One of my biggest classical music bêtes noires is the way so much significant music is allowed to be forgotten, with concert programmers snoozing on their laurels as they serve up yet another reheated season of the same old, same old. That’s especially the case where symphonies – and, more specifically, symphonists – are concerned, with some of music’s most radical and imaginative symphonic thinkers kept absurdly absent from the concert hall. i’ve been chewing on this again, due to the fact that a number of new releases that have found their way to me recently contain both symphonies and symphonists that can reasonably be described as neglected. In the coming weeks, among other things, i’m going to explore a few of them and consider whether that neglect may or may not be justified.
In the case of the two symphonies by French composer Elsa Barraine, both of which have been released in what may well be their first ever recording, it’s hard not to feel that the neglect these works have experienced is understandable. Barraine’s Symphony No. 1, composed in 1931, suggests uncertainty, even darkness, in a strange, angular opening, rooted around a solo bassoon. But it’s a suggestion quickly lost in the momentum that follows, Barraine instead picking at fragments of her material and continually reinventing and resusing them. That sounds like a positive, and it really is, becoming an involving demonstration of the compositional invention that can be achieved from a minimum of material.
The slow middle movement feels stylistically anachronistic (Barraine uses some neoclassical elements, but moves beyond them), but its best aspect is a searching quality, the music really not sure where it wants to go. We’re carried along with that line of enquiry, which moves satisfyingly far from its simple starting point, ending up in a heightened, turbulent place. Yet while the way the overall uncertainty challenges the music’s warmth is a nice effect, we ultimately don’t really end up anywhere. The final movement switches to light and playful, and despite its language being frivolous, as in the first movement there’s a convincing juxtaposition and development of simple ideas.
Not bad, all things considered, yet Symphony No. 1 is as good as this album gets. That same directional uncertainty and indecision characterises her 1933 orchestral work Illustration symphonique pour Pogromes d’André Spire even more strongly. She strikes a balance between sedate processional, broader melodic ideas and occasional florid runs, but the way it continually pushes forward only to pull back becoming frustrating, and after nearly nine minutes we’re left wondering what, if anything, was actually achieved or articulated.
The other two works are even more problematic. Symphony No. 2 (1938), takes as its subtitle “Voïna”, the Russian word for war (hardly the best time for that particular juxtaposition), but it must surely have been an afterthought. Its first movement, alternating (in a similar way to Illustration symphonique) between getting riled up and becoming more thoughtful, ends up seeming not merely undecided but schizoid. That’s extended in the central movement, where grandiosity and plangency pull at each other in what turns out to be the least convincing ‘Marche funèbre’ you’re likely to hear, compounded by a finale that opts for filmic froth, simple melodic shapes and generic accompaniment figures, and ends up sounding positively festive. War? i think not.
Precisely the same implausibility of tone mars the final work on the disc, the 1953 Musique funèbre pour la Mise au tombeau du Titien. Here, the music sounds like a slow jaunt rather than genuinely heavy or weighty, and while Barraine tries to up the ante, pushing the music into more aggressive territory, it feels blank, weirdly neutral and emotionally empty. There’s some grandness in its closing minutes but they seem to be circling on the spot, reducing the work’s end to just treading water.
The WDR Sinfonieorchester and Elena Schwartz don’t so much make a case for these pieces as present them transparently, warts and all, which seems fair enough. They’re worth checking out if, like me, you’d quite like to hear every symphony ever written, but perhaps the reason these four works – and, maybe, Barraine herself – have been neglected stems from their inherent musical issues, which – aside from Symphony No. 1, which is worth your time – are particularly glaring. Released by CPO, in all probability they’ll follow up this album in due course with another featuring the remaining handful of Barraine’s orchestral works, but in all honesty it really may not be worth their while.
