Day 57
26 February 2017:
Gould – Symphony No. 4 "West Point" (1952)
As has already been
demonstrated by Widor's Organ Symphony
No. 5, or Adams's Chamber Symphony,
there is no restriction on the forces for which a symphony can be written.
American composer Morton Gould took a different approach again when it came to
composing his fourth symphony, choosing to employ a concert band. The piece was
written for the 150th anniversary of the West Point US Military Academy, to be
performed by the Academy band, and military marches form the backbone of the
piece.
Although the second
movement is entitled 'Marches', the first movement – 'Epitaphs' – features an
extraordinary slow-building march theme, and uses a 'marching machine' This is
an unusual percussion instrument consisting of a frame containing wooden blocks
connected by strings which produces a fairly authentic sound of a marching
troop. It's certainly a unique sonority, and with some wonderful wind writing
going on around it, the effect is stunning. Needless to say I'd never heard
this symphony before today, but I did rather enjoy it.
Day 58
27 February 2017:
Bizet – Symphony No. 1 in C major (1855)
Georges Bizet is, of
course, best-known for his hit opera Carmen.
Unfortunately, he died in the year it was first performed at the age of just
36. In common with other composers who died in their 30s, such as Mozart,
Mendelssohn and Schubert, he happened to be a child prodigy so he did manage to
produce a reasonable body of work in his short life. One of the first of which
is this symphony, written when he was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris.
Bizet was just 17 when
he wrote this. It was a student assignment, and consequently something he
himself regarded as juvenilia. Bizet never heard the work performed in his
lifetime, and he actually re-used some of its material in later pieces. The
symphony was eventually rediscovered in 1933, over 50 years after his death,
and given its first public performance by the great Felix Weingartner. Bizet
appears to have been paying a tribute to his teacher, the composer Charles
Gounod, in the work and even quotes from Gounod's own Symphony in D (a piece I'll be featuring later in the year). The Symphony in C was instantly recognised
as a masterpiece and is now a concert staple, but the person most likely to be
surprised by the success it has gone on to achieve would be Bizet himself.
Day 59
28 February 2017:
Copland – Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1924)
Aaron Copland first
orchestral score was the culmination of his three years' study with the famed
composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. The idea of a work for organ and orchestra
was apparently the idea of the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who conducted the
first performance with Boulanger herself playing the organ. Despite Copland's
reservations over writing for unfamiliar forces, the work was a success.
Copland did later re-score the piece, removing the organ and replacing it with
brass and saxophone and calling it Symphony
No. 1, but I've always loved the sound of an organ so that's the version
I'm going with.
As with any symphony
that features a solo instrument, the question arises over whether it is in fact
a concerto. The answer is probably as banal as saying that isn't because
Copland called it a symphony, but the organ doesn't dominate the piece the way
it would in a concerto and the solo passages aren't especially virtuosic. In
fact, its role in the jazz-influenced second movement is really to keep a
constant rhythm going throughout. The hugely impressive third movement is where
Copland really comes to the fore, and there are clear echoes of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in the ostinati,
dissonances and sharp contrasts of dynamics that run through it. This symphony
made Copland’s name as a composer, and rightly so.
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