• Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite
• Jennifer Higdon: Percussion Concerto
• Lyell Cresswell: Landscapes of the Soul
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral”

First of all, I have not yet forgotten about the NYO. At some point I’ll hopefully write something about it.

Second, a hearty congratulations to the NZSO, who with this incredible concert took Beethoven’s 6th, punched it in the face, and hung a placard around its neck saying “Please stop playing me”. Lined up against one of American concert music’s definitive works, a spectacular concerto by one of the 21st Century’s most important composers and a dazzling new piece of Kiwi music, the Pastoral was finally exposed as an emotionless, music-less corpse, which ought now be interred into the thick loam of music history.

I must confess, I’ve never really appreciated the Appalachian Spring Suite as much as many others. That would be because I’ve never heard it played so brilliantly as at this concert. The chief attraction of the Appalachian Spring Suite is Copland’s thrilling arrangement of the “Shaker Tune” (or, for those of us who treat it as a religious moment, “Lord of the Dance”) near the end of the work, and the transitions between the suite’s images prior to this can be a little hairy. Shelley kept the NZSO in restrained, contemplative mood for much of the work, carefully controlling the  transitions and allowing the beautifully phrased woodwind lines to speak for themselves. To a large extent, this is a pastoral piece, but unlike Beethoven in the Pastoral, Copland clearly understood that the only way to make such music function is through contrast, particularly in timbre, and a clear sense of direction – managed so fluidly by Shelley.

Jennifer Higdon is a somewhat more recent American product, and  something of an unknown quantity for most New Zealand audience members (these members really should spend more time on LastFM listening to contemporary classical composers). Percussion concertos must be an extremely difficult task for a composer to plan: there are numerous instruments to show off, but there needs to be a reasonable motivation for the performer to utilise these. Higdon succeeds admirably, using the orchestra, and in particular the orchestral percussionists, to focus these transitions. Much of the work is built around the relationship between Currie and the other percussionists, creating an amazing sense of space as they play off against each other in imitative fashion. Much of the pitched percussion work appears to be based off the initial marimba phrases. The unpitched instruments receive a little less attention. They feature in a couple of short bursts after a session of mallet swapping with the marimba and vibraphone, sweeping the orchestra along with them in the process. Near the end of the work Currie returns to the drumkit for a ferocious (and rather trippy) cadenza that blurs into another duet with the orchestral percussionists to finish. And of course there’s the seemingly constant, unearthly hum of vibraphone motors. This is simply joyful, passionate, brash music, which is how Higdon works, at least on an orchestral scale. It’s how composers like John Psathas and Gareth Farr work too, albeit with vastly different colours.

Oh, and the audience went pretty wild.

Lyell Cresswell is a funny old composer (well, maybe he isn’t actually funny. I’ve never met him. To my knowledge). The first piece of his I heard, his trumpet concertino Alas, how swift! was fairly unspectacular; the second, The Pumpkin Massacre, was completely different, and considerably more satisfying. Landscapes of the Soul, for string orchestra, fits much more into the mould of The Pumpkin Massacre, but is vastly superior again. Landscapes of the Soul taps into (I believe) our collective memory of Greek mythology – the landscapes being the realm of Hades. Cresswell uses hushed, dissonant noises, rushing, rumbling and tumbling. While the music as a whole flows slowly past, the underlying parts are extraordinarily dynamic. If many of  the sounds may be familiar from the mid-20th century avant-garde, at least they are familiar from quality music, and it is simply impossible to tear one’s ears away from the work. It might not be an audience favourite, it might never be played again after this series, and it will certainly never win a Grammy, yet Landscapes of the Soul is inspired music, for me the unexpected highlight of the programme.

And Beethoven’s 6th! What have I not yet said about it? Frankly, the fact that the first two movements are the dullest twenty minutes in music is less important than (but related to) their complete failure to act like a well-constructed symphony. There is simply no contrast – certainly, there is motific development, but there is no moment capable of arresting the hearer, breaking them out of their slumber. All pastoral music is cursed with being “nice”. Beethoven’s 6th is certainly nice, like an old lady inviting one in for tea, except that after a couple of minutes you work out that the tea is actually mud flavoured with cat dribble. And she has no chocolate biscuits. And she’s knitted you a nice brown woolen jersey. Out of her own hair.

But the Pastoral is not just the sum of its first two movements! Oh no! Because after twenty five minutes you discover that the old lady is actually Megatron in drag! She? tears your face off, then offers you another cup of tea.

Yeah, sorry, Herr Beethoven,, but your symphony is exactly that nonsensical. There is simply no musical motivation for the “storm”, which is not nearly convincing enough to pull off the imagery properly. And don’t tell me it’s pathetic because Beethoven didn’t have the techniques or instruments available to him. It’s just that musicians playing in uniform rhythm just don’t raise that violence quotient very high.

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra at St. Andrew’s on the Terrace conducted by Ken Young with Diedre Irons, piano

There are two other concerts I had planned on writing about before getting to this one – but that was before actually going to the concert, which was really an amazing experience (at least in the second half). Robert Schumann is one of the biggest names of Romantic composition, but his reputation frankly exceeds the quality of his music; indeed, I’m sure I have spent considerably more time reading his music criticism than actually listening to his music. This Piano Concerto is in all honesty a deplorable piece of music, a vehicle for his wife’s virtuosity that never approaches the depth to which the word ‘concerto’ aspires. The first movement, the Fantasie to which the rest of the work was attached, is a shapeless, formless, emotionless, tuneless, too-long wretch with a pathetic coda affixed to patch over the utter lack of direction. The following Intermezzo is no better; it is not until the final Allegro vivace that the players have so much as a theme to get their teeth into* – in fact, they get two rather fine themes, although one is really only toyed with. It would be extremely unfair to judge any of the performers on the basis of this ‘concerto’, for although the balance of sound from the orchestra was rather lovely and intimate in the relatively small setting of St. Andrew’s, but this is simply shallow salon music (albeit for richly talented performers).

How wonderful then, and how much of a vindication for twentieth century composition that Schumann’s miserable work should be followed by an utterly spectacular performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, surely the finest, most vital performance of a symphony I have been privileged to witness since the NZSO’s rendition of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 1 (with the hyper-energetic Alexander Lazarev). Some of Shostakovich’s work possibly suffers a little from taking it out of its historical context, but this symphony really flourishes, allowing the listener to get right into the composer’s headspace. The faux-patriotic sentiment of the melodies lifted from revolutionary songs is stripped away to leave an hour of sheer, abject terror. Shostakovich opens with a long passage focusing on strings and harp that is beautiful in isolation, but alarmingly tense at the same time. A jeering brass interjection breaks the flow temporarily, but cannot relieve the general anxiety.

The second movement is simply astonishing – wailings from the strings and brass that gather in intensity and cut straight to the heart. In classic Shostakovich style it isn’t until the xylophone is brought in that the work becomes truly horrifying. The xylophone is truly Shostakovich’s death rattle, driving the closing portion of the invasion section of the “Leningrad” Symphony and appearing to spine-chilling effect in the On the Watch movement of Symphony No. 14. Even in the music’s brief returns to the theme of the first movement there is little relief. In the third movement the audience hears a similar journey to that of the first; the strings play a sweet, yet ominous theme, growly slowly in intensity, gnawing into the mind, and once again everything breaks down in an orgy of agony. Shostakovich’s ‘vulgar’ side (much abhorred – and underestimated – by critics) comes straight to the fore of the beginning of the final movement with a violent, oppressively loud introduction dominated by some wonderfully clear brass playing. After a brief lull the onslaught continues, Shostakovich placing all his fear and horror of tyranny onto the page. One can’t help feeling shattered by the finish, wrung out by the ferocity and emotional intensity of the music. Amazing.

*yes, I realise this blog is subtitled “What do you mean, you don’t like Stockhausen”, but Stockhausen’s work has far more thematic flesh on it than Schumann’s, even if it isn’t all melodic. Schumann has nothing.

…It would have been better had the conductor stayed away, not least because it would have prevented the audience from being subjected to 25 minutes of unremitting noise classed by Button as atonal.

The so-called Symphony No 191 created by Segerstam was so unpleasant that I was rendered physically unwell – so much so I could not get up to walk out. By the end of the piece, I was in tears from the pain of the noise…

Wow. That’s quite something. Perhaps it’s alarming that my eye was immediately drawn to the words “classed by Button as atonal”. Does the letter writer have some better description of her own? How dare John Button make a correct judgement about the harmonic nature of the music? I am 100% certain that the letter writer would have come away free from nausea had she actually made some attempt to listen to the music rather than tried to block it out. Unfortunately, her hatred of Segerstam’s music (I think it might be worth pointing out here that much of the music with which Button compared Symphony No. 191 is eighty years old) also affected her enjoyment of the remainder of the concert

…The Karelia Suite was the NZSO at its best – possibly because they have made it their own and the conductor left them to the performance at one stage, acknowledging this point.

Having been to the pre-concert talk and heard some of the great sopranos sing the Four Last Songs with sympathetic orchestras, Saturday’s soprano didn’t have a chance because the conductor didn’t match the orchestra to her voice, allowing it to override her…

Or alternatively, the Karelia Suite succeeded without much conducting because it is a fairly simple repertoire work and any orchestral player will have performed it dozens of times. A professional orchestra does not need a conductor to keep time with pieces like this – the conductor’s role in shaping the performance to a far greater extent in rehearsal than on the concert stage, but because the letter writer is so determined to steer any credit away from Segerstam she ignores this consideration. If I have understood the comment about the Four Last Songs correctly, recordings of the work were played, which the letter writer feels were more balanced than the actual performance. This is, of course, exactly what one would expect. Recording a work, even live, will naturally create a better balance than the same work live, simply because microphone positioning and mixing will create a false impression of what is actually happening.

Culprit #5: Musical Directors

Throughout much of the early 20th Century, European audiences knew American composers as specialists in short orchestral works full of charming folk tunes; it was widely believed that there was no such thing as an American symphonist. This was, of course, wildly untrue, given that composers such as Copland, Harris and Ives had already dipped their toes into the field. American orchestras, while willing to occasionally give their fellow countrymen an airing on European soil, were nonetheless not brave enough to allow an American symphony to be the centrepiece for a concert. One only has to look at the NZSO’s 2010 programme to observe the same effect in this country; New Zealand composers are being relegated to the Made in New Zealand concert, although this does at least tend to make it the most exciting musical event of the year.

Orchestras tend to stick to a certain format of programme for their concerts; most NZSO concerts open with an overture or tone poem (in past years this has often been a New Zealand work), followed by a concerto, and a symphony after the interval. This means that, unless a particularly famous (by classical standards) soloist is performing, the symphony is the main focal point of the evening; much of the potential audience will either come or not come depending on which symphony the orchestra performs. Performing something ‘risky’, like music written in the last century, could easily cost the orchestra great big piles of money. This ensures that new symphonies will never be commissioned by any important orchestra without substantially more funding backing them than the NZSO (which is quite extraordinary, considering that the NZSO is funded by the New Zealand government). Given that almost all composers outside of Finland now lack the stipends that supported composers of national importance or aristocratic favour in the 18th and 19th centuries (and the USSR), composing anything they are not commissioned to write is financially unviable, particularly without any assurance that an orchestra will actually have the courage to do a performance.

Culprit #6: A Certain Flavour of Criticism

For almost as long as certain pieces of music have been designated “symphonies”, debate has flourished about what exactly constitutes a symphony, and how far its boundaries may be pushed while retaining the title. The symphony can be said to have essentially superseded the baroque dance suite, or at least the overture thereof. Through a series of complicated musical machinations this overture became the sonata, then the sinfonia. The Classical symphony carried on the traditions of the dance suite both in the sonata form of its opening movement and in the eclecticism of the following movements – although some composers chose to refine this somewhat. Essentially, the dance suite/symphony had become the title of this blog. In the process, it lost most of its functionality, becoming listening rather than dancing music, and this created a problem for the budding musical form, which now had to rely on a little more than some technical competence and a steady metre to attract an audience – the composer’s task was to move people mentally rather than physically. In doing so it absorbed many of the techniques that had heretofore been used in various other ‘serious’ forms of music, particularly contrapuntal techniques used in fugues or trio sonatas, employing them as means of development. This was, essentially, a form of pure music, but the ‘purity’ of a symphony is only as much as a composer is willing to put in.

Most of the symphonies performed today are from the Romantic period, with a few 20th Century neo-Romantic items of greater or lesser quality. The values of the time obviously permeated the music considerably; most of the symphonies played by orchestras today could easily be tagged with the phrase ‘unabashedly grandiose’. What affected the music so much was not really any great change in musical parameters, but in the way that composers thought about music, placing heavy reliance on musical signs to trigger emotional reactions. Although some composers were able to maintain quite rigid structural parameters in their symphonies, others eschewed them altogether. Beethoven’s Third Symphony, considered by many to be a model of technical perfection, was also probably the earliest important symphony to reflect the new extramusical sensibilities. It was only twenty-five years before Berlioz took this to what seemed like its utmost extreme with Symphonie Fantastique.

At every point in the symphony’s development radical changes have been stubbornly opposed by critics trying to impose a rigid definition. Even in the era of the dance suite composers would take flack for introducing new, illicit dances. One of the greatest difficulties for a composer wishing to write a symphony has always been persuading certain people that what they are listening to is, indeed, a symphony. Three movements? It’s not a symphony! More than two themes in the first movement? It’s not a symphony! A theme that doesn’t modulate to the dominant? It’s not a symphony! A scherzo without a trio? It’s not a symphony! The first movement has largely been the sticking point, with even a usually open-minded critic like Robert Simpson criticising works that he felt moved too far away from the themes-development-recap formula. Some radical neo-romantics suffered derision from both sides. Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony “Leningrad” was attacked continuously for its unconventional first movement – first by establishment critics who felt that the ostinato section – Shostakovich’s Bolero – distracted from traditional development. Never mind that Shostakovich uses the other twenty minutes of the movement for development, and that the bolero is a highly complex referential construction. The Seventh was also attacked post-war by the Darmstadt school for its brash and uncomplicated patriotism, which seemed to be stuffed with one-dimensional signifiers. Never mind that they (and, in fact, everybody else) got the meanings of these signifiers, at least from Shostakovich’s perspective, horribly, hopelessly and hilariously wrong for thirty years.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the combination of Schoenberg and Schumann succeeds here. Although it might seem as if the NZSO is moving somewhat out of the repertoire comfort zone with the one-and-a-half doses of Schoenberg, this is somewhat misleading. Verklaerte Nacht is a solid, if unchallenging work that lies pretty firmly in the late Romantic tradition that should fit pretty snugly alongside the Schumann. I haven’t heard the Brahms in this orchestral version, but it is a finely crafted piece and Schoenberg a great orchestrator. Inkinen conducts.

8. Ross Harris: Vienna (Mahler); Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 1; Mahler: Symphony No. 5

If Li Wei can breather any life into the Haydn Cello Concerto I shall be impressed, because it really is a thoroughly uninteresting work. Vienna (Mahler) is part of a commission from the NZSO, Three Pieces for Orchestra. I have to wonder where the other pieces are – it’s pretty poor of the orchestra not to play the entire work. Harris doesn’t deserve to be treated as an accessory to a dead composer, particularly as performing something like this, presumably intended as a tribute, hardly gives a fair impression of his work. Inkinen conducts.

9. Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite; Jennifer Higdon: Percussion Concerto; Lyell Cresswell: Landscapes of the Dead; Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 ‘”Pastoral”

Jennifer Higdon provides the first international contemporary music of 2010. What little music of hers I have heard is very impressive – not exactly avant garde, but certainly striking. Lyell Cresswell is an expat who has spent most of his career in Scotland; I’ve only ever heard one of his works – a trumpet concertino played by the NZSO – and that was hardly inspiring, but one never knows! Appalachian Spring Suite is Copland’s populist side. Some people seem to love it, but the only real highlight is the joyous rendition of Simple Gifts. And the “Pastoral” Symphony? Don’t talk to me about the ”Pastoral” Symphony. Alexander Shelley conducts.

10. Britten: Four Sea Interludes (from Peter Grimes); James MacMillan: Veni, Veni, Emmanuel; Ravel: Pavane for a dead princess; Strauss: Death and Transfiguration

This is probably the most complete concert of the lot, with just the one chestnut thrown in to pretend that a theme exists. The Strauss may be a little hard to swallow, but the MacMillan and Britten more than make up for this. MacMillan is probably the best known young postmodern composer around, and although I can sense a reduced audience, it should at least be an appreciative one. Alexander Shelley conducts.

11. Telemann: Burlesque de Don Quixotte; Sallinen: Some Aspects of Peltoniemi Hintrik’s Funeral March; Grieg: Two Norwegian Melodies; Arthur Foote: A Night Piece; Sibelius: Impromptu; Mendelssohn: String Symphony No. 10

This concert concerts mostly of music for string orchestra – and yet it manages to be wildly more interesting than most of the other concerts on offer. Telemann is a great, underplayed composer, although I feel that writing for strings alone does diminish the scope for his brilliant early use of instrumental colour. Sallinen is an amazing contemporary composer; Arthur Foote is completely unknown to me. The Mendelssohn manages to be simultaneously insipid and dazzling; it would certainly be no loss were the entirety of Mozart’s work to be lost in a rather bizarre fire and replaced in the repertoire by Mendelssohn’s. Vessa Matti Lepannen directs.

12. Christmas music.

Alright, it includes both Britten and Rutter, but still. You must be joking. This absolutely cannot be happening.

Paul Goodwin conducts.

Additional Concerts

At the Festival of the Arts the NZSO is adding a concert of Wagner sung by Simon O’Neill to the Mahler 8 concert already announced. This seems to be the extent of their involvement next year. Still, Wellingtonians can consider themselves lucky, because in Auckland a concert of waltzes will be performed. A concert of Rodgers and Hammerstein will be performed, for which the management had better have a really good excuse.

It seems like the year’s shining light will be the Made in New Zealand concert (as usual), which will feature two works by Ross Harris, including a Violin Concerto, along with a work by John Psathas (I get the impression that this isn’t his new marimba concerto, but that will be brilliant when it happens), something by Claire Cowan and a comparatively ancient work by Arnold Trowell from the early twentieth century.

I’m actually quite flabbergasted by the dullness of the NZSO’s subscription programme for next year. There is very little New Zealand music on display – and less that I really want to hear. Of course, if you’re the kind of person looking out exclusively for repertoire symphonies, then you’re in luck,, but there’s precious little contemporary music on display, and it’s hardly flatteringly programmed. Many of the ‘stars’ who would previously have played/conducted two concerts are next year only doing one.

1. Smetana: Sharka; Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique”.

Why would anybody bother to show up? Really? The NZSO plays the -brilliant- Sibelius concerto nearly every year; the Tchaikovsky is stupefyingly dull. The purpose of this concert is to show off the ‘glamourous’ Hillary Hahn, who will doubtless get some kind of turgid writeup beforehand in the Dominion Post. Tellingly, the programme doesn’t even mention the Ma Vlast excerpt, the only creative moment in this programme – and in terms of programming Smetana, ‘creative’ means ‘not Die Moldau’. Inkinen conducts.

2. Strauss: Metamorphosen; Bruckner: Symphony No. 7.

Alright, I’ll admit it. I would dearly love to go and see the Strauss, but there’s a problem. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Bruckner is far and away the worst symphonic composer to be spat into this world, and Symphony No. 7 just loses out to No. 4 in being the most terrifyingly bad symphony ever written. Inkinen conducts.

3. Ritchie: French Overture; Gounod: “Ah, Je ris de me voir”; Bellini: “Costa Diva”; Puccini: “Un bel di vedremo”, “Vissi d’arte”, “O mio babbino caro”; Elgar: Symphony No. 1.

Yes. That’s right. An Elgar symphony alongside a bunch of populist ‘high’ opera. I’m sure that Malvina Major will sing perfectly finely, even with such familiar material to work with, but I’m just not sure what exactly there is that’s really worth hearing. Tecwyn Evans conducts.

4. Mozart: Symphony No. 41; Strauss: Overture from Die Fledermaus; Lehar: “Meine Lippen, sie kuessen so heiss”, “Liebe, du Himmel auf Erden”, “Vilja”; Dvorak: Czech Suite Finale; Rusalka: Song to the Moon; Strauss: Thunder and Lightning Polka.

While the first of these Malvina Major concerts is designed to show her off as a dramatic soprano, this takes the other tack, delving through the murky legacy of singspiel to produce a concert that Hitler would really have loved. There is precious little music in this concert of any originality, although I would be somewhat curious to hear the Rusalka in any other context. Tecwyn Evans conducts.

5. Glinka: Overture from Ruslan and Ludmilla; Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3; Glazunov: The Seasons.

The first subscription concert I’d seriously consider paying to hear features an all-Russian line-up thankfully missing Tchaikovsky. Well, not really, because Glazunov was Tchaikovsky in a frock, but the Rachmaninov, played by Freddy Kempf, might just make up for it. Oh, and Alexander Lazarev, who last time I saw him was nigh on falling off the podium in excitement.

6. Dvorak: The Noon Witch; Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1; Prokofiev Symphony No. 7.

Ahhhh… Prokofiev, and some unfamiliar Dvorak. This will be a good concert, despite the Tchaikovsky, and would be pretty much perfect for Lazarev with some Shostakovich in there also. Alas,, ’tis not to be.

Culprit #3: Feminism (I’ll try to explain myself)

An article I saw  on Gloria Coates’ website noted that, throughout the course of Western art music, symphonies by female composers have been few and far between. In large part this is due to the general lack of female composers until the beginning of the twentieth century, but even the inspirational Romantic composer Clara Schumann failed to dip her toes into the genre. There certainly is some kind of inherent masculinity in the nature, linguistics and history of the symphony that may constitute a turn-off. [the author of that article] assigns gender roles to the themes of traditional sonata form, so that the male (first) theme acts to subjugate the female (second theme). I’m not entirely sure that such a theory actually applies outside the realm of musicology, but it is possible that what might be appealing to a male composer – the very controlling nature of forcing themes into the traditional structure – might be unappealing to a female composer.

The other problem with a symphony is that, at least following the Classical period, it tends to be big. I mentioned earlier the slightly egotist efforts by some composers to write as many symphonies as they possibly can, but in fact, for most composers, just one symphony is a massive undertaking. For these composers, a symphony might be a “masterwork” or a “magnum opus”. Both have heavily masculine implications, possibly making them more appealing to male than female composers. By avoiding the “symphony” title and form, composers both female and male could continue to create immense works without necessarily attracting these implications

Not that I would really have any idea!

Culprit #4: Theodor Adorno

The ideas of Theodor Adorno were hugely influential over the European post-war avant-garde movement. Adorno advocated the rejection of the established forms of art, which had, by their highly regulated nature, served to enslave the minds of the European populace, and could be used by those in power as a means of controlling their citizens. Adorno’s theory essentially simplifies down to the idea that the arts act as conditioning agents for societies;  if the arts do not force people do think, then they will not gain the ability to think about what actually goes on in their societies. Rulers can trigger particular conditioned responses by encouraging certain forms of art.

These effects are felt doubly with music, where particular musical elements automatically trigger particular emotional responses as a matter of course. Certain modes are used to encourage particular emotions, as are certain tempi and instruments. The encouragement of martial music, for instance, is intended to create patriotic and militaristic feeling through culturally engrained associations. Adorno’s goal was ripping all of this up, to start afresh with culturally unfamiliar and ambiguous material, to create a music of constant change. The symphony, with its formalised structure and tonal implications, was not going to survive Darmstadt. Composers who remained relatively uninfluenced by Adorno’s ideas – the neo-romanticists, who developed from 19th century music rather than in opposition to it – were as a result far more likely to compose symphonies. Messiaen, probably the only significant early Darmstadt composer to write anything resembling a traditional symphony, wrote this before the publication of the Philosophy of Modern Music.

Here are a couple of contributing factors. But probably not the actual cause, which is pretty obvious really. That’ll come ‘soon’.

Culprit #1: The Try-hards?

Let’s be perfectly honest, there is no other way classify the symphonic work of Derek Bourgeois, a composer whose music I do rate… sometimes. Bourgeois is fond of comparing himself to the late Havergal Brian, composer of 32 symphonies, most of them written in old age. Bourgeois is a composer whose work is sometimes conceptually very strong, and who rarely has trouble finding material to fill up his music. Unfortunately, this material is not always quite up to scratch, and his concepts are by no means as poetic in practical use as in reality. Bourgeois currently seems to be writing three or four symphonies every year – no mean feat, especially considering the sheer size of these works, using large orchestras and durations of up to two and a half hours. To mark his equalling the mark of his apparent hero Brian, Bourgeois wrote his thirty-second symphony in thirty-two movements, possibly a landmark blow for the idea of symphonic coherence. To be fair, Brian’s best-known work, the Symphony No. 1 ‘, is nearly as sprawling, and ways in at two hours of immense orchestral and choral work, but its immensity is equalled only by the strength of organic growth in the material. Bourgeois seems to be so caught up in ‘beating’ his idol that in the process he has forgotten how to write coherent music.

Of course, Bourgeois is far from the most prolific modern composer of symphonies. That role belongs to the erstwhile Finnish conductor/composer Leif Segerstam (and his beard). Segerstam has composed well over two hundred symphonies; many of these are really known only to the composer himself, although he and his beard will be premiering one with the NZSO later this year.

What was the point of this section? Since the end of the Classical period, symphonies have been monumental efforts in the careers of their composers, with years of preparation and writing going into their creation. The drive to create multitudinous symphonies by composers such as Bourgeois and Segerstam necessarily reduces the amount of compositional energy that can be put into each one. They are wasting their artistic freedom by not imposing any kind of self-discipline, producing music from their egos, rather than their hearts and minds. The problem is that nobody cares whether your penis is two hundred and twenty symphonies long. Sure, it’s an exercise in following one’s own instincts, but it’s a purely self-interested one, not seeking to have any effect on the wider world of music whatsoever.

Culprit #2: Film?

Many of the composers who do choose to write symphonies are those for whom the genre still entails the vast emotional, often programmatic nature that it often became during the Romantic period. This is by no means an irredeemable perspective – after all, many of the great early twentieth century composers suffered from the same affliction. Sadly, the influence that 19th century music had on twentieth century film scoring seems now to be flowing back in the other direction, with some composers bringing film score cliché back into the concert hall (to say nothing of the performance of certain film scores themselves). While this seems largely to be a youthful phenomenon, there are nevertheless a few reasonably well-known composers whose work suffers embarrassingly from this malaise.

One of the most prominent of these composers is the Russian-American Alla Pavlova, whose work includes at least four symphonies. Most of her thematic material, and also most of her orchestral writing, appears to have come straight from the score of a really awful romantic film. To an extent this is redeemed by Pavlova’s skill in symphonic development itself; her music stands up on its own ‘merits’, without requiring an accompanying film, but her reliance on sweeping string chords and rhapsodic violin melodies gives her work a sense of sameness that prevents it from reaching the great emotional depths that Pavlova so plainly desires.

On the other hand, she does have a pretty amazing last name.

Soloist: Ben Morrison (violin); Conductor: Ken Young

This New Zealand School of Music concert at St Andrews on the Terrace opened with a piece by NZSM graduate student Simon Dickson, written for the Jenny McLeod Composition Award (or something along those lines). With this work, Dickson aimed to capture two of his compositional styles – that with which he wrote earlier in his studies at the NZSM, and that with which he writes today. Although conceptually interesting, this does rather run the risk of disguising the composer’s talents, by forcing him to write using an abandoned – and presumably, to the composer’s mind, inferior – style, to say nothing of the difficulties in marrying the two styles.

As it happened, Dickson did largely succeed in creating a largely unified work. While the structural joints were audible, the atmospheres of the sections were quite similar. The functional atonality of the opening and closing sections was vaguely disquieting but unchallenging, perhaps because there were few individual lines to follow. Here and there were some deft touches, particularly with what was probably intended to be the piece’s climax, where after an initial violent surge the orchestral bass dropped out, leaving exposed notes hanging in the air, as well as Dickson’s reveal toward the end of some of thhe inner workings of the piece, putting the pedal instruments on display. Unfortunately, as usual with such young composers’ orchestral awards, the work really could have done with a much larger span of time to justify the structural decisions made. maybe someday music administrators will work out that student composers’ work is more important than the repertoire works on the programme. Obviously, this wasn’t Shostakovich 1 – but if it had been, nobody would have known.

Ben Morrison, concert-master of the NZSO NYO, is an extremely accomplished violinist, and the Tchaikovsky concerto is certainly one of the most important Romantic violin concertos, so it was no surprise that this performance was, overall, a success. The NZSM orchestra’s playing felt a little stodgy in the opening, but rapidly improved, as they traversed the tutti sections with admirable energy. Morrison’s playing was refined and strong throughout, and there was a remarkable sense of cohesion between orchestra and soloist, during the first movement’s oscillations in and out of quasi-cadenza passages. The chief fault of the work itself lies in these sections, which give the first movement a sense of completion on its own merits, which disrupts the balance of the work as a whole, but this was handled convincingly enough.

The Vaughan Williams, which was on the whole played spectacularly well, is a curious artefact. It seems perverse that such a work, blatantly a ‘war symphony’ of the most brutal variety, could get a free pass from the same English critics who savaged the war symphonies of Shostakovich – and how foolish they look now, with the vast depths of expression and meaning of those works exposed alongside their blatant musical genius! Vaughan Williams’ Sixth is a splendidly constructed work – if only in its central movements. The first movement strives toward violence and spontaneity, but really only succeeds in incoherence, with the relationships between the varied ideas never being satisfyingly explored. While the movement has energy in spades, much of it is wasted.

The next movements share the same violent approach as the first, but are much more directed. The second movement is particularly notable for its climax, in which, after brutally working its way to a sustained level of raw power, there is a sudden drop in dynamic that leaves energy humming through the air. The final movement is in complete contrast to the rest of the work, especially the first movement. It uses a single, gentle theme throughout, at an unflinchingly soft dynamic, obviously – though Mr. Vaughan Williams apparently enjoyed denying this – intending to cause audiences to reflect upon the destructiveness of war. Unfortunately, the soft dynamic leaves very little space for actual expression – or at least this was how the orchestra performed it – so it served largely to leave phrases unshaped.

More than a little ironically, I’m starting this blog by talking about a a symphony that is probably as far away from a traditional symphony as one can possible get. Shostakovich’s 14th was written during a period of debilitating ill-health, requiring the composer to work with only a small ensemble, rather than the expected massive modern orchestra. Shostakovich’s forces consist of a small string section (19 players), light unpitched percussion, assorted pitched percussion and two vocalists. In fact, the work resembles a song-cycle much more than it does a symphony.

The music of the opening movement, De profundis, perfectly reinforces the imagery of the poem it accompanies. Pianissimo violins open with the melodic germ from which almost all the instrumental music in this movement arises – Bb-A-Bb-G. The bass sings a melody that is almost entirely static, capturing the quiet atmosphere of lovers ”falling into eternal sleep”. Shostakovich chooses to highlight one line: “so that we might not forget them”, perhaps reflecting his own fear of not being remembered and appreciated after his death – heightened by his illness. Remarkably, Shostakovich chooses to use his double basses in divisi rather than using celli in this movement. The result is an imbalanced texture, heavily weighted towards the bass, but this still serves to reinforce the sombre mood.

A sudden change in music, although not theme, announces the arrival of the second movement, Malaguena. Chromaticism, present though understated in the first movement, immediately enters the piece with an ascending chromatic scale from C-Bb. The opening vocal phrases of Malaguena use the interval of a perfect fourth, but the two fourths used are a tritone apart: G-C and Db-Gb. When taken with the rapidly, heavily chromatic passages of the strings, they announce, as a distorted fanfare, the arrival of Death. Static melody then underlines the lyrics “Death keeps entering and leaving”, which portray Shostakovich’s view of death as something that may be forgotten about for a while, but never really leaves the picture.

Lorelei is the first of three longer movements, but the swirling, chromatic strings sweep it along at a frenetic pace. Shostakovich contrasts between declamatory recitativ passages in additive time (5/8-3/8-5/8-6/8-5/8…) that advance the story and melodic passages that largely restrain themselves to 9/8 and 15/8 expressing the emotions of the poem’s characters. The result is a small section of tragic opera that could not be more different from the more familiar version of the Lorelei – a dreamy children’s lullaby. The story is seen not so much as a piece of fantasy but of reality – the poem focuses on characters and events rather than myth. Instead of melodious song, listeners hear of the Lorelei’s desire for death.

The lilting 6/8 opening phrases of The Suicide are much more akin to a lullaby. It features the sweet tone of a cello played in its uppermost extremes alongside the soprano voice, creating a particularly tender atmosphere which is only interrupted for one passage, the lyrics of which feature a lily “lacerating” the mouth of the buried suicide. As a whole the movement suggests regret for things past and the fear that in death there is no comfort from the things that seem beautiful in life.

The text of On Watch confronts the idea of death for glory, and Shostakovich’s attitude is immediately apparent. He mocks the traditional military fanfare by having it played not by a rousing trumpet but by a xylophone, as if it is a children’s plaything. Shostakovich clearly thinks that things like ‘glory’ and ‘country’ are not worth dying for. Curiously the German translation, approved personally by the composer, uses the word “Sturmsoldat” for “soldier”, possibly to referring Nazi stormtroopers. Perhaps Shostakovich’s message is that all soldiers are people, whose lives are all worth something.

Madam, Look! turns back to a more operatic approach, with a duet recitativ accompanied at first by a full string texture, that changes to pizzicato following the voice in octaves, recognising the lightness with which the ‘woman’ treats broken hearts – yet this is cruelty, recognised by Shostakovich’s adding minor 2nds below each violin and viola note. The more melodic section of the song employs tritone and 7th leaps alongside chromatic movement to give the woman’s laughter a bitter edge. Love and gaiety stand no chance against the cruel blows of death.

At the Sante Jail is less remarkable for its vocal melodies as for its instrumental section, in which each string grouping is divided into pizzicato and col legno sections, each playing the same melodic material. These dry timbres, combined with the tapping of a woodblock, create an effect of rattling bones, highlighting the inevitability of the death of the poem’s protagonist.

Shostakovich plays up the Russian angle in the Cossacks’ Reply, focusing on taut rhythmic flow. The strongly accented staccato strings give a bold martial feel that supports the impudent nature of the soldier’s words. The final furious flurry of violins is reminiscent of the European avant garde of the time, that was typically suppressed in the Soviet states. In evoking this, whilst writing a piece that honours the Cossacks, another group discriminated against in Soviet Russia, Shostakovich is clearly thumbing his nose at the authorities.

O Delvig, Delvig is perhaps the most intensely emotional movement in the symphony. Once again the upper reaches of the cellos are exploited, both in complex contrapuntal passages and in lush chords with the violas. The augmentation of the second iteration of “Delvig” reeks of desperation. For the listener this seems a very personal plea from Shostakovich against the oppression of artists.

The Poet’s death marks the recapitulation section of the symphony, the strings returning with their melody from De profundis. Much of the movement consists of intimate duets between the soprano and the violins or violas, before the texture slowly thickens, symbolically linking the poet to the world around him. Shostakovich also harks back to earlier sounds in the symphony’s Conclusion, which opens with the same string texture employed in At the Sante Jail.

Recording: Goeteborgs Symfoniker, Neeme Jaervi, with Ljuba Kazarnovskaya and Sergei Leiferkus, 1983

Score: Edition Sikorski Taschenpartitur