After a recent binge at a sale, I have two new recordings to talk about. Here's the first one. It comes from one of those composers that one sometimes reads about or hears about. But honestly now: how many people have ever actually heard any music by Franz Berwald? Hands up?
My hands are down. Until I picked up this first volume of Berwald's symphonies, the name meant nothing to me except as a name. So, a bit of background: born in Stockholm in 1796, and died there in 1868. Berwald was variously an orthopaedic surgeon, manager of a saw mill, and manager of a glass factory. The time had not yet come when a Swedish composer could make a living as a composer. It's curious, too, that virtually all of Berwald's major orchestral works were composed in the short time from 1841 to 1845.
Those dates place Berwald squarely in the middle of the Romantic ferment, with all that the term implies of music-as-catharsis and music-as-experiment. The present Chandos recording features his third ( Sinfonie singuliere) and fourth (Sinfonie naïve) symphonies and a tone poem called Elfenspiel. Both symphonies use the conventional four-movement layout, and in both cases the adagio and scherzo movements are attached. The unique aspects of structure show in the first movements of each, where interesting experiments with sonata form surprise the theory-oriented listener by going (apparently) in the wrong order and yet arriving in the right place at the right time. In this connection, it's worth recalling Donald Tovey's remark that you simply cannot find a first movement among any of Haydn's 104 symphonies that truly corresponds with most textbook descriptions of sonata form. Another startling invention is the tripartite scherzo-trio-scherzo of the third symphony -- enclosed within the adagio, the rapid-fire music bookended by a slow and solemn string melody of great nobility and beauty.
Berwald has some other surprises up his sleeve too. Consider, for instance, an ostinato figure in his melody part while the accompaniment is continually varied, the reverse of the usual practice which tends to place an ostinato in the bass. A good example is the insistent trumpet ostinato on one note that occurs twice in the opening movement of the Sinfonie singuliere -- it sounds for all the world like the precursor of the One Note Samba. Berwald's use of a conventional orchestra of his day yet produces some original and piquant sounds. The combination of short motifs and varying orchestration in the opening of the Sinfonie naïve sounds for all the world like an operatic overture -- and it's worth remembering that Berwald spent much of his time and effort in trying to gain recognition as an operatic composer. In the scherzos of both symphonies we hear gossamer-light fairy sounds to compare with the best of Mendelssohn. Finally, it must be noted that Berwald is no mean melodist, and is more than capable of developing an extended tune of sufficient strength and interest to carry the weight of his argument.
As always, splendidly warm and rich Chandos sound conveys all the musical strands with lifelike clarity. The Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Thomas Dausgaard do full justice to Berwald's inspiration.
Taken overall, then, Berwald plainly was a composer of no mean skill and with a genuine lyrical gift. It seems a pity that his music has been so little regarded, as the neglect has given rise to an unjustified presumption that Scandinavia lacked genuine composers deserving our attention. Berwald is a more than worthy representative of Sweden. In the next entry I'm going to look at a Norwegian composer of similar skill and interest who is, if anything, even more neglected.
Monday 23 September 2013
Wednesday 4 September 2013
A Great Man's Prayers in Music
Because today is Anton Bruckner's birthday, I wanted to share some thoughts about his unique and inspiring music.
During his lifetime, Bruckner was often acclaimed as a "Wagnerian symphonist", not least by Wagner himself. But that misleading label drove both Bruckner and his followers into a blind alley, because the only really common factor between the music dramas of Wagner and the symphonies of Bruckner is their length. And the common factors between their personalities were virtually non-existent.
Nobody can truly understand or come to terms with the music of Anton Bruckner without appreciating the immense depth of his faith in God. To many people today, the concept of believing in any kind of God is laughable, but somehow that cynical amusement tends to fall silent when confronted with the greatest products of that faith -- such as the massive Gothic cathedrals of Europe and Britain or great works of religious art. Bruckner's symphonic output is a little like that. His symphonies can best be appreciated as gigantic cathedrals in sound, each one bringing the composer closer to the moment when, in his Ninth Symphony, he finally dedicated his work to "der liebe Gott".
In relation to those cathedrals, Bruckner's short motets for unaccompanied chorus are like tiny chapels surrounding the high altar. Unlike the symphonies, the motets are short, mostly lasting only a few minutes. And like those chapels, no two are alike although they share a common shape and purpose. Their texts are religious and all are sung in Latin, the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic church. The motets tend to start quietly, in a lower register of the voices, rise both in pitch and intensity to a climax, and then decline in volume as they drop back down to a lower pitch at the quiet ending.
I had the privilege of singing several of these motets in younger days in Toronto, and the beauty and power of this music never failed to move me. That was especially true of his final setting of Christus factus est (he set that text three times in all) which reaches a chromatic climax of shuddering intensity followed by a silent bar in which that astounding chord echoes into silence before the singers resume with the downward decline of the piece.
Recordings of these devotional works, prayers in music indeed, have been few and far between. I've had just two. A fine selection was recorded by the Corydon Singers under Matthew Best on Hyperion CD, and is available to download. An earlier version of many of the same numbers comes on DGG under Eugen Jochum. Many of Jochum's pieces first appeared as fill-ups on LP in his original cycle of all the symphonies. In the CD reissue they are all gathered together with his recordings of the three great Masses, the Te Deum, and Psalm 150.
Best's recording has the advantage of cleaner, more modern sound, and his choir has much better intonation. Jochum's sopranos tend to be wobbly and sing a bit under the note in some very high passages (Bruckner could be as merciless as Beethoven to his sopranos!). The sound also has a slightly dim quality, almost as if heard through the audio equivalent of a scrim or veil. But I always felt, and still feel, that Jochum has a much better sense of the music as music, and is more at home in the idiom. I'm biased, I still feel that way about his recordings of the symphonies as well, and they have few competitors in my appreciation. So it's a trade-off.
Both recordings also include three motets with accompaniment by a trio of trombones. Afferentur regi and Inveni David are both rather similar to the outline I've given above. Ecce sacerdos magnus is another matter altogether, an almost Gabrieli-like mixture of pomp and ceremony with the organ adding its majesty and power. This, by the way, is one of the very few works by Bruckner (one of the greatest organ improvisers in history) in which an independent organ part appears.
During his lifetime, Bruckner was often acclaimed as a "Wagnerian symphonist", not least by Wagner himself. But that misleading label drove both Bruckner and his followers into a blind alley, because the only really common factor between the music dramas of Wagner and the symphonies of Bruckner is their length. And the common factors between their personalities were virtually non-existent.
Nobody can truly understand or come to terms with the music of Anton Bruckner without appreciating the immense depth of his faith in God. To many people today, the concept of believing in any kind of God is laughable, but somehow that cynical amusement tends to fall silent when confronted with the greatest products of that faith -- such as the massive Gothic cathedrals of Europe and Britain or great works of religious art. Bruckner's symphonic output is a little like that. His symphonies can best be appreciated as gigantic cathedrals in sound, each one bringing the composer closer to the moment when, in his Ninth Symphony, he finally dedicated his work to "der liebe Gott".
In relation to those cathedrals, Bruckner's short motets for unaccompanied chorus are like tiny chapels surrounding the high altar. Unlike the symphonies, the motets are short, mostly lasting only a few minutes. And like those chapels, no two are alike although they share a common shape and purpose. Their texts are religious and all are sung in Latin, the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic church. The motets tend to start quietly, in a lower register of the voices, rise both in pitch and intensity to a climax, and then decline in volume as they drop back down to a lower pitch at the quiet ending.
I had the privilege of singing several of these motets in younger days in Toronto, and the beauty and power of this music never failed to move me. That was especially true of his final setting of Christus factus est (he set that text three times in all) which reaches a chromatic climax of shuddering intensity followed by a silent bar in which that astounding chord echoes into silence before the singers resume with the downward decline of the piece.
Recordings of these devotional works, prayers in music indeed, have been few and far between. I've had just two. A fine selection was recorded by the Corydon Singers under Matthew Best on Hyperion CD, and is available to download. An earlier version of many of the same numbers comes on DGG under Eugen Jochum. Many of Jochum's pieces first appeared as fill-ups on LP in his original cycle of all the symphonies. In the CD reissue they are all gathered together with his recordings of the three great Masses, the Te Deum, and Psalm 150.
Best's recording has the advantage of cleaner, more modern sound, and his choir has much better intonation. Jochum's sopranos tend to be wobbly and sing a bit under the note in some very high passages (Bruckner could be as merciless as Beethoven to his sopranos!). The sound also has a slightly dim quality, almost as if heard through the audio equivalent of a scrim or veil. But I always felt, and still feel, that Jochum has a much better sense of the music as music, and is more at home in the idiom. I'm biased, I still feel that way about his recordings of the symphonies as well, and they have few competitors in my appreciation. So it's a trade-off.
Both recordings also include three motets with accompaniment by a trio of trombones. Afferentur regi and Inveni David are both rather similar to the outline I've given above. Ecce sacerdos magnus is another matter altogether, an almost Gabrieli-like mixture of pomp and ceremony with the organ adding its majesty and power. This, by the way, is one of the very few works by Bruckner (one of the greatest organ improvisers in history) in which an independent organ part appears.
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