This is an uncommonly interesting programme and the
four pieces that comprise it make a satisfying combination.
I have to say that I’m not sure about the “for a
time of War” tag, which is unexplained in the booklet
notes. The Ives piece was written in peacetime; the Adams work,
although it is a setting of words rooted in the American Civil
War, was more inspired by the composer’s experiences of
the last illness and death of his father as well as the fact
that several people close to Adams had died of AIDS. The Britten
was certainly a product of the war years but the Vaughan Williams
symphony, though finished as the political storm clouds began
to rise in Europe in the 1930s, is now generally accepted to
relate to his personal situation at the time: a recent film,
The Passions of Vaughan Williams, suggested that the
work has a lot to do with his frustrations at the increasing
ill health of his first wife, Adeline. Let us not quibble, however;
there is much that binds the works together and the key thing
is that the programme is musically satisfying. It’s also
extremely well executed: there’s some very fine music
making to be experienced here.
The Unanswered Question is given a refined and cultivated
reading. However, despite the sensitivity of the performance
a couple of doubts crept into my mind while listening. I wondered
if it’s not a bit too slow - but then reminded myself
that the recordings by both Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson
Thomas are even more expansive. However, John Adams on his 1989
album American Elegies (Elektra Nonesuch 79249-2) gets
through the piece in a ‘mere’ 4:49 and I rather
like his refusal to linger excessively. Slightly more concerning
is the fact that I’m unsure that the woodwind interjections
sound sufficiently “quarrelsome”, as annotator Steven
Kruger aptly describes them. However, the piece is very well
played indeed.
John Adams’ The Wound-Dresser is one of his most
thought-provoking pieces. It’s a setting for baritone
and small orchestra of lines from Walt Whitman’s Drum
Taps in which the poet describes graphically his experiences
ministering to wounded soldiers during the American Civil War.
The text is grim and stark, evoking some harrowing imagery and
it seems to me that one of Adams’ great achievements in
the piece is the avoidance of any mawkishness or hysteria. The
piece, which is a declamatory soliloquy for the baritone, is
surprisingly calm and restrained in tone. Though it depicts
a war-time scenario Adams was inspired to write it having experienced
his father’s terminal illness and also after the AIDS-related
death of a number of friends.
The performance benefits from two things. One is the sensitive
and committed conducting of Carlos Kalmar, who, as in the Ives,
obtains very fine and responsive playing from his orchestra,
not least from Jun Iwasaki, who was the concertmaster at the
time. The second is the presence of baritone Sanford Sylvan.
Mr Sylvan has a very close association with John Adams’
music; he created the role of Chou En-Lai in Nixon in China
and the title role in The Death of Klinghoffer
and went on to give definitive performances in the recordings
of both operas. Even more relevantly, it was he who gave the
first performance of The Wound-Dresser in 1989 and he
went on to make the first recording, with the composer conducting,
later that year (Elektra Nonesuch 79218-2). Comparing the two
recordings I find there’s little to choose between them:
both are first class. Sylvan is a most eloquent soloist on this
new recording - as he was in 1989 - and he’s accorded
a lovely natural balance against the orchestra. If you haven’t
heard this fine piece before then the present disc would be
an excellent way to experience it.
Sinfonia da Requiem is very well done indeed. Kalmar
directs a very powerful account of the first movement, ‘Lacrymosa’
but, despite the arresting opening and several other potent
passages there are many stretches of this movement that are
much more subdued and these are played with great refinement.
The second movement, ‘Dies Irae’ spits and snarls
as it should. In a reading of great energy and drive one cannot
but admire the precision of the Oregon Symphony. The finale,
‘Requiem Aeternam’, is much more consolatory in
tone; the violence is past. The orchestra responds to this change
of mood with some very beautiful, dedicated playing. Here, I
must make comment about Steven Kruger’s notes, which I’m
afraid I find disappointingly tendentious in relation to this
work. Leaving aside the factual error that Britten “set
[the piece] before the public” in 1940 - the first performance
was given in New York in March 1941 - I really have some difficulties
with his assertion that “it is not a stretch to view it
as depicting the Battle of Britain then taking place.”
I can agree with him that Britten came to feel increasingly
uncomfortable in the safety of the USA while Britain was at
war. However, I’ve never read anywhere else the suggestion
that the Sinfonia, which was composed in a great hurry
to meet a rapidly approaching deadline, depicts the Battle of
Britain. According to Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of
Britten the work was completed in June 1940. However, the battle
of Britain really only began the following month. Possibly the
events of the Spanish Civil War, which had affected the pacifist
Britten quite considerably provided more of an impetus for the
work but this is not a piece about the Battle of Britain.
I don’t think Mr Kruger helps his cause either by statements
such as this one about the third movement: “Britten now
undertakes to do what any good English composer does for serenity
- he walks the listener home.” I bet Britten would turn
in his grave at rubbish like that! Forget the notes and concentrate
on the performance, which is a fine one.
Impressive too is the reading of Vaughan Williams’ Fourth
Symphony. The account of the first movement is robust and potent;
the orchestra’s playing is very dynamic. The slow movement
is also well done. Much of this is brooding music and Kalmar’s
interpretation is probing. He controls the stretches of quiet
music very well while the climaxes have strength. The tempestuous
third movement is delivered with great thrust and vigour; the
spiky irregular rhythms are articulated very well. As for the
finale, it erupts. The performance is as fast as I can recall
hearing it - though it’s not rushed; Kalmar exerts a fine
grip on proceedings. The music boils and the brass playing is
superbly incisive; mind you, the whole orchestra is incisive.
There’s no applause after the performance - nor is there
after any of the pieces - but I bet that on the night the audience
were enthused by this performance, and rightly so.
I listened to this hybrid SACD as a conventional CD and I found
the sound was very good indeed. The recording has clarity, presence
and depth and it shows the excellent playing of the Oregon Symphony
in the best possible light, which is what the quality of their
playing deserves.
Immediately after these concerts the orchestra took the programme
to Carnegie Hall for the inaugural Spring for Music season there.
Unfortunately their appearance there was not reviewed by MusicWeb
International Seen and Heard but my colleague Bruce Hodges caught
the concert that the Toledo Symphony and their conductor, Stefan
Sanderling gave in the same series and in his review
he said this: “In Toledo next season the ensemble will
replicate another Spring for Music concert, conductor
Carlos Kalmar’s program with the Oregon Symphony…...
The reason: Sanderling and the orchestra wanted to retain a
festival souvenir - how can one not smile at such an imaginative
coda?” I’m reminded of the proverb that imitation
is the most sincere form of flattery. I’m not surprised
that Sanderling should wish to replicate such an interesting
programme as this one. I presume that the Oregon Symphony gave
as good an account of themselves in Carnegie Hall as they do
on this disc for I understand that they’ve been invited
to return to New York for the 2013 Spring for Music series.
That’s in the future. The orchestra’s next CD for
Pentatone is already in the can, I understand and will include
the Vaughan Williams Fifth Symphony and Elgar’s ‘Cockaigne’
Overture, recorded in concert in February 2012. That’s
something to look forward to, especially if it turns out to
be as fine as this present CD.
John Quinn
Discography and review listing: Sinfonia
da requiem
Review index: Vaughan
Williams symphony 4
Sanford Sylvan (baritone) 
[78:04] 