August 6, 2018

  • Glimpses of Neo-Baroque Modernism in the 21st Century

     

    Frank Ezra Levy: Concertos, Divertimentos, etc.
    Hana Gubenko, viola. Barbara Jost, cor anglais. Andreas Ramseier, clarinet. Timon Altwegg, piano.
    Toulousse Chamber Orchestra/Gilles Colliard
    Guild GMCD 7809
    Total Time:  73:38
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Ernst Levy (1895-1981) was a Swiss born composer and educator who taught at MIT, the University of Chicago, and the New England Conservatory before retiring to live in Switzerland.  He was known as an excellent pianist with powerful performances that were often linked to the Liszt-school of playing.  This new Guild release though turns its attention to his equally prolific son, Frank Ezra Levy (1930-2017).  Levy was a professional cellist (performing with the St. Louis Symphony, among others) having studied with Leonard Rose and Janos Starker.  To say he was a prolific composer is a bit of an understatement with some 239 published works that include 15 symphonies and 20 string quartets.  Some of his music has appeared on an earlier Naxos release orchestral music in their American Classics series.  There is an aura of bittersweetness surrounding the present release as Levy passed away shortly after the final masters for release were made.  He was at least able to hear these performances before his death.  Of the five works on the album, two of them are concerti and three are “divertimentos” for solo instruments.  The concertos serve as bookends.  As a composer, Levy tended toward more tonal compositional style eschewing more avant-garde techniques.  This tends to make his music more communicable to broader audiences.  The pieces here were all written within the past five years.

    The Piano Concerto No. 6 (2014) is scored for strings and timpani.  The three-movement work opens with a rather somber thematic statement which begins to gain a bit more rhythmic interest as the music continues.  There is some contrapuntal interplay between strings and piano that develops.  The motivic idea is then more fully explored.  The second movement has a more sinuous melodic idea that wends its way through some interesting harmonic shifts.  The finale allows for some virtuosic display and is in the form of a rondo.  The music here is parallel to the post-Les Six and Neo-Classical blended styles (it is like a hybrid of Martinu and Bartok).  There are many sections of the work that feature ideas that work linearly between the soloist and a section of the orchestra.

    There are two works here for viola.  The Divertimento Concertante for Viola, Piano and String Orchestra (2013) is in six movements.  Levy’s approach here recalls the Bloch concerto grossi that explored a sort of Neo-Baroque style of form and modernist harmony.  The first movement does open with a burst of energy with great solo ideas for viola that begin the interplay with piano of smaller cells of material.  There is a rather gorgeous lyric line in the center of the movement.  As the piece continues, it does a nice job of creating interplay between the soloists.  The rhythms throughout tend to have an almost cutting, jagged interjection against the seemingly spun-out melodic lines.  The slower segments do have some rather moving lyrical ideas.  The second movement introduces some skittery harmonics in the strings that adds a brief ethereal aspect to the elegiac movement.  A bit more energy moves us forward in third movement which features a more extensive piano solo.  The viola is given a more lengthy solo moment at the edges of the fourth movement which has a more romantic tinge.  The lyrical writing continues into the fifth movement with some slightly darker qualities and things are wrapped up nicely in a fugal finale.  There are some interesting harmonic and rhythmic moments in this work which seems slightly stronger than the opening concerto.  The Divertimento for Clarinet and Piano (2013) follows some similar lines described as a “reinterpretation of the Baroque concerto.”  It also is in six movements with some flirtations with a more romantic sensibility.  The third movement is a bit unique as it is cast in 5/8 creating some variety and interesting interplay with clarinet and violins.  This movement also has plenty of fugal and contrapuntal devices.

    The Dialogue for cor anglais and Strings (2016) was composed specifically for this release.  The more soulful and mournful sound of the instrument lends the piece its unique character here.  The music is in a single movement with seven identifiable sections that allow for interesting interchanges.  The notes also state the piece can be played on French horn which would give the music a unique character as well.  This somewhat points to Levy’s interest in creating music that is accessible and transmutable for performance.

    The final work on the album is the Viola Concerto No. 2 (2013) composed for the soloist on this album, Hana Gubenko.  Cast in four movements, it too feels like a reimagining of the Baroque solo concerto.  The first movement has an interesting opening “Adagio” that creates a nice contrast to the interesting rhythmic vitality of the following 5/8 section.  The second movement is a bit more intense with some interesting recurring exploration of the opening material.  Expressive writing for the soloist follows in a brief “Adagio” that ends abruptly before the fugal ideas of the finale.  In some respects, then the piece feels more like a two-movement work with the slow adagio sections serving the sort of function one finds in Baroque concerto grossi.

    The performances here are committed.  For some, the different pieces here will tend to blend together as they seem to be exploring similar techniques and can create a sort of sameness that is hard to overlook as ideas tend to be explorations that can feel rather fragmentary.  Perhaps the most successful piece here is the Divertimento concertante for viola and piano followed by the concluding Viola concerto.  The writing seems well poised to be good entries for college orchestras to be introduced to this modern tonal writing with interesting harmonies.  Each work certainly has its merits as it stands fine on its own.  In this case, one can certainly see how the prolific Levy managed to continue writing new works for friends and colleagues.  The anachronistic quality of the music with its 1920s modernist styles will be the first striking thing for some listeners but the dramatic flow of the pieces is mostly engaging.