Music: Catching Up

I have been having some fun catching up on recent releases of works by composers previously covered here, as well as a few new surprises.

Roy Harris’s music, long neglected after great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, is slowly making a comeback. Credited with writing the great American symphony, his Third, Harris (1893-1960) suffered from the reputation of being a one-work composer. It is still a scandal that all of his 15 symphonies have not been recorded, though more are now available than ever before. The magnificent No. 6, Gettysburg, alone gives the lie to the one-work bum rap (get the great recording on Albany 64). I also love Harris’s Violin Concerto, but I knew nothing about his highly original Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra and have never heard of the Kleos Classics label that has just released it, along with two works in the same genre by Arthur Benjamin and Pierre Max Dubois. The latter two works are fun and entertaining, but the Harris work is a major piece filled with his signature sense of longing, openness, and a kind of prairie majesty. This rambunctious, exhilarating work was not performed until more than a half-century after its 1946 composition. Harris fans will be grateful to pianists Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, under Kirk Trevor, for opening this particular window on one of our great composers.

The Hyperion label has brought to a close its magnificent traversal of British composer Robert Simpson’s eleven symphonies with its issue of the Symphony No. 11, coupled with the Variations on a Theme by Nielsen. The symphonies can sometimes be intimidating in their vast reach and intergalactic distance from human concerns. Not so the Eleventh. In it, the stars seem somehow nearer and observed with a kind of spiritual calmness. In contrast to his tightly wound, hugely eruptive earlier symphonies, this work is almost ruminative. I recommend it as one of his more approachable pieces. Of course, Carl Nielsen’s influence permeates Simpson’s work, so it is especially fascinating to hear what he does with one of Nielsen’s themes in a set of variations that display everything from humor (not a frequent element in Simpson’s work), drama, and his characteristic skill at contrapuntal writing and the projection of orchestral power. It is an excellent introduction to Simpson. The City of London Orchestra and conductor Matthew Taylor live up to the high standards of the Hyperion Simpson project.

I sang the praises of Portuguese composer Joly Braga Santos (1924-1988) when the Marco Polo label released a revelatory series of CDs featuring his six expansive symphonies (“The Listening is Easy,” July/August 2001). A new Marco Polo disc gives us a further look at his bifurcated style. The very beautiful Nocturno for Strings (1944) is a sweetly dolorous work, very much in the Vaughan Williams’s vein and just as fine as that master’s string works. The Sinfonietta No. 1 also leans in that direction but is one of Braga Santos’s few works infused with Portuguese folk music. It is counterpoised with the eerie Sinfonietta No. 2 and the Cello Concerto from his later period. All are beautifully delivered by the Algarve Orchestra under conductor Alvaro Cassuto.

The budget Naxos label continues to deliver pleasant surprises with the release of Spanish composer Julian Orbon’s Symphonic Dances, Concerto Grosso, and Three Symphonic Versions, with the Asturias Symphony Orchestra, under Maximiano Valdes. The jacket cover explains that Orbon (1925-1991), who spent much of his life in Cuba and Mexico, composed music that conjures up “vistas of Mexican coasts and Venezuelan plains.” Without having read that description when I first listened to the music, I thought the geographic locale was further north in the big, open spaces of the American West. Orbon studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, and Copland’s influence is very discernable in the sound that Orbon achieves. Parts of this enlivening musical romp could also have come out of Elmer Bernstein’s magnificent score for The Big Country. Orbon’s music is rhythmically charged, colorfully orchestrated, and melodically rich. This is a real find.

One dyspeptic colleague dismissed the music on this Naxos release of Giovanni Paisiello’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 4, along with two opera overtures, as superficial and predictable. Yes, Paisiello is predictably delightful. My axiom is: “If it was good enough for Mozart, it is good enough for me.” And Mozart was a fan of this man’s gorgeous, lilting melodies. Can you listen to the largo of No. 4 and not melt? These concertos were written for the aristocracy to play and are therefore not terribly complicated. The sound is a little tubby in the orchestral tutti of the Collegium Philarmonicum Chamber Orchestra, under Gennaro Cappabianca, but pianist Francesco Nicolosi plays beautifully.

Dutch composer Johannes Verhulst’s magnificent Mass was a revelation from the Chandos label, which has now brought us Verhulst’s only symphony, along with three overtures. The Symphony in E minor is not quite comparable in its stature to the Mass but is nevertheless a joy. It shows the palpable influence of Beethoven and, especially, Ludwig Spohr (Beethoven’s chief rival) in its first movement and is particularly taken with Mendelssohn in its third. This is hardly a surprise since Mendelssohn was Verhulst’s teacher. What I cannot account for are the striking premonitions in the same movement of the brilliant symphonies of Franz Berwald, whose first work was to appear a year after this symphony premiered in 1841. Even if these influences are not fully digested into a unique “Verhulst” style, Matthias Bamert and the Residentie Orchestra The Hague give this work a performance that helps explain its long-standing popularity in the Netherlands.

Having been completely taken with Naxos’s issue of Joseph Jongen’s chamber music with flute, I was delighted to discover the mid-price Pavane Records release of his Quartets Nos. 1 and 2, ravishingly played by the Quatuor Gong. Last month, I rhapsodized about Frank Bridge’s Sextet. Here are works of comparable beauty, written around the same time (1894 and 1916). Jongen (18371953), a Belgian composer, fell under the spell of Paris in the form first of Faure (Quartet No. 1) and then Debussy and Ravel (Quartet No. 2). If you are at all susceptible to the glories of French impressionism, you will be entranced by these highly imaginative, accomplished works.

French impressionism is alive and well in America today in the chamber music of Daniel Godfrey (b. 1949). His String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3, along with the Romanza (from String Quartet No. 1), have real sensual warmth, with a touch of the sensibility of Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night and of the ardent spiritual yearning of Peteris Vasks. These very touching works are completely tonal and basically pick up from the point where music was derailed some four-score years ago. Like most composers his age, Godfrey was raised with twelve-tone music and dabbled in Webern. I would love to learn the story of his embrace of tonality, which is so complete and convincing that it sounds completely unselfconscious. It is remarkable that music like this is being written, recorded, and widely celebrated. The Cassatt String Quartet give deeply committed performances on this singular Koch Classics release.

News flash: In my December 2004 column, I praised to the skies Dominick Argento’s gorgeous vocal setting, Casa Guidi, on Reference Recordings. It has won the 2004 Grammy for “Best Classical Contemporary Composition,” proving, once again, that the Dark Ages are over.

Author

  • Robert R. Reilly

    Robert R. Reilly is the author of America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding, forthcoming from Ignatius Press.

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