Leshnoff: Symphony #4; Guitar Concerto
Jason Vieaux, guitar.  Nashville Symphony Orchestra/Giancarlo Guerrero
Naxos 8.559809
Total Time:  55:04
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

The Nashville Symphony has become one of Naxos’ go-to orchestras for recordings of American music.  Under its Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero they have brought to light a number of new voices in orchestral writing along to a broader audience.  In this new release, audiences are introduced to the work of Jonathan Leshnoff (b. 1973) who teaches at Townson University in Maryland.  His orchestral music has been lauded for its lyricism and harmonic writing as well as its engaging thematic material.  Three works are featured on this album.

The Symphony No. 4, “Heichalos” (2017) was commissioned by the Nashville Symphony’s Violins of Hope Project.  These are violins that were played by Jewish musicians in concentration camps during the Holocaust and have been restored.  On a broader level, they become a symbol for survival.  The subtitle for the symphony refers to the theological concept of rooms in the mystical text Heichalos Rabbasai.  It is a collection of texts that instruct how to mystical encounters that lead to an encounter with the Divine.  Leshnoff uses this concept to create a musical journey set in two parts.  The first opens with an ascending motive that gives way to a propulsive and driving section that then continues to build towards huge chordal punctuations as the music scurries forward.  Harmonically the music tends to be in an expanded traditional style with the motive serving to expand into a thematic thread that becomes varied as the piece progresses.  From this rather scherzo-like opening, we move to part 2 which explores a variety of beautiful sonorities.  Here Leshnoff adds harp and other percussion.  Some might find parallels with the Mahler “Adagietto” from the fifth symphony.  At any rate, one gets a sense of a deeper, spiritual and ethereal realm.  The music works to a slow build of great power before pulling back to a moving string recap from the opening.  The result is a stunning work of engaging orchestral music beautifully performed here.

The central work here is the Guitar Concerto (2013).  The three movement work.  A motive from the first movement will be one unifying factor in the work as is an overarching spiritual expression that in some ways is a precursor to what Leshnoff would explore more fully in the opening symphony.  The guitar here is brought to the forefront with an economy of scoring for the orchestra to help it stand out more.  This is indeed one of the primary challenges in writing for the instrument and orchestra.  In this way the first movement assigns primary material to the soloist while the orchestra then interacts by repeating certain motivic ideas in more commentary than dialogue.  The orchestra is pared down to strings, harp and some percussion for the restrained and somewhat ethereal central movement.  Here the guitar weaves through the sparse texture.  The finale is a dance-like and light piece that hints at more traditional guitar music with plenty of flair and Spanish references.  The rhythmic ideas here help lift the piece’s interest as it spins delightfully along.  Jason Vieaux gives a committed performance with nice subtle playing in the central movement.

The final work on the album is Starburst (2010).  This is a rather brief work, but one that helped bring Leshnoff’s voice to a wider public as it became an opening work for many orchestras.  It is a bit odd to have it at the end here where it serves more as an encore.  The piece is in three larger parts with an energetic opening, a central lyrical idea, and then an exhilarating finale.  One might best describe it as a cross between John Adams and Jerry Goldsmith!  The music is certainly quite engaging and one can see why this work is an audience pleaser.

Those interested in modern American orchestral music will find Leshnoff’s work to be in that thread of Neo-Romantic symphonists of the Harris, Diamond, Creston school.  His music has an exciting rhythmic energy that is also balanced with often stunning sonorous writing in the slow movements.  It is music one will return to again.

Parry: Symphony No. 4/Proserpine/Suite Moderne
BBC National Orchestra & Chorus, Wales/Rumon Gamba
Chandos 10994
Total Time:  74:59
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

For those who appreciate English music that has its feet in two centuries, the music of Charles Hubert Parry (1848-1918) is a perfect place to start.  Born as the orchestra was beginning to take its larger Romantic shape, as harmony began to expand with the work of Wagner, and then as new styles and aesthetics essentially exploded in the new century, Parry stands as a composer whose music extends the Late-Romantic with often well-constructed works.  He is the composer who sets the stage for the music of Elgar.  Parry wrote five symphonies, one of which is included here.  But he is most-known for numerous choral pieces.  In this new release, Rumon Gamba gives us a chance to hear three rare orchestral works in new performance editions by scholar Jeremy Dibble, who provides the notes for the album.

The Symphony No. 4 in e (1889—the year of Dvorak’s eighth symphony) received its premiere under the direction of the great Austro-Hungarian conductor Hans Richter.  It followed shortly on the heels of the more upbeat third symphony.  The opening movement features strong writing with good themes that move into a rather unsettling development area.  At the time, a bit too much for the audience to follow clearly.  There is also a nod to Brahms’ third symphony (a work Parry admired) as the development comes to a close.  The first theme has a decidedly dark quality and in the recapitulation a flirtation with the major is not enough to overcome its solemn insistence.  It is followed by a very brief “Intermezzo” which serves more as a harmonic transition to the slow movement.  The third movement is a chance for listeners unfamiliar with Parry’s style to hear his rich writing for strings and the melody here is a deeply moving, heartfelt one.  The sighing motif here is simply gorgeous and worth ones greater familiarity with the work.  The scherzo gives us a chance to hear the lighter dance-like elegance one finds in English orchestral music of the time.  The finale moves us through some fascinating harmonic centers as it turns toward a brighter, hopeful E Major conclusion.  Parry set the work aside and would revise it’s a couple more times.  That version has been recorded a few times, but this is the first chance we have to hear his original intent and it is superbly realized here.  Familiarity with the period helps modern audiences respond to this work more today.  The engaging themes and gorgeous writing never overstay their welcome and the emotional aspect of the music helps communicate this to audiences today.

At the center of the disc is a bit of a rarity, his only ballet, Proserpine (1912).  The piece was conceived for the Keats-Shelley Festival which was raising funds to purchase the Rome house where Keats had died.  The inspiration comes from Shelley’s poem with its stanzas sung as interludes (text and translation included).  Proserpine is the goddess who is captured by Pluto and abducts her from Earth.  She is allowed to return once a year and is the embodiment of Spring.  Parry’s work has nice pastoral writing, a depiction of her abduction, and the emergence of spring.  The piece has a decidedly more French-like feel.  The performance was essentially a one-time affair with the piece languishing in a library until Dibble was able to begin pulling together the work for this new edition.  It is a delightful discovery falling along the lines more of a symphonic poem.

The imposition of grand symphonies often had composers turning to other larger-scale symphonic works that needed less attention to formal structures.  The result were many orchestral suites filled with lyrical idylls and a variety of dances.  Often these tend to have a more nationalistic bent.  Parry’s Suite Moderne (1886, rev. 1892) had four movements of which three are included here: an idyll, romanza, and rhapsody.  Overall it is a lighter work with engaging thematic ideas and movements that have a picturesque feel, almost like miniature tone poems minus any real program.  The romanza has some interesting nods to the Baroque while the Rhapsody provides an exciting conclusion with a sonata rondo structure aiding its thematic development.  The suite was among the composer’s most popular works and was often programmed by Henry Wood for the Promenade Concerts.  Parry revised the piece but never published it.  Dibble has created this new edition and perhaps we can hope that the first movement finds its way on a forthcoming disc.

Chandos has always done a fine job exploring the esoteric repertoire of 19^th Century and Early 20^th Century English music.  In the 1990s as they explored this repertoire, they recorded all Parry’s symphonies.  Those albums are invaluable to be able to hear these pieces, but if Gamba is in the midst of exploring them again in new editions we are going to be in for a treat.  The orchestra responds well to this music with its great themes and emotional pulls.  The sound is stunning as well.  If one is to start with Parry’s orchestral music, this is a fine place to begin.