John Robertson: Symphony No. 1
Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra/Anthony Armore
Navona Records 6167
Total Time:  77:10
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

John Robertson (1943-) shares something in common with Charles Ives—both were insurance salesmen, though in Robertson’s case he was able to turn more towards focusing solely on composition.  His music has been performed throughout Europe, North America, Australia, and his native New Zealand.  He has a number of orchestral works among them three symphonies.  The present recording is the second of his symphonies to be recorded by Navona.  There are three works on the current program, two of which are from the 1980s and one more recent suite.  The pieces on the album bear something in common in that they were each originally submitted to composition competitions.

The Symphony No. 1, Op. 18 (1988) was the result of a submission where he had earlier had success with a set of variations (which closes off the album).  The piece was not chosen and essentially lay unperformed until 2014 when it received a performance in Bulgaria.  The work is cast in three movements.  The first begins with a dark low string statement that lies in contrast to punctuated woodwind chords and a somewhat chromatic line.  This thematic idea will then become part of a fugue-like exposition with close entries in strings with the primary rhythmic and melodic contour helping identify each entry well.  After this string-focused section, Robertson turns his attention to winds who begin to pick up and explore this whirling motif in alternation with longer lyric statements that spin out from the fugal material.  All of this is in a mostly tonal and accessible harmonic language.  The primary material moves along with interesting shifts in orchestral color holding brass off to begin a brief bright shift.  Little accented additions give the music a nice lift as it rushes to rich harmonic arrivals.   At the center of the symphony is a beautifully romantic lyrical idea that is richly-scored for strings and has one foot purely in 19^th Century impassioned Romanticism but with subtle harmonic shifts that are closer to modern symphonic writing.  The heart of the music is on excellent footing here with an almost Walton-ish quality.  The album would be seriously worth considering just to be able to luxuriate in this gorgeous middle movement.  But, there is more and a violin idea helps lead us into the finale where ideas will grow from one instrument to the next.  This eventually develops into a rather delightful dancelike finale.

At the center of the album is a more recent Suite for Orchestra, Op. 46 (2010).  The work explores different popular concert genres of the fanfare, a delightfully tuneful waltz, a Barber-esque elegy, and march.  Each allows for Robertson to show off a part of the orchestra bringing everyone back together for the final movement.  The writing here is even more assured and the sound again seems more in line with the sound worlds of late Malcolm Arnold.  Brass especially have that quality in the opening “Fanfare”.  The music still maintains a slightly more modern inflection though even if the rich string writing recalls the sort of mid-Century romanticism that has always had a thread across American symphonic music as well.  Others might feel it has a more nostalgic, cinematic quality.  Any of these could easily be performed alone and would fit on lighter, pops programs.

We come to the first work Robertson submitted in the concluding Variations for Small Orchestra, Op. 14.  The theme itself is firmly anchored in A Major though with a bit of intriguing chromaticism.  What follows are six brief variations that explore tempo, rhythmic variation (tango and a waltz), and interesting orchestral colors.  There are moments of great wit and humor that follow some rather interesting solos.  Robertson’s writing here is also quite clear and engaging and allows for a nice exploration of the orchestra in this equally lighter work.

There is some really fine music here.  The style flirts with Romanticism but tends to move into more modern territory with less traditional melodic packaging.  Overall, though Robertson clearly delineates primary ideas and structures within the symphony especially.  The music itself though tends to really grab you with its beautiful lyric writing.  The other pieces provide additional glimpses into his orchestral style.  The Czech orchestra has a rather darker quality in its string playing with a rather immediate and dry sound picture that has a soundstage feel at times.  The performance is carefully measured and committed if sometimes stiff in the dance moments which need to sing a bit more.  I suspect though that Robertson’s music could easily find its way onto programs in the UK where it could perhaps give us another recording for comparison of this often wonderful music.

 Karayev: Symphony No. 1/Violin Concerto

Janna Gandelman, violin. Kiev Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra/Dmitry Yablonsky
Naxos 8.573722
Total Time:  54:43
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

A couple of years ago, we explored some ballet music by Kara Karayev (1918-1982).  A pupil of Shostakovich, Karayev is an Azerbaijani composer whose music is beginning to come to light through this Naxos series.  This release gives us a chance to audition the composer’s first symphony and a concerto from the early and middle periods of his life, respectively.  Folk and nationalist flavor tends to inform Karayev’s music and this is certainly true of the symphony, but the composer’s shift to more serial technique appears in the concerto.

As the first major composer from the South Caucasus region of the Soviet Union, the Symphony No. 1 becomes one of the first significant compositions of its type.  As in Shostakovich of this period, the work calls for a large orchestra and host of percussion that expands to harp and piano.  The work is cast into two mostly equal halves.  The first movement is an intriguing exploration of sonata form with a Neo-Classical style that finds a fascinating fugal section kick off the “Allegro” after a very folk-like melody lulls us in the opening bars.  The unusual lyric line of the flute gradually grows into a fuller statement with strings slowly building underneath the shift in winds and piano color.  The allegro then has us in quite firm modernist harmony in the fugue with clearly defined entries and orchestral color that moves through the orchestra in the way one might expect from Shostakovich.  The lyrical second idea has an almost romantic and nostalgic quality to it in its more intimate string iteration.  This moves into piccolo at one point briefly before shifting to low strings in a rather touching moment.  The technique here is similar to Shostakovich in its insistent use of a major chordal punctuation against the lyric line.  This is shattered by the return of the more aggressive fugal material.  Unlike his mentor though, Karayev’s bigger moments do not always have the sort of emotional shattering intensity.  His language tends to often dissolve into more romantic visions though the edgier material might try to overwhelm it, there more a heroic sense to the expression here.  The second movement is a set of variations with a scherzo and finale.  It opens with the darker colors of the orchestra in low strings and bassoons which serves as a parallel idea to the opening flute line of the symphony.  Once this occurs, we move through a series of dance-like variants that first features a plodding idea.  This moves into more modern dance styles with an almost virtuosic musical style that has touches of wit, less sardonic than Shostakovich, which explore a variety of instrumental colors of the primary theme.  The music is actually quite engaging and the formal delineations help guide the listener well through this rather interesting work.  While Yablonsky makes the case somewhat for the work, the performance feels like it needs a bit more bite and perhaps a lot more strings than are at his disposal here.  The recording itself though is crisp and clear.  Certainly an interesting performance to whet the appetite for more explorations of the depths this music may have hiding within it, especially in the opening movement.  The quiet ending is also a bit odd and feels like it needs a bit more power.  As such, the symphony seems a bit unfinished with a more celebratory or bittersweet declamation.  Though one may counter that the quiet is just that.

While given the chance to visit the United States in 1961, Karayev met Stravinsky in Los Angeles.  The latter composer was in the midst of his own serial explorations by that time and this may have had an impact on Karayev who would use this approach in the third symphony.  Serialism was still an ideological anathema at the time thus making that work, and the 1967 Violin Concerto potential targets for censorship, but this does not appear to have occurred.  Leonid Kogan premiered the work in 1968 in a concert celebrating the composer’s 50^th birthday.  The work would make an interesting companion to the Shostavovich second violin concerto written in 1967 as well.  The concerto has a rather interesting slow build of texture and material.  The solo kicks off with the straight presentation of Karayev’s row.  The orchestra has been reduced to mostly strings here that sometimes pick up the row, but tend to lie in hushed harmonies underneath the soloist.  Winds enter in the second movement with its chorale-like feel in long lyrical lines.  The movement has an arch-like shape bringing us back to the opening textures which grow dark, and dense.  Heading into the final movement, Karayev begins layering in more of the orchestra, starting with percussion and eventually brass, in a sardonic march forward.  The fanfare-like idea has a rather unusual quality as the soloist moves through it almost oblivious to the inevitable emotional sameness of the stark material.  The violin’s rapid passage ideas eventually give way to a more twisted solo meditative section.  The movement has this sense of someone looking out and seeing something lost that no one else can see.  There are a few unusual colors and surprises to help bring the concerto to a dramatic close.  The Kiev orchestra proves to be the perfect backdrop to Gandelman’s often quite intimate and moving solo work in the concerto.  This is especially true of the opening movement and the meditation of the third movement.  The virtuosic sections are equally fascinating and filled with their own emotional intensity.

The concerto is the real find of the release.  Do not let the serialist construction discourage the opportunity to explore this rather intense and fascinating work.  The symphony itself is a rather easy entry into Karayev’s more traditional style, but one can hear how this is transformed into the new compositional technique employed in the concerto.  It makes for a rather intriguing hour of music.