Pancho VLADIGEROV (1899-1978)
Orchestral Works, Vol. 1
Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 33 (1939) [46:28]
Concert Overture, Op. 27 "Earth" (1933) [20:59]
Heroic Overture “The Ninth of September”, Op. 45 (1949) [20:11]
Autumn Elegy, Op. 15 No. 2 (version for orchestra) (1922 rev. 1937) [7:40]
Symphony No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 44 "May" (1949) [45:15]
Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Alexander Vladigerov
rec. Bulgaria, 1970s
CAPRICCIO C8050 [2 CDs: 160:33]
This is volume 1 of a series given over to Pancho Vladigerov’s purely orchestral works. The whole Capriccio series will in total run to 18 discs. The music is conducted by Alexander Vladigerov, the composer’s son. The very first in the complete run presented the composer’s five piano concertos.
This two-disc set is dominated by the Bulgarian composer’s two symphonies. They stand at the extremes of a decade that saw the Second World War and Bulgaria’s post-war immersion in communism. It is perhaps no accident that the second of the two works bears the politically loaded title ‘May’. The First is for full orchestra and the Second for strings. Each is of about the same capacious duration (45 minutes) and each falls into four movements.
The First Symphony pitches and lurches with rhythms and upholstery both garish and lush. No holds are barred and there are some good melodic touches. These trace a drenched and dripping sympathy with Rimsky and Rachmaninov and with contemporary Khachaturian: try 07:00 and 11:11 in the first movement. With sovereign and shouting confidence, the very full orchestra is allowed a free-running leash. After the rapturous heroics of the first movement comes a musing roseate Adagio which looks to perfumed oriental nights - Bulgaria has Turkey as an Eastern neighbour and a Black Sea coastline. A slightly stolid Vivace suggests a middlingly relaxed, post-prandial Polovtsian dance - or at least it does in this performance. The eagerly folksy finale is lengthy and jubilantly rhythmic. The whole work is a couple of stones’ throws from the extrovert finales of Rachmaninov’s First and Third Symphonies and Glazunov’s Eighth.
The title of the Second Symphony might suggest brash flag-waving. I wonder whether the composer’s heart was in the title. Perhaps its choice was guided by expediency. Once again, the two outer movements are substantial and extended. The first of these, a Moderato - allegro vivace surges with sober power before taking wing, wreathed with smiles. A brooding, regretful and elegiac Adagio molto rises to dignified eloquence that carries over into the understated Valse third movement. It’s contemplative rather than delirious. Delirium and abandon resume for the virtuosic tipping and tumbling finale which takes a breather for passages of amiable and thoughtful writing. It’s a fine piece and is here heard in a truly possessed performance. If you were wondering, the whole thing avoids any suspicion of May-Day parade bombast.
Of the other works, the rambling Concert Overture manages to be turbulent, companionable, jocular and languidly nationalistic; the latter heard at 7:35. Its fantastic range of moods and twenty minutes duration place it close to Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsodies and Amirov’s Mugams. It’s the sort of work that might well have appealed to Stokowski and, in slightly more recent times, to Norman Del Mar and Edward Downes. The discursive post-War Heroic Overture was written for the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution. The composer’s full-on style is again on display but to subvert the predominant mood there are some quiet eerie effects (e.g. 3:00) which then melt into more than serviceable long, romantic melodies. The opp. 27 and 45 works would not have raised an eyebrow if entitled ‘tone poem’. Altogether more attractive and concentrated is the short Autumn Elegy. This poetic and soft-pulsed piece is a complete success.
The well organised and detailed liner-notes are in German and English by Christian Heindl. The analogue recordings were made by Balkanton in the first half of the 1970s in Sofia. The sound is respectable and the performances much more.
Until now none of these works travelled much beyond the Eastern Bloc and probably enjoyed a prominence restricted to Bulgaria. This is lush romantic-nationalist music now liberated from LP forebears with the Second Symphony being very fine indeed.
Rob Barnett
