(++++) SYMPHONIC GROWTH

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 (“Tragic”); Overture to “Fierrabras.” City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner. Chandos. $21.99 (SACD).

Scriabin: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4 (“Le Poème de l’extase”). Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta. Naxos. $13.99.

     Schubert was a symphonic experimentalist, repeatedly starting symphonies and then stopping them – either part of the way in (the famous No. 8, “Unfinished,” plus others left equally incomplete) or almost the entire way through (No. 7). His first six symphonies, however, are quite complete, quite charming, and very much worth hearing even though elements of all of them are on the derivative side. The third volume of an irregularly issued Schubert cycle on Chandos, featuring the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner, admirably treats the first and fourth symphonies seriously and not as dismissible juvenilia (although they are juvenilia, No. 1 being written when Schubert was 16 and No. 4 when he was 19). The melodiousness of these symphonies more than makes up for sometimes awkward or formulaic elements of their construction, and it is to Gardner’s credit that he allows the apparently inexhaustible melodic beauties of Schubert’s imagination to flow through in both works. No. 1 already shows Schubert striving for a voice of his own, with intermittent success. The work often sounds like updated Haydn – not a bad thing, actually – but has some structural and aural elements that show budding creativity. The prominence of winds, a Schubert hallmark, is fully in evidence here, as is the willingness to experiment with sonata form: it is the second subject of the first movement, not the first subject, that dominates. Although the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a full-size modern ensemble – easily twice the size of anything available to Schubert – Gardner does his best to keep things light and transparent, and generally succeeds admirably. There are a few unneeded and fussy instances of rubato that interfere with rather than accentuate the generally free-flowing music, but this is by and large an admirable performance. Gardner takes matters further in No. 4, whose title “Tragic” (affixed by Schubert himself) always seems overwrought – “Pathétique” would work better if it were not already attached to Tchaikovsky’s Sixth. Gardner decides to take the word “Tragic” at face value and opens the symphony with great strength and rather more solemnity than the Adagio molto introduction to the first movement can handle. The Allegro vivace main portion of the movement is also delivered with greater intensity than it seems able to sustain, although the orchestra’s very fine playing is quite effective. All pretense of high seriousness dissipates in the sweetly songful second movement, and while the third does have some drive, its central Trio – taken a bit too slowly, in another of Gardner’s unneeded tempo changes – simply meanders pleasantly. The finale, which seems initially to seek to regain tragedy or at least pathos, flows prettily here and without the somewhat overwrought approach given to the first movement. This actually works better, since there is an attractive playfulness to the movement’s second theme that would be lost in a too-intense reading. Also on the CD is the overture to Fierrabras, one of Schubert’s many unsuccessful operatic attempts. This overture has its own overtones of tragedy, or at least pathos, and Gardner brings them forward effectively. The overture itself is later than either of these symphonies – it dates to 1823 – and shows Schubert effectively compressing material instead of letting it flow (or even overflow) as in these symphonies. But of course the overture was designed for a different purpose. Gardner’s Schubert cycle now includes Symphonies Nos. 3, 5 and 8 (Volume 1) and Nos. 2 and 6 (Volume 2). In the traditional Schubert cycle, that leaves only No. 9 (the “Great C Major”) still to come – although it would be nice if Gardner were to offer No. 7 and some of the symphonic fragments as well. One can always hope.

     Scriabin’s symphonic production is not quite as complex to track as Schubert’s, but it is complicated enough. There are three numbered symphonies plus two works that can be categorized either as symphonies or as symphonic poems. The third symphony has a title (Le Divin Poème) that carries through to Le Poème de l’extase, which can be seen as either the fourth symphony or a symphonic poem; the fifth symphony, unless it too is thought of as a tone poem, is Prometheus: The Poem of Fire. No matter how they are numbered and defined, these symphonic works certainly show the composer refining and developing his unique perspective on music. Symphony No. 1 (1899-1900) is an early instance of Scriabin seeking to use music to create moral transformation in listeners – a preoccupation, abetted by the composer’s synesthesia, that was to continue in the later symphonic works and become even more pronounced, to such an extent that the latest, Prometheus, was written to include a “color organ” that would theoretically give audiences some of the same synesthetic effects that Scriabin experienced naturally. A new Naxos CD featuring JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra clearly shows some of the distinctions between Scriabin’s Symphony No. 2 (1901) and Le Poème de l’extase (1905-08). Scriabin’s Second is conventional in design but does push some boundaries: nominally in five movements, it connects the first and second, and then the fourth and fifth. It is cyclic and thematically transformative, and Falletta does a fine job of managing the themes and showing how they knit the work together. The serioso theme of the first movement eventually emerges as a triumphal hymn in the Maestoso finale, and Falletta handles this, as well as the intervening material, with sensitivity and a sure-handed approach to the musical flow. This symphony, which runs 40 minutes, is twice the length of Le Poème de l’extase, but the later work (which Scriabin himself referred to as his fourth symphony) is developmentally much denser. Symphony No. 2 is essentially in C (the first movement is in C minor, the finale in C major), but Le Poème de l’extase is in pretty much all keys: it is harmonic rather than tonal. It is the work’s sweep and musical coloration that are its driving forces, and Scriabin’s use of the whole-tone scale means there is at most intermittent identifiable tonality. This is a work of significant psychic impact but little overtly graspable formal structure, and a good performance has to forgo the usual conductorial attempt to interrelate elements of movements, or within a given movement, and instead look for emotionally compelling touchstones throughout. Falletta finds these again and again, and does a good job bringing forth the crucial brass elements that help give the work some sense of continuity: a horn fanfare and two trumpet themes, one fanfare-like and one more lyrical. The very best performances of Le Poème de l’extase require the very best brass sections, and the Buffalo Philharmonic is not quite at the best-in-the-world level; but the players are more than willing to give their all to Falletta and Scriabin, and the result is a convincing performance that may not have the maximum amount of intense psychic heft but that holds together very well and makes for a more-than-suitable contrast with Symphony No. 2. Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic here prove yet again that they can tackle music of any level of complexity with understanding and provide strong and convincing performances.