Bernstein: Symphony no 1

Day 120 

Bernstein: Symphony no 1 Jeremiah

New York Philharmonic Orchestra

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein was an extraordinary musician. In the right repertoire he was a superb conductor (I greatly enjoy for example his recordings of the Haydn Paris Symphonies) and he was one of the great musical educators. I think that his book  The Unanswered Question , based on lectures given at Harvard is full of real insights- though it would certainly not have been wise to admit admiration for this book at University where Schenkerian analysis reigned supreme.  But ultimately it will be as a composer that he will be remembered. West Side Story is wonderful but to me his best work for the musical theatre was Candide. I had the original cast recording at school and it was one of the records I played over and over again.

I don't know much of his 'serious' music and this symphony was new to me. It is a rather curious piece in that there is a solo voice in the third movement - I had not studied the work in advance and didn't have a score and so it was a big surprise when the voice came in. I found much to enjoy throughout the work but the highlight was the middle movement - a jazzy scherzo full of cross rhythms and syncopations. I suspect that it must have been quite a challenge for the orchestra in the first performance in 1942, conducted by the young composer aged only 22. Bernstein's later music has a reputation of being self indulgent, I don't know how true that is, but this was anything but. You can see in this early work just what a prodigious talent he had.

Rorem: Symphony no 2

Day 119

Rorem: Symphony no 2

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra 

José Serebrier

I know Ned Rorem only though his songs, particularly a lovely recital disc by Susan Graham. I don’t think that that I have heard anything else he wrote. This second symphony dates from 1956 and after a few performances was more or less forgotten until it was revived for this recording.

Like yesterday’s symphony by Barber I found this unmemorable - indeed I would describe it is almost inconsequential - there seems to be an awful lot of what seemed little more than tinkering about. The structure is curious. A longish slow first movement with a scherzando middle section, then a very short slow movement which hardly seemed to get going and a rhythmical quite interesting finale which however  seems quite quickly to turn to mere note spinning.  The language can best be described as ‘sub Copland’ and my overall impression is why would you want to listen to this when you can listen to the real thing. So I am sure that I will go back to the Rorem songs, but I have no inclination to try more of his orchestral music.

Barber: Symphony no 1

Day 118

Barber: Symphony no 1

Royal National Scottish Orchestra

Marin Alsop

There is of course more to Barber than the Adagio for strings, but that remains his by far his most famous work. I don’t know much of his music - I have heard the violin and piano concerto and the dances from Medea but that is about it. This symphony, which dates from 1935-37 is in a single movement with interlinked sections using variants of the same melodic shapes. The language is tonal and to me was reminiscent of Hindemith and Vaughan Williams with a dash of Copland. The opening was certainly evocative of the ‘wide open spaces’ so characteristic of American music of this ear.

To be frank I found the music attractive but un memorable. As I write this, some hours after hearing the piece I am struggling to remember anything much of it. That rather sums it up for me. I certainly didn’t dislike the piece but equally I didn’t find anything here to suggest that I should listen to another Barber symphony. After all there are plenty of other American symphonic composers to explore.

Beach: Gaelic Symphony

Day 117

Beach: Gaelic Symphony

Nashville Symphony Orchestra

Kenneth Schermerhorn

I haven’s heard any of Amy Beach’s work before. She was a largely self-taught American composer, born in 1867 and living through to 1944.  It is said that this was the first symphony by an American woman to be performed and published. Its subtitle the Gaelic Symphony led me to expect something rather fey and whimsical but in fact this a strong, forceful work with some impressive orchestral writing. It is written in a fairly traditional late 19th century romantic idiom - I detected some signs of César Franck and Brahms but the main influence is clearly Dvořák - a reminder of the enormous impact his music had in the USA. At one point the orchestral writing even suggested Bruckner, although I suspect that Beach can have had only minimal exposure to his work.

There are some folk elements in the melodies and to me there were the less successful parts of the work. Beach doesn’t quite have the gift to make simple melodies memorable - hers to seem to start well and then rather get nowhere. But overall it was a good piece and I am glad to have made its acquaintance. I played a symphony by Florence Price last year and there are some distinct similarities in idiom though the Price was very old fashioned by the time that it was written in 1933.

Glazunov: String quartet no 4

Day 116

Glazunov: String quartet no 4

Utrecht string quartet

This is the last in this small series of chamber music from the post-Tchaikovsky generation of Russian composers.  Glazunov is a composer that I have a little experience of. I conducted his saxophone concerto a few years ago and I recall hearing the violin concerto, but other than perhaps the odd ballet extract I don't think I have heard anything more.

I chose this quartet at random from the seven he wrote: I don't know if I was particularly lucky but I thought that this was an absolutely delightful piece. By some distance it was the most enjoyable of all of the Russian quartets I have been listening to in this sequence.  The music flowed naturally and Glazunov was in complete control of his material. All of the movements were highly attractive but perhaps the highlight was the sherzo-like third movement which had a Mendelssonian lightness of touch and an irresistible charm.

The harmonic language is relative conservative for a piece written in 1894 - there's nothing much here that Schumann couldn't have written - but from a distance now of over 130 years that hardly matters. Quality is what counts and this quartet has it in abundance.

So my exploration of Russian chamber music comes to a halt, at least for now. Next I will be listening to some American symphonies.

Taneyev: String quartet no 5

Day 115

Taneyev: String quartet no 5 op 13

Carpe Diem String Quartet

Taneyev is another of those composers from the generation between Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. He was a close associate of Tchaikovsky (he played the solo part in the first performance of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto in Moscow) but was also a merciless critic and had no hesitation in pointing out what he considered to be defects in Tchaikovsky’s music. He was a noted teacher, with Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Glière among his pupils. He also published an exhaustive 2-volume study of renaissance and baroque counterpoint.  I knew the name but I don’t recall consciously listening to any of his music before.

He completed 9 string quartets and left two more unfinished. I chose this one at random. It is a curious work. It has much of the spirit of Haydn - indeed if you ignore the harmony much of it looks like Haydn on the page - the second subject of the first movement and the very end are two good examples of this. But harmonically I found it quite hard to follow. Some of it was straightforwardly tonal in a way that would have been familiar to Tchaikovsky or Brahms but in other places the harmony veered off in strange directions. It was never overtly dissonant let alone atonal, but it did seem directionless and ultimately quite disconcerting - the slow movement especially seemed to wander along getting nowhere. 

The scherzo worked best I think, Here the feeling of Haydn was at its strongest - indeed if the first 20 or so bars have been dropped into a late Haydn quartet I don’t think anybody would have noticed. And later in the movement we got some hints of Taneyev’s skill at counterpoint.  

So overall not a particularly satisfying experience - there was clearly a strong musical mind at work here but somehow it didn’t all jell together.  Perhaps my random choice was unfortunate but it didn’t make me want to listen to more Taneyev straight away.

Arensky: String quartet no 2

Day 114

Arensky: String quartet no 2

Spectrum concerts Berlin

Arensky is of the generation between Tchaikovsky/The Five and Stravinsky’s. This is a period in Russian musical history that I know little about - in fact I don’t think that I have heard anything by Arensky before.  This quartet is an interesting piece. First of all it is for the unusual combination of one violin, one viola and two cellos. I am not aware of any other piece using these four instruments. It does give the piece a darker hue in places although it also means that the viola part is often very high in order to give more emphasis in the treble register. I had assumed that at some point Arensky would use the two cellos together in a lyrical duet in the matter of the Schubert Quintet but that point never arrived. Indeed Arensky later restored the piece for a conventional string quartet so clearly the two cellos were not absolutely fundamental to the piece.

The other interesting feature is the use of traditional Russian melodies. It opens with a funeral chant and ends with the same folk song that is used in Beethoven’s 2nd Rasumovsky quartet and Boris Godunov. The middle movement is a set of variations on a theme of Tchaikovsky, which is sometimes performed separately as a piece for string orchestra.. Arensky was a great, if critical, admire of Tchaikovsky and taken together this features are thought to be a tribute to Tchaikovsky as the Tsar of music.

The music is lyrical and full of contrast. I enjoyed it immensely though I did wonder whether the structure worked fully. The last movement seems quite brief after the long set of variations and seems to finish almost before it has started. But that is a small shortcoming. I look forward to hearing more of his music and indeed that of his contemporaries.