Day 282
9 October 2017:
Khachaturian – Symphony No 3, 'Symphony-Poem' (1947)
Well this is a quite
extraordinary work. Armenian-born composer Aram Khachaturian operated when the
land of his birth was part of the Soviet Union, but there's is no doubt that
coming from a country on the Europe – Asian border, he was somewhat detached from
the European symphonic tradition. It's a single-movement work of around 25
minutes' length, bearing little resemblance to any other work can think of from
the time, or since for that matter. It was written to mark the 30th anniversary
of the Russian Revolution, but its uncompromising nature led to it almost
immediately being banned as 'formalist' in the Soviet Union: one of many works
to fall foul of the Zhdanov Doctrine of 1948.
Of the many things
that make this symphony stand out from the crowd, it’s the orchestration – with
a scoring that calls for 15 trumpets and an organ – that is most bizarre. It
opens with a lengthy fanfare featuring the trumpets in all their glory, which
then gives way to an organ voluntary of dazzling brilliance. Name another work
that opens like that. These two instrumental blocks continue to have an ongoing
dialogue in an astonishing opening section where the mood never dips below
intense. Finally, about seven minutes in, a moment of calm descends for a
strings-led central section that features Eastern-inflected folk melodies for
which Khachaturian is famous. The opening music returns in the final section,
more agitated than before and with everything turned up to eleven. Quite what
it has to do with the Russian Revolution I know not, but it's a mightily
powerful work that I'd love to hear more often.
Day 283
10 October 2017:
Gloria Coates – Symphony No. 2, 'Illuminatio in tenebris' (1974)
As today is her 79th
birthday, I'm happy to have another excuse to feature a symphony by the
wonderful Gloria Coates. I have rather messed up the chronology in my
selections to date, having gone first with her fourth symphony back in March
(see Day 67), and then her first in July (see Day 184). Then again, this was
originally composed in 1974, but subsequently revised in 1988, between the composition
of her sixth and seventh symphonies, so ordering it is a little bit
troublesome. The Latin subtitle translates as 'light in the dark', with all
three movement based on natural examples of light emerging from darkness: Aurora Borealis, Aurora Australis, and Dawn.
Her trademark string
glissandi feature prominently throughout, especially so in the central movement
Aurora Australis where the opening
high note in the violins steadily descends in an apparently continuous
glissando through the orchestra over about two minutes. The symphony also
carries a second subtitle of Music in
Abstract Lines, which may be a reference to the glissando markings in the
score, usually notated as a line between two notes. The overall effect is
unsettling but with moments of clarity emerging from the mists created by the
unstable pitches throughout. About as clear a depiction of light in the dark,
therefore, as one could imagine.
Day 284
11 October 2017:
Mozart – Symphony no. 38, 'Prague' (1786)
Skipping over Symphony No. 37, for the entirely
justifiable reason that he didn't actually write it, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's
38th Symphony has no such question mark over its authorship. It was Mozart's
first symphony for three years – quite a sabbatical by his standards – having
been concerned more with operas and piano concertos in the meantime. It was his
opera The Marriage of Figaro that led
to this symphony being first performed in Prague, and hence its nickname.
Mozart had written Figaro earlier in
the year, but the Vienna audience were bemused by it and it closed after just
nine performances. The punters in Prague, however, lapped it up, and as a
direct consequence Mozart was invited to perform in the city, with this
symphony receiving its premiere there on 19 January 1787
He rewarded his
adoring public in Prague with one of his finest works. It is an unconventional
symphony, comprising just three movements instead of the more usual four. The
first movement, however, is on a much grander scale than anything written
before, running to almost 15 minutes in length. The slow introduction of which
Mozart was fond at the time, is far longer than any of his other, admittedly
few, examples and sets the tone for a
stream of melodic consciousness that develops along broadly sonata form lines.
The exquisitely elegant slow movement almost matches the first in scale, while
the exhilarating finale shows the influence of the recently composed Marriage of Figaro, with an opening
theme that is taken from a duet between Susanna and Cherubino in Act II of the
opera.
Day 285
12 October 2017:
Panufnik – Sinfonia della Speranza (1987)
I discovered Andrzej
Panufnik in 1989, when his Sinfonia Sacra
(see Day 77) was performed at that year's Proms and instantly became one of my
all-time favourite pieces of music. Although I remain a huge fan of Panufnik, I
will concede that nothing really comes close to the Sacra in his symphonic output and it does rather dominate his other
nine. If there is a candidate to take on the mighty Sinfonia Sacra in my affections, it is this work, the Sinfonia della Speranza (Symphony of
Hope).
It was Panufnik's ninth
symphony, and was commissioned by The Royal Philharmonic Society for their
175th anniversary. He found this already daunting prospect exacerbated when it
was pointed out that the Society had also commissioned Beethoven’s ninth. After
shying away from the choral symphony he initially conceived, Panufnik instead
marked the occasion with this his longest and most ambitious symphony. He set
himself the ‘formidable task of composing a continuous melodic line of about
forty minutes’ duration’. As with many of his later works, a three-note cell is
the starting point, and it acts as a prism creating, in Panufnik’s words, ‘a
spectrum of colours … and shaping the melodic line’. The symphony's arching,
rainbow structure and continuous melodic thread, give the piece a greater
formal unity than any of his other large-scale works, and the return of the
opening theme at the end is tremendously satisfying moment.
Day 286
13 October 2017:
Vierne – Symphony No. 1 for organ in D minor (1899)
Louis Vierne is
probably the lesser-known of the two giants of the organ symphony. Continuing
the tradition of his mentor, Charles-Marie Widor, whose Symphony No. 5 (the one
with the famous Toccata) I featured
in January (see Day 11), Vierne wrote six organ symphonies of his own, of which
this is arguably the best-known. Although following in his master's footsteps,
I find that Vierne had a far greater gift for melody than Widor and I have to
say I rather prefer this symphony to any of the ten Widor produced.
Cast, unusually, in
six movements, its pleasing structure comprises an opening Prélude and Fugue, a calm
Pastorale and Andante sitting either side of a spritely Allegro vivace, before the symphony closes with his greatest seven
minutes of music: the mighty Final,
which is every bit the equal of Widor's Toccata.
Vierne thought highly enough of this movement to subsequently take it in
isolation and arrange it for organ and orchestra in 1926. Incidentally,
Vierne's death is worthy of comment, falling into the Tommy Cooper category of
dying doing what he loved best. He apparently suffered a heart attack during a
recital at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, where he had been principal organist
for 37 years, playing his own Triptyque,
with the composer Maurice Duruflé sitting beside him at the console. No doubt
the way he would have chosen to go.
Day 287
14 October 2017: Brian
– Symphony No. 32 (1968)
Having featured
Havergal Brian's name-making first symphony, The Gothic, earlier in the year (see Day 50), we now fast forward
fully forty years to his last contribution to the symphonic canon. The
combination of Brian having lived so long and having produced so many
symphonies, it's easy to forget that he was actually fifty when he completed
his first symphony – demonstrating just how prolific he was in later life. The
excesses of that earlier work had long been abandoned though by the time he had
reached his dotage, with this 20-minute work being rather more typical of the
conciseness he later adopted.
This was not just his
final symphony, but the final work he ever completed in a life and prodigious
life. Written, incredibly, when he was 92 years old. It is, if truth be told,
not his greatest symphony, but the fact that he still had something as eloquent
as this to say two years into his tenth decade is absolutely astonishing.
Havergal Brian was a master of counterpoint and that dominates the writing in
the first movement, which has the feeling of a Bach invention in its constantly
moving and interweaving parts. It gradually diminishes as the movement goes on,
eventually dissolving away to leave just a solo violin before gathering itself
again as the movement closes. The Adagio
second movement, actually just sounds like a continuation of the first
movement, and it's probably the absence of pathos from this movement that gives
the symphony an overall feel of sameness. It is, however, the only symphony
written by a nonagenarian I'm featuring this year and that makes it noteworthy
in itself.
Day 288
15 October 2017:
Mahler – Das Lied Von Der Erde (1909)
'But surely this is a
song cycle?' I hear you cry, with some justification. Well yes, but Gustav
Mahler subtitled this composition Eine
Symphonie für eine Tenor- und eine Alt- (oder Bariton-) Stimme und Orchester,
and as I'm sure you're all aware by now my rule is that if the composer chooses
to call it a symphony, then it is one. This is widely regarded as Mahler's
attempt to cheat the 'Curse of the Ninth', which decreed that no major composer
since Beethoven would go on to complete a tenth. It's something of fallacious superstition,
given that of the most famous examples, Schubert left two symphonies
unfinished, Dvorak had lost symphonies published after his death, while
Bruckner and Spohr wrote additional unnumbered symphonies. Nevertheless, Mahler
took the curse seriously, and chose not to number this as his ninth. He would,
of course, go on to complete a Symphony
No. 9, and die leaving his tenth incomplete!
If we accept that is a
symphony, and not a song cycle, then it is oddly imbalanced one. There are six
movements, but the work is dominated by the sixth – Der Abschied – which occupies nearly half of the symphony's overall
length. It's a lovely piece, usually performed by an alto although it can be
performed by a baritone, and over its near-thirty-minute duration it dwells
upon the theme of leave-taking culminating in the final word 'ewig' (forever) repeated as the music
fades away to emptiness. Up to that point, the preceding movements lend
themselves more to the song-cycle interpretation of the composition. Each is a
relatively straightforward setting of a different poems of Chinese origin,
ranging from a raucous drinking song to a soft and gentle mediation on beauty.
Bernstein considered this Mahler's greatest symphony, and although I can't
concur, I do find it a less demanding listen than some of his work.