Day 118
28 April 2017: Mozart
– Symphony No. 29 (1774)
After yesterday's
early symphony by Saint-Saëns, here we have, for the second day in a row, a
work written by an 18-year-old. But while the Saint-Saëns was his second stab
at the symphonic form, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had already knocked out a couple
of dozen. The numbering of these Mozart symphonies, by the way, is more an act
of cataloguing than of strict chronology as this one probably followed No. 25
(see Day 86) in order of composition.
Mozart's 29th also
sits alongside No. 25 in terms of popularity among his early symphonies. The
first theme is announced quietly, and then when it is repeated forte it is in a
canon, with the violas and cellos playing the theme two beats after the
fiddles. Thus before we get off the first page, Mozart has begun experimenting
with classical sonata form. The elegant slow movement is scored, unusually, for
muted strings, and again Mozart is ahead of the curve in employing practice
that wouldn't become widespread for some decades yet. The finale is breathless
6/8 gallop that could only really have come from the pen of Mozart, and the
symphony as a whole is the work of an old head on young shoulders.
Day 119
29 April 2017:
Rautavaara – Symphony No. 3 (1961)
It is very hard to pin
down Einojuhani Rautavaara's style. His composing life-cycle passed through
phases of serialism, neo-classicism, and a form of minimalism. Also, his habit
of revising a work written in one idiom at a time when he was more influenced
by another confuses matters further. His third symphony provides an interesting
collision of sensibilities, however. It employs serial methods, but he
harmonises the tone-rows diatonically. Furthermore, the structure of the
symphony is firmly planted in the late-romantic era.
The overriding
influence here is Bruckner, especially his fourth symphony, the
'Romantic'. It has a conventional
four-movement layout, with the movements given German titles (Langsam, breit, ruhig etc).
Indeed, the opening horn theme begins in exactly the same way as the Bruckner
before evolving into a subtle variation. All the while though, unrelated
flurries from other instruments are throwing you off the scent, as it were. In
its approach of taking music of a late-romantic style and reflecting it through
a modernist prism, it is redolent of Penderecki's later style. I find works of
this ilk, pieces that take the best of a variety of styles and successfully
marry them together into something greater, thoroughly captivating.
Day 120
30 April 2017: Vaughan
Williams – A Pastoral Symphony (1922)
The first music I ever
heard by Ralph Vaughan Williams was his Fantasia
on a theme by Thomas Tallis, which featured in a televised concert from
Orkney in 1986 that included the premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies's Violin Concerto. Understandably, I was
completely bowled over by it, and later that week I went into JG Windows in
Newcastle and took a punt on a couple of RVW's symphonies – this and the
fourth. I recall being rather nonplussed on first hearing, but it very quickly
got under my skin and remains one of my favourite symphonies. In fact, one of
my A level compositions was a piece for flute and guitar based on the main
theme from its fourth movement!
This is probably one
of the most misunderstood symphonies ever written. The title 'Pastoral' has led
to it being held up as an example of 'English cow-pat music'. The composer
Peter Warlock allegedly described it as 'like a cow looking over a gate', and
even Vaughan Williams himself was concerned about how it would be received,
describing it as having, 'four movements, all of them slow'. Many now recognise
the composer's intention was to depict not an English landscape, but a French
one – specifically the battlefields of World War I. Vaughan Williams served as
ambulance driver during that conflict, no doubt witnessing unimaginable
horrors, and observing the rolling fields of Northern France ravaged by war. It
is a genuinely moving elegy for the dead, with the solo trumpet in the second
movement playing a cadenza reminiscent of the Last Post. The wordless soprano solo that bookends the final
movement provides a quite ethereal moment, while the steadily rising optimistic
theme of the finale is one of Vaughan Williams's greatest melodies. One of the
good things to come out of the upsurge in the composer's popularity in the last
20 years or so is that this work has been freed from its misconceptions and is
now starting to be appreciated as one of the great English symphonies.