Day 295
22 October 2017:
Bruckner – Symphony No. 8 (1890)
My listening schedule
for this year does, at times, throw up little clusters of symphonies that lend
themselves to being considered together. It did this week, when a trio of
eighth symphonies found themselves in close proximity, so here they are as a three-day
sequence, beginning with Anton Bruckner's Symphony
No. 8. This was the last one Bruckner actually completed, his ninth
remaining unfinished at his death in 1896. As you've no doubt noticed, I tend
to put the year of composition in parentheses in the title above, but this is
often problematic for works that are later revised or written in stages. In
Bruckner's case, it's never more than a vague approximation given his obsessive
revision mentality. This was composed in 1884-85, orchestrated in 1886-87, the
completed score was then sent to the conductor Hermann Levi, who rejected it,
it was then revised in 1889-90, and finally first performed in 1892. The
version widely accepted as definitive is the 1890 revision, so
that's what I'm going with.
That it was only
revised once indicates the notoriously self-critical Bruckner was at least
reasonably happy with it. Rightly so, as it is a magnificent work. Performance
times for Bruckner symphonies vary so much that it's hard to say which is the longest
– this alone varies on record between 71 minutes (Leinsdorf) and 104 minutes
(Celibidache), which is a remarkable difference. It's safe to say it's a
contender to be the longest, however, and its profundity of tone affords it an additional
gravitas. I have occasionally seen this symphony given the subtitle
'Apocalyptic', and although it is of dubious origin, is does seem to fit. The
first movement bucks the trend he set himself by shying away from the usual
blaze of glory conclusion in favour of a quiet and reflective ending. Following
the pattern of Beethoven's ninth, Bruckner reversed the usual slow
movement–scherzo order of inner movements. This does give the whole a greater
sense of balance than, for example, the seventh symphony that preceded it,
where the two huge opening movements heavily outweighed the latter two. The vast
Adagio of the eighth is one of
Bruckner's finest slow movements, while the finale was apparently influenced by
a visit to Vienna by the Cossacks, with brass and military music the order of
the day. As the work draws to a close there is an almost desolate feeling of
all energy spent, yet somehow one final push is summoned to produce a mighty
denouement with the final chord being played out over a whole minute of music. It
was the last final symphonic chord Bruckner was to write, and a fitting way to
sign off.
Day 296
23 October 2017:
Beethoven – Symphony No. 8 (1812)
The second of my trio
of 'No. 8's is the shortest symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. Sitting
as a rather unloved sibling between the mighty seventh and the epic Choral
symphony, Beethoven's eighth is something of an oddity. It even left its
audience cold back in the time of its first performance, with a contemporary
account stating, rather euphemistically, that it 'did not create a furore' –
unlike the aforementioned seventh (see Day 251), which was ecstatically
received and was also performed to a greater reception at the premiere of this
work.
It's a perfectly good
symphony of course, but rather like the similarly squeezed fourth, its relative
insignificance only comes about because of the works it sat alongside
chronologically. The opening movement stands as an equal to any of the others
he wrote, but the movements that follow are all shorter and more lightweight.
Its lack of a slow movement was also highly unusual, with a coquettish,
four-minute Allegretto scherzando
taking its place. The lively final movement bears some similarity with the two
final movements of the seventh, with its insistent rhythms throughout. It also
features a remarkable coda that includes a modulation of a semitone from F# to
F which was an utterly outrageous manoeuvre in the early 19th century. After
producing symphonies at fairly regular intervals throughout his career,
Beethoven would leave the genre alone for ten years after this one. It's fair
to say he would come back with a bang.
Day 297
24 October 2017:
Dvořák – Symphony No. 8 (1889)
To complete my trio of
'No. 8's, here we have Antonin Dvořák's late masterpiece. When I featured his
seventh a few weeks ago (see Day 255), it kicked off a little Twitter debate
over which was the greatest of his symphonies. Certainly the ninth is the most
popular, but there was a lot of love for No. 7 and similar amount for this
work. It came very quickly to the composer, who took little more than a month
to complete the piece, seemingly driven by a determination to write a symphony
different from its predecessors.
The work opens with a
long theme for the cellos, and it is they who drive the melodic content of the
symphony. It is melody that drives this piece forward, something for which
Dvořák had a great gift. The result is that his symphonies generally take a
unique shape compared to the classical tradition, not feeling the need to
burden himself with a first subject–second subject approach that would, after
all, limit him to just two tunes! The darkly chromatic slow movement was indeed
quite unlike anything Dvořák had written before, with an almost Sibelian
bleakness that is at odds with the joyful nature of the rest of the work. A
delightful allegretto soon gets
things back on track, before a bright fanfare signals the start of the
magnificent finale. Those prominent cellos return with a glorious melody that
even by Dvořák's standards is pretty memorable, and after a reflective section
towards the end of the movement, there's a sudden acceleration towards a
suitably triumphant ending.
Day 298
25 October 2017:
Shostakovich – Symphony No. 2, 'To October' (1927)
With fifteen
symphonies, Dmitri Shostakovich is the composer I've featured most often this
year. I've gone through them mostly chronologically, but have broken the
sequence for his third, subtitled 'The First of May', which I obviously had to
feature on the first of May (see Day 121), and this symphony, subtitled 'To
October', which commemorates the October Revolution of 100 years ago. Now,
there is something of an anachronism here, as the October Revolution took place
on 25 October 1917, but in the New Style calendar this corresponds to 7
November. It is universally known as the October Revolution though, so I'm
going with the old date in the new calendar, or something like that.
As for the symphony
itself, well it's not his greatest work. It's mercifully short, at around 17
minutes, but after the brilliance of his first symphony this clumsy piece of
Soviet propaganda makes for a poor listen. It starts promisingly enough, with
some of the earliest usage of tone clusters in twentieth century music, and some
typically skittish writing for smaller ensembles within the group. In the days
before Socialist Realism had raised its ugly head, we are able to hear in this
music the direction Shostakovich would have taken but for political
interference. The choral finale that occupies most of the second half of the
work is, however, an abomination. Beginning with a factory whistle summoning
the workers, there follows a clumsily scored hymn in praise of Lenin with the
final line 'This is the slogan and this is the name of living generations:
October, the Commune and Lenin', being shouted by the choir at the end. Subtle
it ain't.
Day 299
26 October 2017:
Schoenberg – Chamber Symphony No. 2 (1939)
I haven't been keeping
count, but Arnold Schoenberg might take the record for the longest time to
complete a symphony that I've featured this year. Brahms took over 20 years to
produce his first symphony, Rimsky Korsakov finished revising his first 25
years after beginning it, and Balakirev and Kodaly took around 30 years to
complete their first contributions to the symphonic repertoire. In taking fully
33 years to realise the final version of this symphony, Schoenberg may take
some beating. To be fair to all the aforementioned, none of them spent every day
working on their troublesome work, and all produced other compositions in the
meantime. Nevertheless, the importance of the symphony as a public statement
can be gleaned from such procrastination.
What makes this of
particular interest is the sea-change that happened in Schoenberg's style
between this work's start date of 1906 and its completion in 1939. At the
outset, the composer was pushing the fringes of tonality within a Late-Romantic
idiom. In the intervening years, he effectively invented serialism, abolishing
tonality in favour of 12-tone technique. By the time Schoenberg revisited Chamber Symphony No. 2, he had emigrated
to America following the rise of the Third Reich, and had started to allow
tonality back into his music after three decades of hardcore serialism. The
result is extraordinary; a piece that hankers back to the Romanticism of his Verklärte Nacht, but is imbued with the
atonality that permeates his subsequent work.
Day 300
27 October 2017:
Rautavaara – Symphony No 7: Angel of Light (1994)
I would have included
more symphonies by Einojuhani Rautavaara this year, but recordings of some of
them are quite hard to obtain. Hence, I've had to make the jump from number
three (see Day 119) to number seven with a degree of reluctance. This really is
a thing of beauty though, and thankfully there are some very fine recordings
out there, including a Grammy-nominated one by the Helsinki Philharmonic
Orchestra under Leif Segerstam. It has rapidly become a favourite of mine, and
is a worthy way to bring up the triple century in my Symphony a Day journey.
The apparently
free-moving music is actually drawn from a theme that has its roots in the
commission that gave the work its original name The Bloomington Symphony. It was commissioned by the Bloomington
Symphony Orchestra, and Rautavaara extracted the letters of the orchestra's
name that can be notated musically, B–G–S–H–C–H–E–S–A (German notation for B
flat–G–E flat–B–C–B–E–E flat–A). These notes initially appear in fragmentary
form on glockenspiel and vibraphone, before emerging in full played by the
brass section. His ability to take such unpromising material and turn it into
deeply spiritual music is what marks Rautavaara out as one of the great
composers of his generation and the overwhelming beauty of sections of this
work is instantly appealing.
Day 301
28 October 2017: Parry
– Symphony No. 5, 'Symphonic Fantasia 1912' (1912)
This is quite
magnificent. Hubert Parry wrote five very fine symphonies, all studiously
ignored by the orchestras of this great nation, but the neglect of this work is
particularly shameful, given that it is the best of the lot, in my humble
opinion. Yes, it followed hot on the heels of Elgar's second and probably
seemed a bit lightweight in comparison, but it is still a considerable work of
high merit. At around 27 minutes, it is comfortably his shortest symphony, but
its terse, interconnected structure with four linked movements represents
Parry's most mature orchestral work.
Parry had been in ill
health when he composed this work, something which had caused him to resign as
Professor of Music at Oxford. Ironically, this freed up more of his time for
composition and the fifth symphony was one of a batch of late works that represent
the best of his output. He also wrote a book, Instinct and Character, which was rejected by his publishers and to
the best of my knowledge remains unpublished. The book was an expression of his
ethical views, and these lent themselves to the individual movement's titles – Stress, Love, Play, and Now. The second movement, Love, contains one of the most
wonderful melodies Parry ever wrote, and as such is the glowing heart of a work
that oozes class and style.
Day 302
29 October 2017:
Malipiero – Symphony No. 10, 'Atropo' (1967)
Italian composer Gian
Francesco Malipiero was something of a late-flowerer of a composer. He was born
in 1882, the same year as Stravinsky, Szymanowski, and Kodály, and yet he feels
like a more modern composer than any of those, primarily because most of output
was written in his later years. This symphony, for example was the tenth of
eleven to which he gave numbers, all of which were written after he'd turned
50, as too were three other works he called symphonies – Sinfonia in un tempo, Sinfonia
dello Zodiaco, and Sinfonia per
Antigenida. Stylistically, his music is an interesting mix of contemporary
techniques inflected by a strong influence of pre-19th-century music from his
homeland.
This short symphony,
with a running time of around 13 minutes in the only recording that I'm aware
of, is dedicated to the German conductor Hermann Scherchen, who was a champion
of his music. The name ‘Atropo’ comes from the ancient Greek goddess who ended
the life of mortals by cutting their thread. It's a very fine symphony, and a
poignant tribute. The opening woodwind theme is almost certainly a quoted
melody from early music, although I can't identify it. This is heard over a
ground bass, but the mood soon changes as the music moves into the angular
contrapuntalism that readily identifies his style. A lovely but all-too-short
Tranquillo slow movement again opens with a delicate theme – for strings this
time – over a ground bass. The closing moments of the finale are especially
pleasing with the woodwinds intoning in a madrigal style against a backdrop of
unsettling harp and celesta accompaniment, before low brass chords add a
suitable full stop.
