Jānis IVANOVS (1906-1983)
Symphony No 15 “Symphonia Ipsa” in B-flat minor (1972) [31:41]
Symphony No 16 in E-flat major (1974) [30:30]
Latvian National Symphony Orchestra/Guntis Kuzma
rec. 2021 Great Guild Concert Hall, Riga
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
SKANI 126
[62:11]
A lot of the music written in the latter part of the Soviet era has been
forgotten as though banished along with the statues of Lenin and Marx.
There does now seem to be a small revival of interest in this music, which
often took more traditional musical paths, due to the political demands of
the Party, than was the case for Western composers after the Second World
War.
Such is the case with the Latvian composer, Jānis Ivanovs. An almost exact
contemporary of Shostakovich, he, too, suffered the vicissitudes of the
Soviet regime, including condemnation by the notorious Zhdanov decree of
1948. Unlike many other Soviet composers, Ivanovs only temporarily
retreated into the bland world of the state-required style of Socialist
Realism and in his later works found his own distinctive, if still
conservative, voice. The two works on this recording date from the 1970s
and belong to this late period. They are true symphonies in the traditional
sense, continuing a line from such audible influences as Tchaikovsky,
Sibelius and Nielsen. The composer they reminded me of most, however, is
Prokofiev. These two symphonies could easily follow on from the latter’s
seventh symphony even if the Latvian lacks Prokofiev’s puckish humour.
Which is another way of saying that these are very serious works. I was
slightly disappointed that there wasn’t more local colour to them by way of
nods to Latvian folk music, but Ivanovs compensates with a taste for a big
romantic flourish. I mentioned Sibelius earlier and it is the early
orchestral works of the Finn that come to mind. Every so often the dense
symphonic logic will clear to offer a bracing vista of the Baltic. The
fifteenth opens with a delicate sequence that reminded me of dawn over that
northern sea. The slow movement of the same symphony, at its climax, opens
up onto a similar landscape to thrilling effect before receding to the same
mood of pale dawn with which the work commenced. The lamenting woodwind
here provide one of the few moments when I heard any similarity to the
music of his more illustrious peer, Shostakovich. Both symphonies are full
of such moments of lament, held together with a tight grip on symphonic structure.
One critic, Mikus Čeže, has suggested that the fifteenth is expressive of
the decline experienced by the Soviet state during the Brezhnev era. I have
no way of telling whether that is what the composer had in mind but that
work and its successor are both highly evocative of that time in history.
Inevitably, they are melancholic in tone but in a way that is expressive of
human suffering rather than faceless grey crumbling structures. This is a
view of the
death throes of Russian communism from the inside. As a consequence, I
found myself responding to Ivanovs as a Soviet as much as a Latvian
composer. I expect this will wound the national pride of Latvians! But they
have a lot to be proud of in Ivanovs’ music.
Of the two works, I was more impressed by the 16th. The last two
movements achieve a mournful lyricism in their long-limbed melodies, which
is rather arresting. The two symphonies are very similar in style and I
feel that Ivanovs had really found his way into it by the time he came to
write the later work. His last completed symphony, No 20, demonstrates, in
my opinion, his full mastery of this style. The 16th opens with
music that has a distinct tang of Janáček about it and gradually explores
the dramatic potential of this opening passage without ever losing its
lyrical character. What might very loosely be called a second subject group
has an almost Elgarian nobility to it. I am tempted to see both these
lyrical passages as expressive of the endurance of the human spirit in the
face of adversity. The brief scherzo that follows I found a little blustery
and over busy to very little end result. I suspect it would have benefited
from tighter articulation of its many rhythmical figures to generate more
momentum.
The slow movement opens with an impassioned melody for strings that had me
thinking of Weinberg. It proceeds through slow climbing, sighing figures
underpinned by funereal brass and is the best thing in either symphony.
This is followed by a fragile, bleached-out theme for high-lying violins
that wanders into a furious dissonant trombone-dominated climax. The
climbing passage now returns, louder and with a greater sense of yearning
as though it were like a plant trying to grow out of the gloom toward the
light. If you enjoy the slow movements of the first two Sibelius symphonies
then this is music to be heard. It is splendid stuff. The finale opens in
bluster mode but quickly tension is generated by the struggle between this
and broader melodic material derived from earlier parts of the symphony.
This latter music wins out to produce a surprisingly calm and grand coda.
Ivanovs is not immune to over-earnest passage work as he follows through
the symphonic logic of the music and it is this that separates him from the
very top rank of composers. Another composer who, somewhat strangely, kept
coming to mind as I listened to these symphonies is Arnold Bax. I don’t
think anyone will claim Bax as a first tier composer but, like Ivanovs,
this doesn’t mean his music isn’t extremely enjoyable.
There is an entertainingly pugilistic liner note in somewhat fruity
language, which I appreciated in finding my way into Ivanovs’ sound world.
The author, Armands Znotinš, doesn’t pull any punches in supporting his man
and it is nice to see such enthusiastic advocacy. Do I think these Ivanovs
symphonies are the great forgotten masterpieces of the late twentieth
century, as he claims? Sadly no, but they do fill an important gap in the
musical history of the period.
The Latvian National Symphony Orchestra play with real command of the style
and the recording is able to cope with the big expansive moments with ease,
essential if this music is to make its proper impact. I wish they would dig
in a bit more in such passages but that is to quibble with what amounts to
an admirable reference recording of these overlooked pieces. Anyone
interested in this repertoire need not hesitate.
SKANI, a government backed record label, promise a recording of symphonies
Nos 17 and 18 and I very much hope I get the chance to review them for
these pages.
David McDade
Previous review:
Rob Barnett
