Stretching the Symphony (CD Reviews)

By Karl W. Nehring

At least for me, the symphony is the pinnacle of orchestral music. Yes, there are wonderful tone poems, overtures, ballets, concertos, incidental music, and such, but by golly, the symphony is where it’s at. Although symphonies come in many shapes and sizes, most classical music fans tend to think of the typical symphony as having four movements: an opening movement set in sonata form; a brief, often lighthearted scherzo; a slow movement, more serious, reflective, perhaps even somber; and then a finale that ramps up the energy level and often builds to some sort of rousing finish. Throughout the piece, the listener feels as if she is being led along some more or less clearly defined tonal path, with perhaps some twist and turns but never a sense of being lost. The musical journey is comfortable, largely because it is so familiar. Four movements, clearly defined format, familiar sounds…

What we have here are two striking symphonies that stretch the usual form of the symphony, one by a very well-known composer and the other by a composer of whom many classical music fans have never heard. One is unusual in having five movements, the other is all in one movement. Both are large-scale, intense, emotionally demanding works that are the antithesis of hummable background music. Rest assured, however, that neither work employs extreme dissonance or other such sonic shenanigans to assault the senses. Yes, they are demanding works, but they both can be rewarding to the listener with the patience and ambition to give them a fair hearing.

Mahler: Symphony No. 10 (Performing version by Deryck Cooke). Osmo Vänskä, Minnesota Orchestra. BIS-2396 SACD.

It must be said at the outset that even to call this a recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 is in itself a bit of a stretch. Only the opening Adagio movement was actually completed by Mahler before his death in 1911, and several noted Mahler conductors such as Bernstein, Solti, Abravanel, and Haitink would perform only that movement, which, by the way, is a powerful musical statement fully capable making a powerful musical statement all by itself over its 20+ minutes. Since then, several composers have taken it upon themselves to “complete” the symphony, expanding upon the sketches that Mahler left behind. I have over the years listened to several of these versions and have come to two conclusions. First, more often than not, I am content to listen to the first movement Adagio on its own, the movement that was completed by Mahler himself and is left by and large largely untouched throughout the various performing editions of the work by various composers and conductors. Second, of the various versions out there, my preferred version is the one employed on this recording, that by the late Mahler scholar Deryck Cooke (1919-1976). As the liner notes point put, “Cooke repeatedly insisted that his meticulously produced edition (used for the present recording) was not a ‘completion’ of the symphony (something which only Mahler would ever have been able to accomplish), but rather a functional presentation of the materials as Mahler left them, rendered performable in the full knowledge that Mahler would likely have made many revisions to the score on the way to its ultimate completion.”

In the past, I have enjoyed some fine recordings of Cooke’s completion, including an older and now largely forgotten but nonetheless excellent version by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eliahu Inbal conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and more recently, Thomas Dausgaard with the Seattle Symphony. And now we have this fine new version by the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of Osmo Vänskä, whose previous BIS recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 was highly regarded in Classical Candor by both JJP and me. Like that previous recording, this new release is both splendidly played and splendidly recorded (I listened to the CD and two-channel SACD layers; there is also a 5.0 surround layer). Vänskä tends towards slower tempos and less exuberant peaks of volume in some of the big climaxes; the net result is an impression of great transparency, but at times, especially in the opening Adagio, I found myself missing the sense of urgency that conductors such as Chailly, Bernstein, and Dausgaard have elicited from the score. Nevertheless, for the work as a whole, this new BIS release is as fine a version as you will find on the market. It is probably the best recommendation possible for those listeners who are coming to this work for the first time, for it presents what is arguably the most responsible representation of Mahler’s unfinished score in an interpretation and performance that brings out every phrase without exaggeration or editorializing, all presented in state-of-the-art-sound by the BIS recording team.

Christopher Tyler Nickel: Symphony No. 2. Clyde Mitchell, Northwest Sinfonia. AVIE AV2456.

My guess would be that most readers of this blog are unfamiliar with the music of Canadian compost Christopher Tyler Nickel (b. 1978). I will readily confess that I had never heard of neither composer Nickel, conductor Mitchell, nor the Northwest Sinfonia before reading the press release for this recording. From the booklet included with the CD we learn that Nickel has composed not just for the concert hall, but also for film and television (who knows, we may well have previously heard some of his music without even realizing it…). Mitchell has conducted orchestras throughout the world and is a frequent guest conductor at orchestras throughout Canada as well as being an active promoter of music education. The Northwest Sinfonia is a recording orchestra, a kind of “all-star” ensemble (along the lines of the English Sinfonia, which has made some fine recordings of recently reviewed in Classical Candor here and here) that draws together musicians from the Seattle, Vancouver, Oregon, San Francisco, and other orchestras as circumstances permit to record in the St. Thomas Chapel at Bastyr University in Kenmore, WA. The engineers have done an excellent job of recording the orchestra in this venue, the resulting sound quality being full-range, recorded a bit closer than we have begun being accustomed to in this age of so many live concert recordings, which this is not.

Having now listened to the Nickel Symphony No. 2 numerous times and having come to enjoy and appreciate it more and more with each listening, I hope I can persuade at least some of our good readers to likewise make their acquaintance with these talented folks though this compelling recording of an intensely focused and powerful 53-minute work. A line on the back cover of the CD case sums up the symphony as “a “vast, deep, emotionally demanding work.” and I would have to say that I pretty much agree with that assessment. In many ways I find it reminiscent of some of the brooding movements of Shostakovich, such as the opening movements of his Symphonies Nos. 8 and 10. That is not so much to say that Nickel sounds musically like some kind of clone of the Russian master, but rather that this work brings the listener into that same kind of, yes, vast and deeply involving emotional soundworld. With a total time a mere one second shy of 53 minutes, that single movement is marked “Grave - Andante - Grave - Mysterioso - Fatalistically - Grave.”  That might make it sound as though this is depressing music; however, that is not the case. Serious music, yes, but not depressing. There are motifs that recur throughout the work in various instrumental guises with varying levels of emphasis and emotional intensity. All sections of the orchestra get their chance to contribute, but the work sounds like an organic whole, all of one piece, rather than a parade of virtuoso exhibitions. Although it in a sense serves as a fine showcase for the orchestra, it in no sense sounds like a concerto for orchestra. In the end, listening to it is a rewarding experience, and although it is an intense experience, it can be an uplifting, energizing experience. A stretching experience, if you will.

KWN