Modern Energy III

For my third post on this theme, I've saved a large-scale modern work that is entirely driven by its rhythmic structure.  Indeed, the entire length of this 45-minute symphony is written around a single metic pulse.  If that sounds boring, though, prepare to be surprised.  The 9th Symphony of Robert Simpson is anything but that!

The one and only recording of the premiere performance (on Hyperion CD) comes with some valuable spoken and written notes by the composer.  So we have his authority from these notes that he planned the symphony from the outset around the single rhythmic pulse.

It's a large continuous structure, written for a conventional orchestra, which amply proves that there's more than enough room for new and different music using the standard instruments.  Simpson's work here is unique -- although one is sometimes reminded of this or that other composer, there is really nothing else in all of music like it (as far as I know).

The use of rhythm as the driving force of the score brings to mind the comparison with Beethoven, since so much of his music was written that way.  Simpson himself has cited Bruckner and Sibelius as key influences on him, and the sounds may reflect that, but the sheer titanic energy of this symphony is like no other music so much as the Beethoven of the Seventh and Ninth Symphonies.

Another way this symphony recalls Beethoven is the way the music builds up a huge structure beginning with a small rhythmic or melodic unit.  The first long section is constructed entirely from a melodic figure given out in the opening bars, and then developed at length.  As the music progresses, it gradually grows -- bigger, longer, louder, more emphatic -- until at a maximum point of tension it suddenly explodes into a powerful scherzo (without escaping that basic rhythmic pulse).  This scherzo too builds to a strong climax before gradually evaporating and paving the way for the symphony's final part.

The last section begins with a long, meandering melody in high violins which is treated as a fugue subject.  Like the opening, this gradually builds up in complexity until it triggers a rhythmic climax of power and terror that can only be compared -- distantly if at all -- to the extraordinary climaxes of Bruckner's 9th Symphony.  A pounding rhythmic figure drops down a fifth, leaving a sustained note behind.  This process is repeated until all 12 notes of the octave are sounding simultaneously and the resulting discord is repeated while the timpani hammer out the omnipresent rhythm.

Finally it fades into quiet.  The concluding 5 minutes are a series of gently rising scale figures whose quietness soothes after the violence of that enormous climax, and the work ends quietly on a chord which sounds like nothing so much as a question mark.

I bought this recording after reading the review it got in the Penguin Guide, the bible of recorded music collectors.  It gripped me right from the first hearing, but I've given it a lot of playing since then -- and learned more about it on every occasion.  It also led me to try some of Simpson's other symphonies, but none of them (for me) have the sheer grip of the Ninth.  If you are at all open to music after Brahms, you must give this symphony a listen!