. Some poems are about the love of God, others about workers. There was even a beautiful one about a man whose job is to make weapons: he insists that he is not the man who starts wars but simply a craftsman. It refers back to the Pope's days as a patriot. To broaden the poems' appeal, we have kept some in Italian and translated others into Spanish and English. We did not want this collection to contain only solo pieces, so we invited five artists to join the project. I very much like Josh Groban's voice, and Andrea Bocelli, who has been my friend for a long time, was thrilled to collaborate. I had been doing concerts with the Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins - crossover music that made an ideal background for this collection. My son Plácido wrote a lovely song that was perfect for Vanessa Williams, whom I had conducted in Carmen Jones. Plácido himself has a beautiful high-baritone voice, and he sings a song that he wrote with Jorge Calandrelli, the musician who has been central to this project. The London Symphony Orchestra is a great ensemble. I have to say that London musicians have always amazed me: you arrive at the studios in Abbey Road and find these wonderful players who can engage with music they've never seen before - and after three hours you've got 30 minutes of music, perfectly recorded, that will endure for ever. This recording has enormous significance for me, and not only because I am a Catholic. It will speak not only to religious people but to anyone who respects that uniquely great man, John Paul II, who chose to dedicate his life to the service of humanity and of God. |
