(++++) INFLUENCED AND INFLUENCING

Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5. London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis. Alto. $10.98. 

Lost American Violin Sonatas, Volume 1. Solomia Soroka, violin; Arthur Greene and Phillip Silver, piano. Toccata Next. $18.99. 

Daniel Schnyder: Concerto for Cello, Percussion & String Orchestra; Concerto Populaire; Ad Aeternam; Jazz Sonata for Cello & Piano; Cello BLU; CUBAC (for 8 cellos); Karachi (for cello, soprano saxophone, percussion & string orchestra). Christoph Croisé, cello; Ruven Ruppik, percussion; Daniel Schnyder, soprano saxophone; Beyond Modern Orchestra; Alexander Panfilov, piano; Peter Gorobets, harpsichord; Swiss Cello Octet. AVIE. $19.99. 

     The social-media notion of “influencers” is nothing but an update – with overriding commercial implications – of the longstanding practice of people being influenced by the past, interpreting and reinterpreting it, and in their turn influencing others. Another word for this sort of influencing is simply “progress.” And this is how art of many types, certainly including music, develops into new forms and approaches. Sibelius, for example, was heavily influenced by Tchaikovsky in his early large-scale works, notably including his Symphony No. 1. But by Symphony No. 2, Sibelius had started to pick and choose among elements of the Tchaikovskian sound world and had begun moving toward symphonic forms that reflected a Nordic sensibility and also approached symphonic structure from some intriguing new angles. Thus, if Symphony No. 1, for all the beauties of its themes and elegance of its structure, is largely a derivative work, Symphony No. 2 shows Sibelius beginning to strike out on his own path, one that involves rethinking elements of symphonic form itself. Symphony No. 2 certainly includes a measure of Tchaikovskian introspection – Sibelius at one point said it was “a confession of the soul” – but it is scarcely self-indulgent, much of the entire work being carefully derived and expanded from the three-note theme that opens the first movement. Cleverness abounds in the symphony, for instance in Sibelius’ holding back of the full first-movement theme until the very end of the movement. There is a sense of the symphony being assembled as it goes along, of it building inevitably toward the grandiose finale that, when the symphony was first heard, was picked up as a musical rallying cry for Finnish independence at a time when Russia was cracking down on many elements of Finnish culture. Colin Davis’ 2006 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, now re-released on the Alto label, has sweep and power throughout, and Davis clearly perceives and sustains a sense of the symphony building more and more power and cohesion as it progresses until the final movement blazes forth in triumph. It is a well-paced, well-considered and thoroughly convincing reading of the symphony – and is paired with an equally impressive performance, from 2003, of Symphony No. 5. A significantly shorter and less portentous work, whose final version (1919) is in just three movements, Symphony No. 5 is a bit of a throwback after the more-modernist No. 4 (although the first version of No. 5 was actually closer to the world of its predecessor). Symphony No. 5, as we have it today, is less innovative than No. 2 and in many ways reflects the composer’s newfound determination to stay largely within the harmonic confines of late Romanticism rather than press on into the various 20^th-century post-Romantic approaches to large-scale works. Interestingly – and Davis is quite adept at showing this – the shorter No. 5 seems to operate on a larger scale than No. 2, its very broad themes and consistency of orchestration and instrumental color lending the work a sense of being tight-knit throughout. Superb instrumental touches such as the final-movement theme inspired, Sibelius said, by a flight of cranes, are combined with some unusual rhythmic elements – notably at the work’s very end – to produce a cohesive impression of beauty and grandeur that seems very much attuned to the grandeurs of northern climes, even though Sibelius intended no such overtly Impressionistic tie-in. 

     On the other side of the Atlantic in Sibelius’ time, classical music in the United States was barely beginning to find its way. It was a time of open-air bands (Sousa’s being by far the most notable) rather than concert halls, a time when tremendously innovative composers such as Charles Ives were picking their way through bits of Americana, touches of European classical material, and many elements that were entirely outside the purview of what we now think of as “serious” music. But it was also a time when American composers were determined to absorb the best possible influences from European Romanticism, and specifically from the German school. The result was the creation of numerous exceptionally well-made but now totally obscure pieces steeped in German Romanticism but providing, here and there, hints of thematic and rhythmic material associated with the New World. A fascinating first-in-a-planned-series Toccata Next recording that offers world premières of three violin sonatas by entirely obscure American composers provides a fascinating entry point to the world of American classical music at a time when it was struggling to find its voice and move beyond its models – in some ways mirroring Sibelius’ efforts an ocean away. The composers here are as thoroughly unfamiliar as the specific works offered: Rossetter Gleason Cole (1866-1952), Henry Holden Huss (1862-1953), and Henry Schoenefeld (1857-1936). Those dates are interesting: Sibelius lived from 1865 to 1957, although he produced little in his final several decades – so he and these three Americans were essentially contemporaries. However, there are few glimmers of originality, minimal attempts to incorporate new elements into the solidly (and stolidly) Romantic world of the three violin sonatas that Solomia Soroka performs (Cole’s with her husband, Arthur Greene, on piano, the others with pianist Phillip Silver). The exact dates of composition of the three sonatas are unknown, but their Romantic provenance is clear from the start of each one – and throughout all of them. All have a Brahmsian glow, a warmth and elegance of line that make them very pleasant to hear although less so to re-hear: they are scarcely insubstantial, but what they want to communicate comes through clearly enough on a first hearing so that there is little beyond surface-level beauty to be extracted from them on subsequent listenings. Cole’s four-movement work, published in 1917, is the most-substantial of the three sonatas, its four well-balanced movements having touches of Americana here and there, its overall sound such that it makes perfect sense for the work to have been dedicated by Cole to Max Bruch. The three-movement Huss sonata, which dates to about 1894, contains contrasting elements of strength and lyricism within an overall meditative and rather melancholy feel. It is not a study piece, but it sounds a bit like one, with everything in its place but nothing particularly innovative or unexpected thematically, harmonically or emotionally. Schoenefeld’s three-movement sonata, published in 1903, is marked Sonate quasi Fantasia and does have a sense of fantasy about it. It is a virtuosic work mixing drama with expressiveness, intensity with gentle flow, and the concluding Vivace in rondo form gives Soroka plenty of chances to put her technical abilities on display. All these works are worthwhile for the light they shed on a particular period in American classical music-making, and all are notable for showing the extent to which serious American composers of this time period were beholden to the German Romantic compositional and performance traditions – and were expert at learning and absorbing them, although reluctant to push beyond their boundaries. 

     In contemporary classical music, by contrast, influences of all sorts abound, and it sometimes seems that whatever historical precedent there may be for a particular work is of less importance to composers than whatever non-traditional elements they can attach to it. That is true even for composers adept in classical forms, such as Daniel Schnyder (born 1961; pronounced SHNEE-der). A new AVIE disc features cellist Christoph Croisé (himself a composer as well as a performer) in two large-scale works that he commissioned: Concerto for Cello, Percussion & String Orchestra and Concerto Populaire. Each of these three-movement pieces, respectively from 2021 and 2023, adheres to standard movement arrangements in theory and to more-or-less standard contemporary sound in practice. Middle Eastern melodies and rhythms mix with Latin American sounds in the Concerto for Cello, Percussion & String Orchestra, in which Schnyder – unusually for a modern composer – actually plays to the strengths of the cello, specifically its warmth and depth, part of the time (primarily in the second movement). Unsurprisingly, the percussion plays a considerable role in the work, but it is generally well-integrated with the rest of the ensemble and does not seem to be used purely for effect – although all the players, on all instruments, certainly get a workout in the finale. Concerto Populaire is for soprano saxophone, cello, percussion and string orchestra, and it too goes out of its way to avoid sounding too “European,” much less in the Germanic tradition: the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa peer through again and again. The work is cut from much the same cloth as the Concerto for Cello, Percussion & String Orchestra, but the prominence of the soprano saxophone – adeptly played by the composer – lends it an aural flavor that differs to some extent, even though the influences on the two concertos are largely duplicative. The five remaining works on this very-well-recorded CD are shorter and make less of an attempt to communicate on multiple levels. Ad Aeternam, whose première Croisé gave in 2017, is a memorial and tribute to the late cellist Daniel Pezzotti; it is suitably elegant and sad if perhaps a bit formulaic in its expression of sorrow. The one-movement Jazz Sonata for Cello & Piano is, unsurprisingly in light of its title, a blend of jazz and traditional classical material, and while the instrumental balance is effective enough, the work seems more gestural than genuinely heartfelt. Cello BLU, another Croisé commission, would be expected to be fascinating for using the cello with a harpsichord rather than piano. But the musical blending here, as in other Schnyder works, is pretty much standard stuff: a bit of Gospel here, some R&B there, a sense of “the blues” from time to time (hence the title), but ultimately a less-than-fully-successful attempt to unite and contrast the two instruments. CUBAC is more interesting: originally written for brass ensemble, it is here played on eight cellos, and as its title more-or-less indicates, it includes elements of Cuban music contrasted with material taken, or more accurately developed, in the manner of Bach. The persistent dissonance is somewhat overdone and is on the verge of becoming almost unpleasant by the end of the piece, but escapes that fate by virtue of spinning nearly out of control to a highly dynamic conclusion. Finally, Karachi appears as a three-minute encore to the disc: it is the fourth movement from Schnyder’s Nay Concerto, the title referring to a Middle Eastern bamboo flute. Rearranged for this recording, the piece is suitably bouncy and bright enough to make an enjoyable encore, and sufficiently close spiritually to the blending of various musical styles elsewhere on the CD so that it makes an effective closer. Ultimately, this (+++) CD nicely explores Schnyder’s propensity for specific types of rhythmic, harmonic and instrumental blending and contrast, with the two multi-movement concertos offering the greatest aural variety and the remaining pieces showing how Schnyder enjoys turning again and again to musical sources beyond the largely European ones that are traditionally thought of as the foundations of classical music.