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Schubert: Symphony No. 9, “Great”; Songs for soprano and orchestra. Mary Bevan, soprano; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner. Chandos. $21.99 (SACD).

Liszt: Aprés une lecture du Dante—Fantasia quasi sonata; Debussy: Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut; L’isle joyeuse; Lowell Liebermann: Gargoyles; Valentyn Silvestrov: Three Bagatelles, Op. 1; Postludium, Op. 5. Dmytro Choni, piano. Naïve. $16.99.

     It has taken quite a long time to complete Edward Gardner’s Schubert cycle, whose four volumes present the symphonies in no particularly rational order: Volume 1 includes Nos. 3, 5 and 8 and appeared in 2019; Volume 2 has Nos. 2 and 6 and was released in 2020; and Volume 3 contains Nos. 1 and 4 and became available in 2023. The second and third volumes supplement the symphonies with Schubert overtures, with which the symphonic works combine readily enough. The fourth and last volume, focusing on Schubert’s final symphony, takes a somewhat different combinatorial approach that proves to be quite fascinating. Symphony No. 9 is preceded on this Chandos release by five Schubert songs – one of them written by Schubert himself for soprano and orchestra (Romanze from Rosamunde) and the other four orchestrated by four other composers. This SACD thus creates a very unusual environment for the “Great C Major” symphony, and one that turns out to shed some unexpected and welcome light on the symphony’s pervasive songfulness. The song orchestrations are fascinating in themselves: the one of Die Forelle was done by Benjamin Britten in 1942; that of Erlkönig by Hector Berlioz in 1860; that of Geheimes by Johannes Brahms in 1862; and that of Im Abendrot by Max Reger in 1914. The fact that these disparate songs attracted the close attention of such different composers, each of whom put his personal stamp on the music while remaining true to Schubert’s underlying mood-setting, makes this release a fascinating one even before the first note of the symphony is heard. Berlioz’ decorations, Britten’s string passages, Brahms’ use of a single horn with string section, and Reger’s deliberately narrow tonal palette all shed intriguing light on their respective song settings, and all do a fine job of putting Schubert’s handling of the various poets’ words into a context different from the composer’s original one but complementary to it. Mary Bevan’s sensitively evocative exploration of the songs’ words, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s equally sensitive and well-balanced accompaniment, produce a warmly intimate sound world into which Gardner then brings the symphony. The performance is in fact a songful one, highlighting the pervasive lyricism of the symphony with generally fleet tempos and a welcome light touch that connects this work to Schubert’s earlier and less-ambitious symphonies as well as to the lovely flow so evident in his songs. The symphony’s first movement is the only one that slightly disappoints, with a few unneeded rubato elements that interfere with the smoothness with which Schubert presents and develops his themes. These are minor, though, and the remaining movements thankfully proceed without them, as Gardner keeps the orchestra’s sections well-balanced and allows Schubert all the expressive beauty that this large-scale but intimate symphony invites. The performance, taken as a whole, is a very fine one and is certainly a capstone of Gardner’s Schubert cycle. And the symphony is all the more interesting for being presented in an aural environment that not only includes some of the composer’s song settings but also lets listeners hear how several other fine composers absorbed Schubert’s music and channeled it through their own sensibilities.

     The performances are equally compelling, but the musical connections more forced, on a new Naïve CD featuring the young Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni (born 1993). The centerpiece of this recital is the work usually referred to as Liszt’s “Dante sonata” although actually, as its title indicates, it is something between a sonata and a fantasia. Choni has no evident difficulty with the work’s considerable technical demands, and as a result is able to focus throughout on its emotional highs and lows. Liszt himself created this piece within a specific context: it is No. 7 of Italie from Années de pèlerinage II. But Choni is less interested in its geographical provenance than its emotional one, using the Dante connection to make the work the linchpin of a rather meandering recital containing elements of both the hellish and the heavenly. Actually, Liszt’s own contrast between beauty, even sweetness, and dramatic intensity, is everywhere apparent in this fantasia/sonata, and Choni does a fine job of allowing the contrasting sections to flower on their own and within the work as a whole. The performance is technically impressive and emotionally convincing – but not everything with which Liszt’s music is coupled on this disc works equally well. Choni’s program opens and closes with pieces by Valentyn Silvestrov (born 1937). The opening of the CD is Silvestrov’s Three Bagatelles: the first delicate in the extreme, the second darker and more portentous, the third hesitant and uncertain in mood. The disc concludes with Silvestrov’s Postludium, the title certainly being apt for its placement but the piece itself – which is also essentially a bagatelle – somewhat too uncertain in mood and structure to be a truly satisfying conclusion. The other works that Choni plays are suitably atmospheric but not as indicative of the contrast of ups and downs in life that Choni wants them to be. Debussy’s well-known Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut (No. 2 from the second series of Images) and L’sle joyeuse are quietly lovely and evocative, of course, and Choni’s sensitivity to their moods is quite impressive – as are, in particular, the clarity of the trills and the balancing of left and right hands in L’isle joyeuse. But how the works fit musically and/or emotionally with Liszt’s fantasia/sonata, which they follow on the disc, is less than apparent. On the other hand, Gargoyles by Lowell Liebermann (born 1961) limns its subject matter as clearly as does Ravel in Scarbo: Liebermann’s four short pieces burst with differing forms of energy – the first driving and intense, the second light and delicate, the third an arabesque of color and gentle rhythm, the fourth as strongly propulsive as the first and with even more demonic coloration. Choni’s handling of these pieces, which are more monochromatic than Liszt’s expansive and variegated fantasia/sonata, is exceptionally convincing, the concluding Liebermann work in particular showing marvelous control of both technique and emotional communication. The Liszt and Liebermann pieces and L’isle joyeuse are the most effective and meaningful ones on this disc, and although they do not fit especially well together – and the CD as a whole is somewhat more diffuse both musically and emotionally than Choni wants it to be – this is nevertheless a highly impressive presentation of performances by a pianist whose skill and sensitivity are both at an equally high level.