Zdeněk Fibich: Orchestral Works, Volume 5—Symphony No. 3; Šarka—Overture; Bouře (The
Tempest)—Act III Overture; Nevěsta messinská (The Bride of Messina)—Act III Funeral March. Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava
conducted by Marek Štilec. Naxos. $11.99.
Music
for Cello and Piano by Composers of African Descent. Duo Dolce (Kristen Yeon-Ji Yun, cello; Phoenix
Park-Kim, piano). MSR Classics. $12.95.
Although it is certainly possible to listen to the music of Tchaikovsky
or Rimsky-Korsakov because it is deeply Russian, to that of Ives or Copland
because it is deeply American, or to that of Dvořák or
Smetana or Janáček because it is deeply Czech, it is fair to say that
this is not the primary reason most people hear and enjoy these composers’
works. Instead, it is because their creations partake of their respective
cultures while also transcending them that the works reach out to a wide
audience rather than one listening out of a sense of obligatory patriotism or
social/political “correctness” of some sort. Even composers who draw deeply on
their heritage without being quite as brilliant in turning it into something
with wider appeal may create works that effectively incorporate national (or
nationalistic) material into pieces that listeners can enjoy, and that can
evoke audiences’ emotions, without requiring people to be deeply “in tune” with
the music’s roots. This is the situation with Zdeněk Fibich (1850-1900), the fifth volume of whose
orchestral music has finally been released by Naxos after a
five-and-a-half-year gap since the prior release. This concluding CD, which
features top-notch and highly idiomatic playing by the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava conducted by Marek Štilec, offers a particularly interesting mixture of
material that is redolent of Czech atmosphere and music that pays homage to its
ethnic roots but goes well beyond them. Fibich’s third and final symphony has
some strongly Czech elements, notably in its third movement (which is just the
sort of Scherzo in which Dvořák also brought folklike material
to the fore); but its overall impression is only incidentally one of Czech
music. Instead, it comes across as a thoughtful and dark work (its home key is
E minor) that claws its way somewhat laboriously to a positive resolution. Almost
unrelieved intensity, starting with a movement labeled Allegro inquieto, is the chief characteristic here – there is not
even a broad or expansive slow movement to relieve the headlong forward motion.
Even the start of the Allegro maestoso
finale retains the pervasive sense of gloom – but eventually, brighter (and
definitely Czech-inflected) material pushes through, somewhat effortfully, and
a struggle with the more portentous elements ensues. Brass chords closely
resembling those bridging the last two movement of Smetana’s Má Vlast herald a conclusion in which positivity finally wins
through to a triumphal major-key resolution.
The remaining works on the disc, all from operas, partake of Czech
culture to varying degrees. Šarka is based on the same legend that inspired the third
movement of Smetana’s Má Vlast, and
this is definitely a folktale of Fibich’s and Smetana’s homeland. But Fibich,
to a greater extent than Smetana, does his scene-setting on a broad canvas,
emphasizing the tragic elements of the story in grand fashion and only
introducing a degree of local coloration in the slower part of the overture,
prior to its emphatically dark conclusion. Bouře (The Tempest)
draws on an English source – Shakespeare’s play – and the overture to the third
act conveys a suitable scene of sylvan placidity and overall gentleness, albeit
with a few gestures, especially in the lower winds and strings, that could well
be indicative of the strange supernatural beings found on Prospero’s island. The
source for The Bride of Messina is
German – the play is by Friedrich Schiller – and this is a somewhat overdone
tragedy, redolent of revelations in the style of ancient Greek tragic plays. The
plot involves two brothers who fall in love with the same woman, who turns out
to be their long-lost sister – a revelation that results in both brothers’
death and fulfillment of a prophecy that their sister would be fatal to them
both. There is nothing particularly Czech in the story or in Fibich’s handling
of it, with the funeral march from the opera’s third act simply functioning as
a highly effective mood-enhancer within a tale that is melodramatic in the
extreme. Fibich’s music on this disc, and the four prior ones in this series,
is very well-crafted, quite aptly structured for its various purposes, and
amply flavored with Czech nationalism and feelings – without, however, ever
sounding like mere patriotic assertion or a pure affirmation of the individuality
of the Czech nation within what was, in Fibich’s time, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.
Assertion of provenance is,
however, the point of a new (+++) MSR Classics CD featuring works by seven
African-descended composers from the 19th, 20th and 21st
centuries. The dozen works here are of varying quality and varying levels of
interest, but the disc’s focus seems to be less on the music than on the
background of the composers – as if they deserve to be heard because of where
they come from (or where their ancestors came from), not because of the music’s
quality. This is unfortunate, since it implies that the music cannot stand
worthily on its own. But it can – some of it, anyway. Four of the composers
represented here are still living: Richard Thompson (born 1960), Adolphus
Hailstork (born 1941), John Wineglass (born 1972), and Michael Abels (born
1962). The other three flourished in the 20th century, although one
was born in the 19th: William Grant Still (1895-1978). Of the
remaining two, Howard Swanson lived from 1907 to 1978, and Moses Hogan from
1957 to 2003. The CD is not presented chronologically, and while some of the
works were written for cello and piano, others are arrangements; again, they
appear in no particular order. Presumably Kristen Yeon-Ji Yun and Phoenix
Park-Kim simply thought these pieces, in this sequence, would make a pleasing
recital. The disc opens with two atmospheric works by Still, Summerland and Mother and Child, both of them slow-paced and moody. Next is
Swanson’s four-movement Suite for Cello
and Piano, the longest piece on the CD – and one whose mood cleaves rather
closely to that of the two Still character pieces, although Swanson’s second
movement, “Pantomime,” has a bit more brightness to it. Thompson’s Preludes Nos. 1 and 5 are for solo
piano. No. 1 continues in the same vein already established on the disc, of
mid-tempo, mostly quiet, mildly emotional music; No. 5 is somewhat more varied
in mood and covers a bit more ground even though, at only two minutes, it is
quite short. The next work here is Hailstork’s Theme and Variations on “Draw the Sacred Circle Closer,” a solo-cello
piece whose African roots are clear from its title – but one whose structure
and development are far more European than African, with Hailstork showing
considerable command of the variation form and a fine ability to write cello
music that lies well on the instrument and communicates effectively. This is
followed by Wineglass’s Piano Suite No.
2, “Times of Solitude,” whose three movements are the slow and melancholy
“A Midsummer Waltz,” the slow and atmospheric “The Journey,” and the slow and
delicate “Distant Memories” – there are nice piano touches throughout, but the generally
plodding pacing makes the work seem longer than its 10½ minutes. This is
followed by four Hogan arrangements, for cello and piano, of spirituals: “Deep
River,” “Let Us Break Bread Together,” “Give Me Jesus,” and “Were You There.”
The music is performed with considerable feeling, and the warmth of the cello
comes through very well, but by now, listeners may well have tired of the
unremittingly slow-to-moderate pace of nearly all the works on the CD. The last
piece on the disc, an arrangement of Abels’ Chris
and Rose (the love theme from a film called Get Out), is more of the same: a fine opportunity for the
performers to bring forth emotion (rather surface-level emotion in this
specific case), but once again at a pace that implies there is never anything
upbeat, bright, quick or light in music by composers with roots in Africa. In
reality, that notion is nonsense: it is simply that the performers’ choice of these works by these composers leads to a recording that offers what is
essentially 77 minutes of a single mood. Casting a wider net among the works of
these composers, or including pieces by entirely different ones, would give a
much better picture of the musical thinking of composers of African descent –
and a much stronger reason to listen to this disc than the composers’ ethnicity
and ancestry.
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