Van Dieren: Chinese Symphony

Day 280

Bernard Van Dieren: Chinese Symphony

Soloists

BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales

William Boughton

Bernard Van Dieren (1887-1936) was Dutch composer but he spend his adult life in England. Like a number of his contemporaries (some of whom, such as Hollbrooke) have featured in this project, he was an eccentric who sat well outside the musical establishment and who attracted a small band of devoted followers who funded who work.

This Chinese symphony dates from 1914, though it was not performed until 1936, just before the composer’s death. It is a large scale work for large orchestra, 5 soloists and choirs, although the choir has comparatively little to do.  It is very much an orchestral piece. 

I thought it was awful! It was shapeless and flabby with no sense of rhythmic pulse or direction. The vocal writing is completely unidiomatic and at times very awkward. The general musical style is somewhere between Delius and Schoenberg and is best described as muddy and glutinous.

This is said by his admirers to be one of his finest works. I hate to imagine what the others must be like, but I am certainly not going to waste time finding out.

Pjiper: Symphony no 3

Day 279

Pjiper: Symphony no 3

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Eduard van Beinum

Here is another composer whose name is vaguely familiar but of whose music I knew nothing,  This time, however, I was very pleased to encounter one of his pieces. Pjiper was a Dutch composer (1894-1947) who earned his living as a music critic. This symphony, the last of his three, was composed in 1926 and is very much a work of its time. It starts in an almost off-hand way with a jazz-like strolling bass motive and is shot through with the rhythms of jazz. I thought that it would be a fairly light divertimento style piece but as it progressed it became more complex with some really dense textures involving, among other instruments a piano duet, saxophones and a mandolin. Towards the end it seemed to me to however between the worlds of Bernstein and Ives, though of course Bernstein was still a child when this was written and I doubt very much whether Pjiper had ever head a note of Ives. Altogether this was a fascinating piece which had a weight which belies its short (15 mins or so) duration. Pjiper is certainly on my list for further listening once this project has been completed.

Khrennikov: Symphony no 3

Day 278

Tikhon Khrennikov: Symphony no 3

USSR State Symphony Orchestra

Evgeny Svetlanov

Khrennikov is notorious as the hatchet man of the Soviet musical establishment who from 1948-1991 was the secretary of the the union of Soviet composers. He was a Stalinist and is quoted as saying ‘Stalin knew music better than any of us’ .He denounced formalism in music and attacked any avant garde tendencies.  

I expected that his music would be competent and facile bearing all of the hall marks of socialist realism. I was not mistaken. He clearly had some talent and the slow movement has a certain melodic charm but much of the rest of the score of this (mercifully quite short) symphony is nothing but a music poster painted in garish colours. Superficially some of the music seems to belong to the same world as that of Shostakovich, particularly in the fast scherzo-like moments but Shostakovich has irony, humour and a sense of danger whereas this music has none of that - it is like a sanitised version for younger listeners. Some of it really was pretty awful.

I’m glad I heard this, if only to confirm my prejudices. There are some who take a revisionist view of the composer and say that in fact he did a lot to support the development of music in Soviet Russia and protect a number of musicians from persecution. Whatever the truth he will, on the evidence quite deservedly, be remembered for his iron grip on musical bureaucracy in Russia rather than as a composer.

Myaskovsky: Symphony no 16

Day 277

Myaskovsky: Symphony no 16

USSR Symphony Orchestra

Evgeny Svetlanov 

I was aware of the name Myaskovsky as the author of a large number of symphonies (there are 23 in all) but I was not aware of having heard any of his music. I picked this symphony at random. It was written in 1935-6 and has the nickname the Aviation Symphony as it is supposed to be connected in some way with an air crash that had happened recently in Moscow. The funeral march (3rd movement) is said to be written in commemoration of the victims, thought there is apparently little evidence that this is in fact the case.

If yesterday's music by Schreker took me by surprise this symphony was very much as I expected it to be. Bombastic at times with some lyrical material but with nothing too challenging for a work of the 1930s. It occupies a place somewhere between Glazunov and Prokofiev but without the latter composer's astringency.  The middle movements impressed me more than the outer movements, which did seem to be in the accepted 'painting by number' Soviet style. The second movement was an attractive scherzo - though the trio was rather trite and the funeral march third movement did have a real weight to it. But at the moment I can't see myself rushing out to buy the CD set of all of the Myaskovsky symphonies. I suspect that it would be as case of hunting through acres of the routine to find moments of real inspiration.

Schreker: Chamber Symphony

Day 276

Schreker: Chamber Symphony for 23 players

Gateway Chamber Orchestra

Gregory Wolynec

This came as something of a surprise. I was vaguely aware of Schreker, having heard some of his orchestral preludes, but I’d never made any sort of study of his music. So I was expecting heavyweight post-romantic angst but instead this was rather a charming lightweight piece. Indeed at the start I was not sure that I had actually got the right piece, The opening sounded French to me, with some very filigree passage-work suing celesta harp and flute. The whole work was quite delightful with some beautiful quieter sections and some energetic material either side.

Schreker is obviously a composer of greater variety than I had imagined. I am keen to hear some more of his work.

Bush: Symphony no 2

Day 275

Geoffrey Bush: Symphony no 2 Guildford

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Barry Wordsworth

Geoffrey Bush was an English composer whose dates are 1920 -1998. He was involved in musical education all his life and composed a reasonably substantial body of work, including 2 symphonies of which this is the second, written in commemoration of the 700th anniversary of the City of Guildford in 1957.

I do have a slight personal connection. The first piece of ‘modern’ music I ever played was Bush’s 1967 Music For Orchestra which was still a very new piece when I played it at a youth orchestra course in about 1972. I remember receiving the music in advance and being surprised, and perhaps a bit alarmed, by the constant changes of time signature and seeing for the first time composite time signatures such as 4/4+3/8. The opening must have stayed in my sub conscience because when I heard it again recently (it is on the same CD as this symphony) I immediately remembered it and it brought back memories of rehearsals and the performance - I don’t think that the assembled parents knew quite what to make of it, though in reality is was pretty mild compared to a lot of the music which was being written at the time. Geoffrey Bush came to at least one of the rehearsals and talked to us a little. Strange what you remember - I can’t recall much about what he said - other than he had disguised a musical neumonic of a place name somewhere in the score - but I do remember the cap he wore which gave him the look of a railway man!

This second symphony is an a slightly more relaxed style - I suspect that he didn’t want to upset the audience of the great and good of the city too much. I would say that stylistically is occupies a place somewhere between Walton and Malcolm Arnold. It is in that ‘bright and breezy’ style so characteristic of English composers in the middle of the 20th century.  I enjoyed listening to is but I can’t say that it made a big impression on me. It was to be honest nicely put together but rather anonymous. Still it is pleasant to think of my links to him and the opportunities I had in my youth orchestra days to explore interesting repertory.

Simpson: Symphony no 7

Day 274

Robert Simpson: Symphony no 7

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Vernon Handley

I was aware of Robert Simpson as an author and broadcaster but although I knew that he composed I don’t think that I have heard any of his music before. He wrote 11 symphonies (plus several earlier ones which he destroyed). This 7th symphony dates from 1977 and is dedicated to Hans Keller, a long-time colleague of his at the BBC.

Simpson wrote books on, among others, Nielsen, Sibelius and Bruckner and his music is steeped in the ethos of their work, with its emphasis on long-term symphonic growth and intense motivic development. This symphony is in a single movement in an arch structure with two faster sections surrounding a slower middle section. That middle section to me was the high point of the work. It was beautifully expressive with long lines and intense expression. But the whole symphony was a very rewarding piece to listen to. There was nothing in the least flashy or showy about the music - just a seriousness of purpose and a sense of inexorable progress to the final pages. I am certainly keen to hear more of Simpson’s music at some point in the future.