Day 233
21 August 2017: Rubbra
– Symphony No. 7 (1957)
It's no good. Much as
I would like to try to get through an item on an Edmund Rubbra symphony without
resorting to the words 'scandalously neglected', it is simply unavoidable in
this case. I am at a complete loss to explain why this is as rarely heard as it
unquestionably is. Its premiere in 1957 was conducted by no less a figure than
Andrzej Panufnik, who was musical director of the City of Birmingham Symphony
Orchestra at the time. For their 1956-57 season, the CBSO had commissioned new
works from Tippett, who produced his brilliant Piano Concerto, Bliss, who wrote his Meditation on a Theme of John Blow, and Rubbra, who delivered this
masterpiece. It's fair to say the good folk of Birmingham got their money's
worth!
The third movement – a
Passacaglia and Fugue – is exquisite,
and while there is much to love in Rubbra's symphonic output, this particular
movement is the gleaming diamond in his musical crown. My old music lecturer at
Keele, Stephen Banfield, asserted in his book on Gerald Finzi that this
movement was Rubbra's tribute to his close friend and fellow-composer who died
while he was composing the symphony. It's hard to conceive of a more moving
response. I listened to this today and, as the music ended, I felt an
overwhelming compulsion to personally visit the musical directors of our great
orchestras and interrogate them as to why this music seemingly never even enters
their minds when considering programmes.
Day 234
22 August 2017:
Schubert – Symphony No. 6 (1818)
There is a convention
of sorts when composers write two symphonies in the same key to refer to the
smaller (and usually earlier) of the two works as the 'Little "n"
major/minor'. So we have Mozart's 'Little G minor' (see Day 86), Dvorak's
'Little D minor' (see Day 136), and this, Franz Peter Schubert's 'Little C
major'. This is unquestionably the little brother to the 'Great C major', his
ninth symphony, which is nearly twice the length of this one.
Many commentators have
detected an Italian influence in this symphony. The finale takes a theme from
his own Two Overtures in the Italian Style,
the second movement Andante seems to
have the feel of a tarantella, while
the use of musical themes associated with street festivals has been attributed
to the influence of Rossini. There's a general lightness of feel throughout,
which actually reminded me of Mendelssohn's fourth 'Italian' symphony composed
some ten years later. Sadly, Schubert never heard this in his lifetime. The
irony is that this brightest of symphonies only received its first performance
at a concert to commemorate Schubert's death in 1828.
Day 235
23 August 2017: Louise
Farrenc – Symphony No. 3 (1847)
Even in today's more
enlightened times, there is still an element of sexism within the music
business, as can be evidenced by the relatively small presence of female
composers in many orchestra's programmes. One can only imagine, therefore, what
it was like in Louise Farrenc's time. Here was a significant figure in
mid-nineteenth-century French music; Professor of Piano at the Paris
Conservatoire for fully 30 years, a gifted performer, and a highly talented
composer. Nonetheless, her abilities as a composer were not taken seriously,
and the logistical difficulties of assembling an orchestra to perform her works
meant they went largely unheard in her own lifetime.
I featured Farrenc's
second symphony a few months ago (see Day 139) and had to admit that I didn't
really enjoy it, due to it being simply too derivative of earlier composers. I
have no such qualms with this her final, and arguably best, symphony. From the
mysterious woodwind opening, it is clear that there's a more self-confident
composer at work, and it soon develops into a robust and beautifully
orchestrated Allegro. There is, it
has to be said, a Beethovenian feel to the Adagio
cantabile slow movement, but it is no less wonderful for that, and the fast
and furious Scherzo is a display of
effortless brilliance. Unfortunately, concert tickets are usually sold on the
basis of the names of the composers on the programme, and until Farrenc breaks
that particular barrier, she is sadly likely to remain obscure.
Day 236
24 August 2017: Weill
– Symphony No. 2 (1934)
Kurt Weill is so well
known for his music for the stage that many people will perhaps be unaware of
his credentials as a composer of more conventional classical music. He studied
composition first with Engelbert Humperdinck (no, not that one) and then
Ferruccio Busoni, and included the likes of Stravinsky and Berg among his
admirers. The year before Weill wrote this symphony, he had fled to Paris
following the rise to power of the Nazis in his native Germany, and had seen
his most famous work, The Threepenny
Opera, premiered on Broadway. Although that closed after just 13
performances, it was clear that Weill saw his future in musical theatre and his
second symphony turned out to be his last orchestral work before he
concentrated on writing for the stage
I was one of the many
unaware of this period of his career and I'd go so far as to say that if I'd
been played this blind and asked to guess the composer, Kurt Weill would have
been about guess number 572. It does have a connection to his earlier stage
work Rise and Fall of the City of
Mahagonny, in that one of its numbers, Denn
wie man sich bettet, so liegt man, is the model of the first movement's
lyrical second subject – albeit rather more symphonically treated. It's clear
from this that Weill was a perfectly good symphonist, but he soon realised it
doesn't pay the rent.
Day 237
25 August 2017: Walton
– Symphony No. 2 (1960)
The William Walton who
presented his second symphony to the world as a 58-year-old elder statesman of
English music was a rather different creature to the enfant terrible of 25 years earlier, when he composed his first.
While the earlier work was considered quite cutting-edge and modernist, this
symphony was very harshly treated by the critics of the day, who tended to view
him as rather old-fashioned at a time when the burgeoning Manchester School of
composers – Goehr, Maxwell Davies, and Birtwistle – were changing the country's
musical landscape.
The criticism was
unfair of course, and as a consequence the symphony has been viewed for a long
time as a poor relation to the first, rather in the same way Elgar's second
used to be perceived. Just as the Elgar has started to be appreciated anew in
recent years, so the Walton is long overdue a re-appraisal. It's a more
sophisticated work than its predecessor, certainly better orchestrated,
although it lacks the sheer brute force of the first. The final movement is a
brilliant set of variations on a twelve-note tone row, although it is by no means
a serialist work. Had Walton written this within a few years of his first
symphony it would probably have been much better received. The prejudices that
coloured its reception nearly sixty years ought not to permanently damage its
legacy.
Day 238
26 August 2017:
Britten – Cello Symphony (1963)
Benjamin Britten is a
permanent fixture in my top five composers of all-time. He wrote for so many
different genres that his contribution to the symphonic repertoire is often
overlooked, but I find it fascinating. He wrote four, none of them numbered, and
all very different from each other. His Simple
Symphony, Sinfonia Da Requiem,
and Spring Symphony I have already
featured, and this was the final work to which he attributed the name
'symphony'. And while the first three were a work for string orchestra based on
juvenilia themes, a conventional orchestral piece in three movements, and a
choral symphony respectively, here Britten experiments with the form again by
writing a symphony with a prominent part for a solo cello. It was composed for
his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who premiered the work.
Britten decided to
call this piece a symphony rather than a concerto (having also considered the
title Sinfonia Concertante) as he
believed the solo and orchestral parts to be of equal weight. Certainly the
structure is conventionally symphonic, with a sonata form opening movement,
followed by a Scherzo and an Adagio, although the cadenza with which the latter concludes
is the one flaw in the symphony argument. The final movement is the crowning
glory of the work. Britten did like a Passacaglia;
there are fine examples in his Violin
Concerto, in the opera Peter Grimes,
and his Nocturnal for guitar, among
others. The use of this traditional Renaissance construct here is a perfect way
to conclude a work that plays with one's preconceptions of traditional forms.
Day 239
27 August 2017:
Silvestrov – Symphony No. 5 (1982)
Of all the new composers
I've discovered this year as part of my Symphony A Day venture, I think
Valentin Silvestrov is probably my favourite. Still going strong and
approaching his 80th birthday, Silvestrov has written eight symphonies, the
most recent of which emerged four years ago. In common with many
late-twentieth-century composers, Silvestrov started out writing music of a
modernist nature although his change to a more consonant approach was
originally out of necessity following criticism from the Soviet authorities.
The style he developed, largely in private having withdrawn public life, was a
neo-Romantic idiom of flowing, delicate lyricism.
He was awarded
Ukraine's Shevchenko National Prize for Music in 1995, and this symphony, which
by then was thirteen years old, was one of three pieces cited. It really is a
lovely piece. For the most part, it moves at serene, glacial speed. There are
echoes of Mahler's ninth and tenth symphonies in the string writing at the
beginning and end of the work, as if their music has been refracted through a
late twentieth-century prism. Silvestrov is possibly unique in that he wears
his influences so visibly, yet produces work of great uniqueness. It would be
nice to hear his work more often in this country.
Day 240
28 August 2017:
Vaughan Williams – Symphony No. 6 (1947)
Fewer things could
indicate just how popular Ralph Vaughan Williams was at this point in his
career than the astonishing fact that this work received over 100 performances
worldwide within two years of its premiere. It is probably his most
misunderstood symphony, even more so than the enigmatic Pastoral Symphony (see Day 120). The fact that it was written in
the immediate aftermath of World War II, its discordant musical language, and
its desolate final movement led many critics to assume – quite wrongly – that
it was RVW's reaction to the conflict. Vaughan Williams refuted this, memorably
replying, 'It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to
write a piece of music.'
The first movement
sees a return to the abrasive language of his fourth symphony, although the
contrasting, lyrical second subject is more akin to his folk-tinged earlier
works. Incidentally, this tune was used as the theme music for the 1970s ITV
series A Family At War. The
extraordinary second movement features a five-note rhythm that is repeated
insistently, as many as 90 times, building to a quite terrifying crescendo,
while the third movement, with its sleazy saxophone solo, appears to mock
dance-hall music of the time. Eventually, however, this collapses into the cold
and bleak Epilogue, marked pianissimo throughout, that is quite
unlike any movement in British music to that point. What makes this highly
original, and in many ways groundbreaking symphony all the more remarkable, is
that Vaughan Williams was 74 years old when he wrote this. There was clearly
life in the old dog yet.
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