Neglect has also surrounded the symphonies of Estonian composer Lepo Sumera. He’s generally lauded, loudly, within his homeland, but Sumera’s symphonic cause – comprising six symphonies, the last completed not long before his sudden death in 2000 – has been almost entirely limited to Estonian conductors. Parvo Järvi recorded a complete cycle for BIS back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Nos. 1–5 with Malmö Symphony Orchestra, No. 6 with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO) and again with Cincinnati some years later. No. 2 has also been released in recordings by Peeter Lilje, again with ERSO, and Kristjan Järvi (Parvo’s brother) with NorrlandsOperan Symphony Orchestra. Aside from a very early, Soviet-era recording of No. 1 conducted by Russian Vitali Katayev (who oversaw the première), released way back in 1981 and now long-forgotten, there have been no recordings at all by non-Estonian conductors. That situation remains unchanged with a new release featuring Sumera’s first and last symphonies, performed by ERSO under their chief conductor Olari Elts.
As with other cases of such neglect – such as Elsa Barraine, discussed recently – one wonders whether the disinterest in Sumera’s symphonic output outside Estonia stems from the nature of the music itself. Of the country’s relatively small group of symphonists, Sumera is surely the most frustrating and, ultimately, underwhelming. However, it’s important to stress at the outset that while Sumera’s music generally tends toward a crowd-pleasing aesthetic (the mantle of which he passed to Erkki-Sven Tüür), with a strong emphasis on energetic surfaces, it’s usually engaging and, at times, can be quite exciting. As such, i’ve enjoyed far too much of Sumera’s work to judge him on the issues that arise in his symphonies. That being said, though, i came to the conclusion some years ago that the concept of symphonic argument simply fell outside Sumera’s comfort zone (unlike Tüür or – Estonia’s greatest symphonist – Eduard Tubin), producing a strange kind of large-scale enervated aimlessness. That this was the case throughout his symphonic career is demonstrated by this new album’s interesting pairing, examining Symphonies No. 1 and No. 6.
Symphony No. 1 dates from 1981, and its soundworld is initially very promising indeed: stately brass arpeggios forming something akin to a peal of bells; drones with lingering vestiges of those bell-like shapes in the harp; light sustained chords hovering in the winds and strings; a celesta roaming as if suspended in space. This is all tantalising stuff.
Yet following this opening gambit, everything starts to feel like accompaniment, as if it’s not actually the thing we should be focusing on. (Furthermore, its bell-like noodling sounds more and more like a pale imitation of Arvo Pärt’s already pallid, similarly circular ‘tintinnabuli’ music, particularly Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten). Sometimes there’s a surge, and there’s the prospect of something tangible, but it yields nothing, and instead for the most part Sumera just shifts from sound to sound without any coherent sense of structure or logic. It’s as if he’s going out of his way to avoid anything sounding too interesting or in focus, a kind of sonic bokeh, perhaps.
The second movement goes the other way, finally offering distinct ideas, though the first is a rapid string sequence that evokes Baroque mannerisms, followed a couple of minutes later by the raucous stylings of carnival or circus music. After which the symphony slides back into the familiar noodlefest of wispy strings, low drones, the rambling celesta, vague and dark and blank. One senses Sumera was trying to tap into musical ideas of past and future, sharp grotesquerie and soft reverie, but the result is so amorphous its language just seems desperately confused.
That’s perhaps not unreasonable for a first attempt at a symphony. Yet nearly two decades separate that piece from Symphony No. 6, which was premièred in May 2000, and it’s genuinely surprising to hear how little has changed.
Again the celesta twiddles; slow, faint string notes linger and modestly swell; whereupon, as in the First Symphony‘s latter movement, electricity is abruptly pumped through the orchestra resulting in an animated display of chaotic scrambling. Yet everything stops, and restarts, eventually arriving back at the uproar. It stops again, restarts again, and by now Sumera’s instruction “furioso” seems entirely absurd, sounding as the mere product of mania, so much empty clamour and noise. Eventually it gets broken up, descending back to something vaguely ambient, soft and sustained, some high violin streaks. But we’ve been here before – in this symphony and another, 20 years earlier, and once again we’re left wondering where the actual ideas are, instead of all this filler.
The symphony’s second movement remains in this environment of total vagueness, slow and ponderous, with nothing to focus upon or latch onto. Around a third of the way through, things get modestly excited; a string line starts to emerge, starting to become a locus of attention, with busyness materialising around it. But – of course – Sumera pulls it back, and we’re once again in a place of wisps and noodling, where nothing apparently amounts to anything at all.
Aside from (some of) those by the country’s token ‘superstars’ – Tüür, Tubin, Pärt – Estonian symphonies are almost entirely neglected and unknown. There are many that deserve much greater recognition, such as Kaljo Raid’s Symphony No. 1 (1944), Heino Eller’s unfinished but brilliant Symphony No. 2 (1947), Eino Tamberg’s Ballet-Symphony (1959), both of the symphonies by Els Aarne (1961 and 1966) and Jaan Rääts’ bonkers Symphony No. 5 (1966). Their neglect is undeserved and genuinely tragic. As for Sumera, as i said above, he is certainly better than this, but his symphonies – these two in particular, especially when taken together – don’t give any meaningful indication of that. Their neglect seems entirely understandable.
Released a few months ago by Ondine, Symphonies Nos. 1 & 6 is available on CD and download.
