(++++) SYMPHONIC SUMMIT

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8, 1890 version. Philharmonie Festiva conducted by Gerd Schaller. Profil. $20.99. 

     Gerd Schaller is indisputably one of today’s preeminent Bruckner conductors. Schaller has gone so far as to complete Bruckner’s almost-finished Symphony No. 9 and to record it in four-movement form – twice. On a new Profil release, Schaller fully displays his knowledge and understanding of Bruckner through a live performance of the 1890 edition of Bruckner’s Eighth – the final version of Bruckner’s final completed symphony. 

     The performance is special from the start of the first movement: there is a feeling of anticipation from the very beginning. Philharmonie Festiva, which Schaller founded in 2008, is a very finely honed orchestra, warm and full-throated but still precise in sectional balance. Schaller displays a finely honed sense of proportion in this movement, knowing how to build to the series of mini-climaxes so crucial to Bruckner's structure while holding enough in reserve for the greater overall climaxes still to come: this is a symphony that builds inexorably (and despite some sense of meandering here and there) to its finale. The first movement has rhythmic solidity throughout in this reading. The horns should be singled out for the strength and warmth of their sound, coupled with an unerring ability to fade into the overall orchestral texture when their front-and-center presence is not required. This is a performance rich in details, not just one of massed sound – for instance, the trumpets' dotted rhythms are handled with excellent clarity. What comes through to an exceptional degree here is the strong and near-constant lyrical flow, which is even more prevalent than the movement’s dramatic episodes. The final two minutes, which move from broad strength to the quiet ending that Bruckner created specifically for this version of the symphony, are especially well-proportioned and seem to invite anticipation of what comes next. 

     What does come next is a movement with the same tempo indication, Allegro moderato, but a completely different feeling. This Scherzo is forthright and without the rhythmic variations and ambiguity of the first movement. Evenness of pacing predominates, with Schaller's evident care to balance the string and wind/brass sections everywhere apparent. The Trio reintroduces some of the ambiguousness and mysterious feeling of the first movement: its quiet portions have a questioning feeling about them. So this central section comes across as an atmospheric interlude – until the return of the Scherzo quickly reestablishes the initial mood of striding forthrightness, in which the clarity of the timpani is especially welcome. 

     Just as the first two movements of Bruckner’s Eighth form a contrasting pair with the same tempo designation, so do the third and fourth movements, both of which are designated Feierlich (“Solemnly”). The full marking of the third movement is Feierlich langsam, doch nicht schleppend (“Solemnly, slowly, but not sluggishly”), and Schaller has an intuitive (or perhaps well-studied) understanding of just what this means. As in the first movement, this one has an initial feeling of anticipation, as if building toward still-to-be-discovered climactic elements. But here gentleness is paramount, with harp emphases providing a degree of evanescence that is soon succeeded by ever-greater warmth of feeling. The movement swells and subsides repeatedly, and Schaller manages to ensure that it nevertheless retains forward momentum. The strings' sweetness is especially noticeable – and notable. This movement unfolds at considerable length – it is the longest of the four in this performance – but its progress seems entirely natural, and indeed inevitable, as it builds from section to section, louder and softer dynamics alternating as if an epic story is unfolding, being told with intermittent climactic passages. Recurring episodes of delicacy, with individual instrumental touches here and there, contrast strongly with tutti sections, each seeming complete in itself but also emerging as part of a larger narrative – Schaller again keeps the forward momentum clear throughout. The eventual triumphal passage with cymbal clashes seems to have brought matters to a head, but at that point there are still four minutes of the movement to go, and Schaller makes sure they are not a letdown, presenting them with unflagging momentum and the same attentiveness to detail so clearly in evidence earlier. And the quiet ending, which parallels that of the first movement, is handled to fine effect. As a result, these final minutes of the third movement become in effect a gently propulsive coda and, simultaneously, an introduction to a finale that eventually will produce the broadest and strongest possible climactic conclusion. 

     That finale rushes in forcefully but without inappropriate speed – its full tempo indication is Feierlich, nicht schnell (“Solemn, not quick”). Here the strings immediately establish a stronger, more propulsive forward pace than in the third movement, abetted by timpani and brass exclamations that announce grandeur to come by providing a sample of it from the outset. The characteristically episodic nature of the movement is carefully managed to show the ways in which individual segments fit together into a larger whole – indeed, this careful assembly of material is a primary characteristic of Schaller's approach throughout this performance. Attentiveness to minute details is another key element of this reading, which means horn rhythms are painstakingly accurate, legato string passages flow with elegance, and woodwind touches are just pointed and piquant enough. Yet it is the massed sound that makes the strongest impression as the movement continues, showing how Bruckner is assembling smaller building blocks into the imposing edifice that the finale eventually becomes. By its midpoint, the movement has already come across so forcefully that it is difficult to know where it still has to go. But Schaller continues meticulously pacing the succeeding portions of the finale so that they mount upon each other, gradually shining more and more light on Bruckner's plan to pull everything together in a conclusive triumph whose individual elements, including some that have appeared to wander, are very complex indeed – but whose overall effect is brilliantly apparent, even straightforward, in its presentation of accumulated motifs, rhythms, thematic material and orchestral elements. Schaller and his orchestra deliver a fully satisfying and thoroughly dramatic conclusion that shows through clearly as the climax toward which all the earlier elements of the symphony have been tending. The result is a fully satisfying, beautifully proportioned and excellently played Bruckner Eighth that showcases the high quality of Philharmonie Festiva and the depth of Schaller's understanding of this multifaceted symphony and of Bruckner himself as its creator.

(++++) BEYOND THE ACCORDION

Ástor Piazzolla: Bandoneón Concerto “Aconcagua”; Tres Tangos Sinfónicos; Oblivion. Klaudiusz Baran, bandoneón; Czestochowa Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adam Klocek. Brilliant Classics. $14.99. 

     Frequently mentioned in the same breath as the much more widely known and more frequently played accordion, the bandoneón shares the more-common instrument’s underlying hand-operated, free-reed design but is capable of a great deal more expressiveness and emotional versatility – as is apparent in the many works written for it by Ástor Piazzolla (1921-1992), including the fascinating selection on a new Brilliant Classics CD featuring Klaudiusz Baran and the Czestochowa Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under Adam Klocek. Preeminent among these pieces and among bandoneón works in general is Piazzolla’s 1979 Bandoneón Concerto for solo instrument, strings and percussion, which provides many intriguing reminders of the fact that the bandoneón is actually of German origin: this button organ was invented by Heinrich Band in the 1840s and later brought to South America, with which it has ever since been associated. 

     Piazzolla’s thorough absorption of classical-music tropes into works for the bandoneón, an instrument previously thought of as more appropriate for folk and popular music, is everywhere apparent in the Bandoneón Concerto and helps explain why Piazzolla’s publisher, Aldo Pagani, attached the title “Aconcagua” to the work, acclaiming the concerto as the peak of Piazzolla’s oeuvre and therefore deserving of a title referring to the highest mountain peak in South America. The emotive range of the concerto is exceptional, and the integration of the solo instrument with various orchestral ones is handled with consummate skill and aural sensitivity that is as fascinating today as it was when the work was first performed. The dual-cadenza first movement juxtaposes dance-hall-like elements with concert-hall lyricism and impressive virtuosity throughout. The tonal blending and instrumental sensitivity of the second movement are highlights of the whole concerto, with the merging of bandoneón and harp especially noteworthy and sonically surprising in the reflective capabilities of each instrument for the other. And the finale, which explores the tango in multiple guises while demanding virtuosity even exceeding that needed for the first movement, is fascinating in displaying the variegated moods of which the tango form is capable, managing to sound danceable almost throughout while also delving into film-music-like material: the finale’s main theme was originally used by Piazzolla in music he wrote for a movie called Con alma y vida. Indeed, the tango – Piazzolla’s calling card – permeates the Bandoneón Concerto, but the work rises above the dance form, or rather displays, with considerable elegance, the transformative power that Piazzolla brings to the traditional dance, all the while showcasing the emotional range and virtuosic proclivities that he demands of the bandoneón and that Baran delivers from start to finish with assurance and consummate skill. 

     Piazzolla’s Tres Tangos Sinfónicos (1963) are less impressive than the concerto but serve a very different purpose. They are, collectively, a summation of the composer’s approach to what is now always called tango nuevo, a form with which Piazzolla is intimately identified and one that, in truth, he invented. Each of the three tangos blends traditional Argentine tango rhythms with European harmonic and chromatic elements well-known in the concert hall – and with some flavoring of American jazz thrown in for additional piquancy from time to time. The pervasive tango rhythm unites these three pieces, while their related but well-differentiated emotional compass distinguishes each of them from the others. And here too the intermingling of instruments – notably bandoneón with solo violin in several passages of surpassing beauty and emotional impact – is handled to very fine effect, both compositionally and in this performance. 

     This CD concludes with one of Piazzolla’s best-known works, and one that, like the theme of the third movement of the Bandoneón Concerto, is film-related: Oblivion, which Piazzolla wrote in 1982 and which was used in the 1984 Italian film Enrico IV. The piece is simple in structure, harmonically consistent (in C minor), and short (64 bars, about four minutes). Although nominally a tango (actually using the related milonga rhythm), Oblivion partakes of concert-hall (essentially French) Impressionism as well. Its slow pace, straightforward melodies, and yearning character tie it closely to the world of film music; its interesting orchestration (bandoneón, strings and bells) showcases Piazzolla’s skill at blending and contrasting instrumental sounds. Although it has been arranged for various instrumental groupings, Oblivion remains most effective in its original form, with the very finely balanced reading by Baran and Klocek likely making listeners wish the piece had gone on even longer. Or if not the piece, the CD: the biggest issue with this disc is that it lasts a mere 44 minutes, which is enough to showcase the composer’s and performers’ skills but scarcely sufficient time for a full display of the special world of the bandoneón as Piazzolla wrote for it.

(++++) A PATH TO UNDERSTANDING

Mahler: Symphony No. 5. Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. Reference Recordings. $24.98 (SACD). 

     It is hard to imagine that Mahler did not have Beethoven’s Fifth in mind when composing his own Symphony No. 5. After all, Mahler’s symphony begins in exactly the same rhythm as Beethoven’s, although the first notes differ: G,G,G,E-flat in Beethoven, C-sharp, C-sharp, C-sharp, A in Mahler. The key structure of the two symphonies also has notable although not exact similarities, with Beethoven’s Fifth in C minor (ending in C major) and Mahler’s Fifth opening in C-sharp minor (ending in D major). The parallels can easily be overemphasized and pushed too far, but they are worth keeping in mind because of the similar-but-different emotional trajectories of the two symphonies: Beethoven’s moves with clarity from darkness to light, while Mahler’s may be best thought of as moving from dark and intense complexity to a finale of comparative simplicity (a form of progress that clearly appealed to Mahler: he followed it in much the same way in his Symphony No. 7, four years after No. 5). 

     Mahler’s duplication of Beethoven’s opening rhythm comes in the form of a solo trumpet rather than an orchestral tutti, and in this respect Mahler’s symphony of 1902 has something in common with Sibelius’ First, finished two years earlier, which starts with a clarinet solo. Still, if Mahler’s approach was not unique in the opening of his Symphony No. 5, the work bears the unmistakable stamp of his personal interpretation of what had come before – and of his personal journey through life at a point where, for the first time, he created a symphony wholly separated from the song cycles that were the building blocks of his earlier works. 

     Sir Donald Runnicles shows in a new Reference Recordings release that he thoroughly understands Mahler’s musical and emotional position in this symphony. Runnicles produces an overall expansive reading that is not, however, especially slow. He gets the moods right from the start, with a very gloomy and funereal opening whose strength of emphasis makes it feel a good deal slower than the clock time shows it to be. Runnicles and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra really lean into the intense emotions of the movement, and indeed Runnicles does not hesitate occasionally to hold back the music with some rubato that is intended to make an ensuing passage even more strongly felt. Generally, though, Runnicles wisely keeps the rhythm of this funeral cortège even, and the exceptional delicacy and quiet toward the end are all the more effective as a result. 

     The second movement, which Mahler regarded as the symphony’s emotional if not structural opening, is presented with plenty of vehemence, but with great care taken to ensure that all the individual notes of the cascade of intensity are heard, not slurred. The orchestra is at its best here: the trumpets are exceptional, and the strings, while generally astringent, show themselves also capable of great warmth. The triumphal D major chorale near the movement’s end hints at where the entire symphony will go eventually, even though this specific movement concludes in A minor. Indeed, there is a definite feeling of exhaustion and collapse as the movement’s end approaches: it is quite well done. Less creditable are the ritards within the movement, some of which are a bit too pronounced and cause the momentum to flag instead of resulting in a sense of stronger emphasis, which is presumably Runnicles’ intention. 

     Runnicles gives the third movement good pacing: Mahler was worried that conductors would take it too fast, and Runnicles is careful not to do so. The opening horn, however, starts modestly instead of ringing out loudly, giving more of a pleasant invitation to attention rather than a clarion call. The gentle lilt of Ländler rhythm is brought out clearly in the first portion of the movement, and as a whole there is an expansive feeling here – especially in the middle, where the pace becomes quiescent and individual instruments are highlighted. The movement in its entirety is weighty enough to stand on its own as Part 2 of the symphony, per Mahler’s label: it represents a transition in mood and a different sort of emotional heft from what is communicated by the first two movements. The speedy final section works well as a capstone. 

     There is another change of emotional focus at the start of the Adagietto. The harp at the beginning has a celestial feeling about it and is kept quite prominent throughout. Runnicles here insists on exceptional gentleness of expressiveness, and the movement is notable for the repeated sense of yearning halfway through – not in a Tristan und Isolde sense but more in the nature of expected and anticipated emotional reciprocity. And then comes the comparative simplicity of the finale, with its brass opening akin to that of the third movement, but featuring a much jauntier, even trivial response – certainly nothing weighty. Here there is a definite sense of having come through considerable emotional turmoil, both negative and positive, to a celebratory place, with material presented in a comparatively straightforward manner (which, as noted, will also be Mahler’s approach in Symphony No. 7 in 1906). The cheerful “chugging” rhythm of the movement, initially in the lower strings, is very apparent in Runnicles’ reading, and the hints of earlier-movement emotions are brought forth to very good effect – for example, the yearning of violins halfway through this finale. As this movement, simply designated Allegro, moves toward its conclusion, the chorale heard earlier in the symphony flowers fully and is allowed to crown the totality of the work, which it does in fine style – although the last few measures are here taken a bit too quickly to be fully satisfying. 

     What Runnicles and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra offer here is an unapologetic Mahler Fifth, one that delves deeply into emotion without wallowing in it unduly, and one that takes the audience along on a spiritual journey that may not be grounded in verbiage, as were Mahler’s earlier symphonies, but that shows just how effectively Mahler could communicate the feelings underlying words without being bound to verbal specificity. This is a performance of understated understanding, one that allows Mahler’s musical expressiveness free rein while keeping his foundational emotional content, which can sometimes be overdone, well-balanced and clearly communicated – without becoming cloying or overstated.

(+++) ACCEPTING THE INEVITABLE

Wilfrido Terrazas: Trilogía del Dolor—An Investigation of Human Pain in Three Parts. Wilfrido Terrazas, narrator and flutes; Miguel Zazueta, tenor; Madison Greenstone, clarinet; rocio sánchez [sic], cello; Mariana Flores Bucio, soprano; Camilo Zamudio, percussion. New Focus Recordings. $18.99. 

     It is a curiosity of the human spirit that extended dwelling on pleasure tends to come across as unseemly, while prolonged meditation on pain appears profound. Certainly Wilfrido Terrazas (born 1974) is seeking depth, both musical and verbal, in his hour-plus-long, three-part meditation, Trilogía del Dolor. Whether the material will resonate with listeners will be a highly personal matter: other long-drawn-out music focused on pain – Mahler’s and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphonies come to mind – tends to search for context and moments of lightness (or at least wryness) for purposes of contrast, but Terrazas stays relentlessly on target from start to finish, relying on alterations of instrumentation and the use of words from numerous sources to provide some differences of perspective among the work’s 11 pain-focused movements. 

     Terrazas’ work is entirely in Spanish, as are the titles of its first two sections, Llevarás el nombre (“You will bear the name”) and Pequeña familia (“Small family”). The third section, however. has an English-language title, Ten Thousand Regrets, even though all its verbiage is in Spanish. The sources of the words are poems by Nuria Manzur-Wirth in the three elements of the first section; texts by Terrazas himself in the three parts of the second; and poems by Ricardo Cázares, Tania Favela, Mónica Morales Rocha, and Nadia Mondragón in the five portions of the third. On the face of it, Trilogía de Dolor would seem to be an extended expression of ego and self-importance by the composer, given his participation as text provider, narrator and instrumentalist; but the words themselves are intended to convey a sense of the universality of pain as a human experience rather than to delve into and duplicate Terrazas’ own experiences of it (except insofar as he is himself a member of the human family). 

     The music underlying and underlining the words is rather less intense, less dramatic and less pain-pervaded than the words themselves: there is nothing here akin to the finales of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth or Mahler’s. The instrumentation is sparse: flutes alone in the first section, clarinet and cello in the second, and a small ensemble in the third consisting of flutes, clarinet, cello and percussion. There is something theatrical in the construction of Trilogía del Dolor, which in fact is designed to include a visual artist in live performance. The theatricality comes through well enough, however, without any overt visual element: it is the expressive nature of the verbal delivery that projects sincerity and intended engagement with the audience. 

     The nature of the music also contributes to the sense of a stage performance. Less off-putting than much avant-garde material, although certainly existing within the common contemporary musical space of blended forms, aural experimentation, improvisation and extended performance practice, Trilogía del Dolor is in effect a chamber opera of the besieged soul, an exploration of the sadness of everyday life, of memory, of relationships, of intersections and interactions with the external world – all with a perhaps-inevitable conclusion, intended to be comforting, that combines resignation with a certain degree of healing and gratitude. Terrazas takes listeners on this journey with a number of less-than-unusual harmonic forays and a few moves into the aurally unexpected: a breath of bolero here, note flurries there, fragile wind/string interaction in one place, cacophony in another, thinness of sound in several places, lusher harmonies in a few. 

     Trilogía del Dolor is most effective when it is most restrained both verbally and musically: it does go on for quite a long time with its unerring focus on matters more melancholic than depressive, but it works best when it does not overdo the dolorousness or try to turn elements of everyday existence into some sort of deep existential tragedy. Indeed, Terrazas shows through his choice of texts and arrangements of accompanying music that he regards pain as an inescapable and perpetual element of human existence, an experience shared by all in the human condition and one that, indeed, cements the interconnectedness of humanity. This is a valid if scarcely original conceit that has the advantage of removing some of pain’s sting by subsuming personal experience into the communal. Trilogía del Dolor does somewhat “protest too much” in its variations, verbal and textual, upon its single focus, and as a result is not entirely convincing throughout . But Terrazas’ skill at weaving differing combinations of vocal and instrumental material together helps keep this extended self-meditation effective, if not exactly enjoyable, and prevents it from coming across as simply self-referential navel gazing. It is less deep than it wants to be, but does touch with sensitivity on an essential element of what makes us human.