It was a little under a year ago that the CPO label brought out the first volume in their new series exploring the Complete Symphonic Works of Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. As i pointed out in my review, they effectively jumped into her music halfway through, beginning in the early 1950s with her Third and Fourth Symphonies. Vol. 2 goes in both directions, featuring the early Overture and Symphony No. 2, as well as the later Variations for Orchestra and Musica sinfonica, composed in the mid-’50s and -’60s respectively.
When discussing Bacewicz’s work before i’ve repeatedly pondered the question of depth, and to what extent her music is primarily about a combination of surface gesture and driving momentum. i mentioned previously, in passing, that Symphony No. 3 had what we could describe, from a present-day perspective, as a filmic quality (despite her music pre-dating those kinds of film scores), but it’s not until spending time with this album that i’ve realised how much it specifically brings to mind the cartwheeling orchestral cavorting that John Williams has made his trademark style. Whether or not he knew of Bacewicz when formulating his new “action” style in the early 1970s is anyone’s guess, but it’s surprising how often he comes to mind during three of these four works.
That comparison in itself perhaps indicates a positive slant on music that tends toward an excess of flash and frills, and that’s entirely down to the effervescent exuberance of these performances, given, once again, by the WDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Łukasz Borowicz. The Overture, composed in 1943, here overcomes its meagre invention and becomes a rollicking kaleidoscopic work, in which ideas are continuously passed from instrument to instrument and section to section such that nothing ever has a chance to become fixed. Speed, it seems, is everything with this piece, and Borowicz takes it so fast that everything fizzes and flows in exactly the right way. This is the wrong metaphor for music as mobile as this, but figuratively speaking, everything just clicks into place. The same goes for their rendition of the opening ‘Con passione’ movement in Symphony No. 2, which could hardly live up to that instruction more. They even hint at a Brucknerian breadth early on, expanding into superbly-realised energy at its dramatic apex. The material itself may not be memorable, but Borowicz makes its behaviour memorable, shaping it into a long-term discussion (akin to the passing of ideas in the Overture) where sections respond and answer each other.
The lyricality in Bacewicz’s music is one of its oddest aspects. In the Overture, there’s a brief lyrical episode that retrospectively comes across as a total red herring. In Symphony No. 2 it’s militated against by being subject to the pulse essentially all of the time. The music sings, up to a point, but that song is always held firmly in check. It emerges from subdued low patterns, and is as its most interesting when passed between the winds while the violins provide a messy accompaniment. i’ve said before that it’s in her more contemplative music, as here, that Bacewicz is by far at her most interesting. Despite the metric grid, there’s a depth of expression that, when viewing the work in its entirety, can leave one feeling disappointed at how stunted, even erroneous it seems. A promise of more, perhaps, that’s ultimately not lived up to. Nonetheless, in this recording they absolutely make the most of what they’re given, channeling something of a late-night, Walton-like vibe (Bacewicz often sounds surprisingly like Walton), underpinned by moody bass pizzicatos.
As is also the case with the Third and Fourth Symphonies, what depth Symphony No. 2 has fizzles out completely in the final two movements. A Scherzo that’s all gestures and flourishes, chugging and trivial, though by highlighting its proto-filmic qualities, driven by highly effective orchestrational touches, WDR makes it sound more exciting than the material really deserves. Likewise the Finale, chugging, scurrying, hopping, pounding, all about momentum and motifs rather than anything substantial. As with the conclusion of Symphony No. 4, its ending is scrappy and unconvincing, punching its way to the double-barline.
These limitations of style and invention are lessened in the 1957 Variations for Orchestra. An emphasis on speed is present again – it’s essentially Bacewicz’s default position – though the episodic nature of the work, and indeed its title, call for a wider diversity of language and behaviour. There are times, and i’ve noted this before, where the actual pitches the orchestra is playing could be anything; it’s the rhythms and contours that are significant, not the actual pitch content, and this can become rather tiring when harnessed primarily as a vehicle for propulsion. It’s another reason why it’s the surface that almost always seems like the place where attention should be focused. Yet the way WDR characterises the variations is most effective; momentum and endless staccatos are matched by flowing undulations, and they bring out something weirdly menacing in an early passage with tremulous wiry music behind gentle wind melodies. A later sequence featuring an extremely excitable clarinet over snare drum reports is also highly enjoyable, segueing into another lovely lyrical digression that one wishes could be allowed more time to reflect. Once again, in hindsight it’s all the more frustrating as the piece is evidently trying, above all else, to crowd please, to enthuse rather than express. Yet Bacewicz is so interesting when she takes her foot off the accelerator.
Despite lasting barely 17 minutes, Musica sinfonica in tre movimenti (1965) easily provides the most extended substance heard on this album – though, yet again, only for the first two of its movements. The closing Gioco is exactly what you’d expect, five minutes of mucking about with playful staccato rhythms and gestures, though here donned in somewhat more avant-garde clothing. However, the opening Tesi is a striking demonstration of an altogether different approach to structure and language. A stunningly harsh chord leads into busy angular stuff, but this is immediately held up by a weird building sequence peppered with large accents. What makes the music so different from Bacewicz’s usual easy-going demeanour is its volatility, almost sounding like it’s no longer fully under control, evidenced in further swelling interruptions and a wild coda of rudely blurted trills. Even more so in the central Dialogo, nine minutes of music bearing the instruction “Molto tranquillo” but which is absolutely nothing of the kind. First it’s poised, then very distant, and that same instability emerges here suggesting that this is a music with no foregone conclusion, a very pleasant thing to experience in the midst of such a lot of simple, straightforward high jinks. Shifting to high strings, it’s fascinating the way Bacewicz makes them brisk but not fluid, and shortly after it’s as if things were starting to come apart; the winds get stuck in a repeating pattern, and everything feels uncomfortable. That’s only exacerbated by loud blares and poundings that follow, and even more so by its subsequent collapse into a place of total mystery. Dark brass chords, everything moving in its lowest registers, though there’s something mischievous about the way slow upward glissandi emerge out of this. All the same, the Dialogo is elusive and uncertain to the end, in what is surely one of the most beguiling things Bacewicz ever composed.
As with Vol. 1 of this series, it’s impossible to come away from these fantastic performances without feeling conflicted. Anyone happy to be contented with ephemeral, surface-level excitement will no doubt find much to enjoy in the boisterous bounce that characterises so much of this music. Yet i’ll say it again, those periods of deeper lyrical enquiry, as well as the more forward-looking unpredictability heard in the later Musica sinfonica, leave one wishing there was more of this, as part of a broader and more ambitious compositional outlook. All the same, the WDR Symphony Orchestra and Łukasz Borowicz make a compelling case for everything here, and even at its most superficial, they imbue Bacewicz’s music with such élan and fervour that it’s hard not to just go with it and be swept along.
While we’re at it, it’s worth mentioning that the BBC Symphony Orchestra, no doubt recognising her populist appeal, has jumped on the bandwagon and started its own Bacewicz Orchestral Works series conducted by Sakari Oramo. The first volume came out at the end of last year, featuring the Overture and the Third and Fourth Symphonies (mirroring CPO’s Vol. 1), and on the strength of this release it’s not a series that bodes well. The surface-level locus of attention in Bacewicz’s output is all fine and good (ish) as long as the performance really commits to this, leaning in to its relentless momentum and frantic gestural demeanour, and doing so with real edge, even a hint of sarcasm to it. This is precisely what WDR and Borowicz bring to it, every time. Without that, as demonstrated by the BBC and Oramo, you end up with something akin to a European-tinged British Light Music.
Their performance of the Overture suffers partly from being taken at a much slower tempo – perhaps aiming for clarity rather than rapidity – and with many of its orchestral details much harder to make out. But its greatest crime, and this extends to the album as a whole, is its rampant politeness. It’s a performance that’s all about being well-drilled and accurate, without any of the abandon that the work really requires, becoming reduced to an empty-headed triviality.
This is overwhelmingly the case in the Third and Fourth Symphonies too. To be fair, there are times when they aspire to something more than just refinement and charm, nowhere more so than in the two slow movements (which, as previously noted, contain these works’ finest material). The Andante of Symphony No. 3, despite opting for gentleness rather than intensity – Oramo always seems to want to keep a lid on these performances – nonetheless grows into music of some magnitude, with a nicely-realised climax. Ditto the Adagio of Symphony No. 4, conveyed with a lovely sense of uncertainty as it undulates strangely, with all momentum and sense of direction, for a time, ostensibly lost. And when the music subsequently pulls back, the BBC SO imbues it with such stunning beauty it’s quite breathtaking.
Everywhere else, though, the results are very poor. Throughout, there’s a peculiar dynamic flatness, such that all those quantities of punch and fizz – quintessential to Bacewicz’s whole musical attitude – are underplayed and rendered neutral and inert. Even something so basic as accents sound muted; where WDR create impacts that carry the weight of hammers on anvils, the BBC’s are mere muffled thuds by comparison. The drama is all but lost, and we’re escorted back to the blank world of light music again, in an empty display of froth and spray. Here, that multiplicity of motifs and gestures flying around doesn’t sound wild, or even excited, but just empty. At their best, in the Scherzo of Symphony No. 4, they also tap into something of a Walton-esque rhythmic drive and irregularity, and i can’t help feeling they capture that movement’s jocular mood slightly better than WDR. But come on, where’s the heft? This symphony’s final movement ends ‘Allegro furioso’, demanding a real hell for leather, caution to the wind approach, and yet absolutely no-one seems interested in anything more an affable high spirits. Bacewicz has a tendency to disappoint in any case, but dismal performances like this do neither her music nor our ears any favours whatsoever.
