Romberg: Symphony No. 4/Mozart: Violin Concerto/Haydn
Julia Schroder, violin.
Collegium Musicum Basel/Kevin Griffiths
CPO 555 175
Total Time:  60:12
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

As the 18^th Century drew to a close, the threat of the Ottoman Empire, which had terrorized Europe for almost a century, would come to a close with the Austro-Turkish Wars with the Hapsburg’s bringing them to an end in 1791.  The somewhat dubious treaty would result in partitioning the Balkans and parts of Eastern Europe.  The Turks had come as far as the city gates of Vienna in 1683 and their terror was something well-known to the likes of Viennese composers.  Haydn’s own grandparents were among the few who survived the destruction of Hainburg that very year.  Western music owes some of its percussion to the appearance of the military Janissary bands that made up the armies.  These instruments, melodies, and specific rhythms would lend themselves to a host of Western pieces.  Most notably is Haydn’s own Military Symphony which explores this both from the percussion instruments employed, but also in subtle rhythmic motives in the work.  Of course, more famous are Mozart’s own “Rondo alla turca” from his Piano Sonata, K. 331.  Beethoven also would write music with Turkish influences in his music for The Ruins of Athens.  There are a host of works that are overtly identified with this musical “inspiration” and three of them appear on this new release with a rarer symphony by Andreas Romberg (1767-1821), a familiar Mozart violin concerto, and a Haydn overture.

The sequencing for the album is a bit backwards with the overture being tracked at the end as more of an encore than the appropriate concert overture.  Instead, we are treated to the brief Symphony No. 4, Op. 51 (“Alla turca”) by Romberg.  He was a court musician for most of his life serving in first Munster and Bonn before playing in the German Theater Orchestra of Hamburg.  He would eventually succeed Louis Spohr as capellmeister there.  Romberg wrote ten symphonies of which 4 were published in his lifetime.  Of them was the work heard here which was first performed December 22, 1798, in Hamburg.  It is notable not only for its additional percussion, but also for a piccolo part.  The music is otherwise a fairly acceptable late-Classical work with the cymbals and bass drum adding an appropriate punch to the lyrical, mostly forgettable theme in the opening “Allegro”.  A little chromaticism also makes an appearance for a nice touch.  Swirling strings help move us along as the music hovers back and forth from major to minor.  Trumpets and horns add a bit more emphasis.  The minuet goes as one might expect with the trio featuring nice wind writing, notable for including the piccolo here too.  Notable here is the rather interesting off-kilter rhythmic idea with some occasional harmonic choices that delight.  The slow movement has good string writing hinting a bit at romanticism in the wings.  A march-like finale brings the work to an exciting close.  While the thematic ideas are not as catchy as one might hope, it is still rather interesting to hear how Romberg is exploring these “new” instruments within the context of the 18^th-Century symphony.  The dramatic aspects help with the big cadences showing off things most.  The ensemble certainly lends itself well to a committed performance.

In more familiar music, Julia Schroder explores Mozart’s most popular Violin Concerto in A, K. 219 (1775) which is noted for when the celli and basses play with the wood of their bow to create a rather interesting percussive effect.  Other similarities to Romberg’s ideas include interesting chromatic crescendos and those shifts into the minor mode coupled with interesting rhythmic accents in the finale.  The piece is among one of Mozart’s most popular (over 100 recordings currently in the catalogue).  It allows for a variety of interesting themes and opportunities for the soloist.  Among them is a striking dramatic moment in the opening movement signaling an almost operatic drama to the work.  The ensemble has a decidedly different audio quality that feels slightly fuller than in the Romberg.  This may be equally due to familiarity and confidence in the Mozart.  Schroder’s playing is quite beautiful in the Adagio interruption and this sets the tone for her lyrical playing style.  There is certainly a sense of joy in this performance that is warmly supported by the orchestra.  While the Romberg required a bit more brashness at times, the Mozart highlights the ensemble’s delicate, and lyrical side quite well.

Haydn’s opera, L’incontro improvviso (1775) is taken from a story also explored by Gluck.  Set in Turkey and involving the odd comic abduction tale.  The “Overture” is in the Italian form with a special concert ending used here as written by the composer.  It has some interesting Turkish color but the bulk will be used within the opera itself.  It serves its purpose to set us up for the odd adventures to follow.

All three works here are examples of composers exploring “unusual” and “strange” musical instruments and worlds though each are quite conventional for the period as one might anticipate.  The Mozart is the strongest work of the three and a well-done performance to boot which makes the others nice discoveries of musical history.

Ruggles/Stucky/Harbison: Orchestral Works
National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic/David Alan Miller
Naxos 8.559836
Total Time:  65:28
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

David Alan Miller continues to build a strong catalogue of performances of latter 20^th Century American Music.  The present release is the third in an annual recording made in Maryland with the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic.  The orchestra is made up of rising international and national musicians who audition to be a part of the ensemble whose players often sit on major orchestras across the world.  Miller conducted the first release which features music of Corigliano, Torke, and Copland.  The second release featured a performance of Randall Thompson’s Second Symphony coupled with a work by John Adams and the first symphony of Barber.  Each release thus tends to pair a “classic” modern American work with a couple of newer ones.  In this case, music by the late Steven Stucky (1949-2016) and John Harbison (b. 1949) is featured with works composed in 2004.  The earlier piece reaches back to Carl Ruggles (1876-1971).

Sun-Treader (1926-1931) is one of ten works by the elusive Carl Ruggles but it is a staple of any orchestra devoted to important 20^th Century American music.  Initially, the piece was to have been part of a program for the International Composer’s Guild conducted by Varese, but the piece was not completed until five years after the concert and premiered subsequently in Paris.  It would take another three decades before it was performed in America.  That concert was with Jean Martinon and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  The piece impressed Michael Tilson-Thomas whose own dramatic reading is among the classic recordings in the catalogue.  The piece was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem Pauline (1832).  As the work opens, we get this sense of giant steps moving forward in Ruggles’ atonal language.  His style is not entirely serial per se, but he liked to write long lines where repeated notes did not occur until seven or more had appeared.  Thus the music is perhaps closer to Berg making it perhaps a bit more accessible in this expressionist-modernist style.  Miller’s performance is a full minute quicker than Tilson Thomas with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and one minute more than Dohnanyi’s breezier Decca release from Cleveland.  His interpretive approach though is to let the almost Romantic-like thematic lines swell beautifully against the stark pillars of harmony that build up around them.  Most telling is the crisp appearance of the different instrumental sections that really help delineate the primary motifs and harmonies.  The result is often a piece that begins to feel like an amassed suite from some long lost cinematic experience.  This performance is going to be hard to beat sonically, but it is worth noting that this Ruggles’ work tends to be coupled interesting regardless so it will be one of many versions fans of American symphonic music will be able to explore in their personal music library.

Steven Stucky’s critically-acclaimed Second Concerto for Orchestra (2004) would receive the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for music.  It was premiered by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  The highly-complex organization of the work is based on assigning pitches to different letters of the alphabet.  (Similar to Shostakovich’s “signature” motif in his work, or the assignation of pitches to Bach’s name).  Stucky created musical motifs for the conductor, orchestra, and even the designer of the Walt Disney Concert Hall where the premiere occurred.  Putting that aside, one can instead follow the composer’s concepts through the three movements.  The opening “Overture (with friends)” features references to composers Ravel, Stravinsky, and Sibelius (all somewhat specialties of Salonen and the orchestra).  These small cells help provide the forward motion in an almost magical an drich Impressionistic opening with a sort of post-minimalist nervous energy.  The central movement allows the listener to enter into the musical development of these signature motifs in what is essentially a theme and variations that continues this enchanting musical backdrop that further explores the orchestra.  Along the way are some very exposed and delicate solos.  The full extent of orchestral color blossoms further in the “Finale” with explodes at first with brass and then enters into a fascinating Impressionistic milieu with delicate solo wind writing and celesta.  The piece has a rather big bass drum interjection in the outer movements that dramatically adds to the intensity of the music, but sometimes overwhelms the audio pickup.  That said, this is an engaging performance of a fine work.

The Seattle Symphony commissioned John Harbison’s (b. 1938) fourth symphony for their centennial celebrations in 2004.  The piece is cast in five movements that feature musical ideas that are integrally linked across the work allowing for the listener to see how they are adapted or transformed both as one hears the work for the first time, and as one returns to it on repeated occasions.  The opening “Fanfare” has an exciting series of jaunty rhythms with big rich jazz-like harmonies that become episodic with a variety of interesting spun out ideas exploring the colors of the orchestra in between this unifying technique.  The music reaches back perhaps a bit to Leonard Bernstein’s harmonic and rhythmic explorations.  In the “Intermezzo”, bells and chimes add to a rather more jagged conception of the thematic line.  A playful “Scherzo” follows with ideas being tossed to and fro throughout the orchestra.  The heart of the work may very well be the intense “Threnody” which explores this sense of inevitable loss.  The “Finale” moves us closer to the more traditional sense of “symphony”.  The performance here is quite excellent and the interpretation s one that should bear up well while becoming a standard to measure future recordings.

The program of the current release features music that is an excellent introduction to all three composers.  The series itself is equally worth exploring further and this is as good a place as any to start.  Perhaps a future release can reach back a little farther to our 19^th Century heritage.