Hurwit was born in
Hartford, Connecticut and practised
as a radiologist from 1961 until his
retirement in 1986. Music has been a
lifelong interest and since his retirement,
despite limited technical musical skills,
he has composed extensively. In 1997
Michael Lankester conducted the
world premiere of Hurwit's five minute
adagio. The piece was well received
and the composer felt encouraged to
expand the adagio into the present full
blown four movement symphony. Lankester
heard the draft of the first movement
now known as Origins in 2000
and, his interest well and truly engaged,
worked with Hurwit to orchestrate and
organise the work here recorded.
The unifying subject
matter for this ambitious piece is one
of mingled nostalgia, violence, the
bitter melancholia of loss and hope
sprung from arrival in a new world.
The brief liner notes relate Hurwit's
antecedents to each of these themes.
The first movement
has the sturdy calming gait of Everyman
using a coaxingly warm theme that recalls
two first symphonies - those of Elgar
and Mahler. The second movement (separation)
echoes with the funeral march from the
Eroica, softened by Brahmsian
pastoralism (Symphony 3) and also by
Brahmsian grandeur (Symphony 1). In
the midst of the movement a klezmer
band adds a distinctive haze to the
proceedings. At 8:24 there is a village
dance vignette - where the sepia distancing
is suddenly blown away leaving the experience
of those long lost days suddenly gripping
the listener's attention. Remembrance
is both the title of the symphony
and the title of its third movement
perhaps indicating the work's heart.
The mood is very centred, proceeding
in a style recalling the contented big
band 20th century orchestrations of
meditative Bach mixed with Mahler's
Adagietto (Symphony 5). The theme
becomes heavily dosed with sentiment
- perhaps a mite syrupy rising to a
‘triumph in the skies’ even if there
is a hint of film music here (perhaps
Trevor Jones' Last of the Mohicans).
The finale (Arrival) is concerned
with freedom and confidence in the family's
new world. This is ebullient music,
meshing the elegiac and pastoral nostalgic
theme of the first movement with marching
band moments, popular dance, klezmer
chiaroscuro (8:14) and ending in a brazen
Waltonian glow of joyous confidence.
The orchestra appear
to have been extremely well prepared
although I noticed some momentary faltering
at the start of the first and final
movements of this eclectic yet patently
sincere symphony.
Rob Barnett
Bulgarian National Radio SO/Michael Lankester
