Customer Reviews

Novák: In The Tatra Mountains/Eternal Longing/Slovak Suite

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mountains and mysticism go together. As classicist and anthropologist Walter Burkert notes in his study of "Greek Religion," the Neolithic and Bronze Ages left mountaintop altars all across Anatolia, the Balkans, and the islands and mainland of Greece The practice continued into the historical period. Altitude brought one closer to the Sky God, apparently, whether one called him Teshub as among the Hittites, Zeus as among the Greeks, or Pernunos as among the Scythians, those ancestors of the Slavs. Thus Liszt ("Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne"), d'Indy ("Un jour d'été à la montagne"), Delius ("Song of the high Hills"), and Strauss ("Ein Alpensinfonie") - like Nietzsche's Zarathustra - all discover a common theophany in the elevation of a dolomitic scene. So too does that odd man out among the successors of Dvorák in Czech music, Vitęszlav Novák (1870-1949) in his tone-poem "In the Tatras" (1902), the first item on Libor Pešek's Virgin CD of three of that composer's orchestral scores. Novák's sumptuous orchestration, the vividness of his episodes, the quiet sublimity of his finale all contribute to the effectiveness of the composition. Pešek understands that "In the Tatras" contains moments of darkness but that its mood conforms generally to that of optimism. He works up the snowstorm midway through to a real blizzard and then settles into the serenity of the last section, with its Delius-like absorption of the human subject into the great landscape about him. "Eternal Longing" (1903/04) takes its cues from H. C. Andersen's story of the same name and explores a phenomenon at the very core of the Romantic conception of art: The paradox of desire, the yearning of the soul for the very thing that lies, at last, beyond its reach, but which signifies a fuller, a sweeter, world than this one in which Fate decrees that we should dwell. The opening shows Novák borrowing a few stock gestures from Debussy's impressionism: Namely, the string-undulations over harp-glissandi - moonlight on the water, in standard musical iconography. (Andersen's story invokes this image.) From this beginning, Novák develops a lengthy Tristanesque passage dominated mostly by the strings but breaking into the full orchestra at its climax; the pealing of the main theme in the horns is quite thrilling, after which calmer music for a time prevails. Novák repeats this basic pattern, a slow buildup to a sustained climax followed by dénouement, three times in the course of the work's twenty minutes or so. The "Slovak Suite" (1903) belongs much more to the Smetana-Dvorák school, drawing as it does on obvious folk-sources. This has always been the most current of Novák's orchestral works. Pešek has transferred his recording activity to Chandos, who have just issued another trio of Novák's orchestral works ("Lady Godiva," "Tomán and the Wood Nymph," and "De Profundis"); the two discs constitute a set despite their separate producers. "In the Tatras" and "Eternal Longing" also appear together on a Supraphon CD conducted by Karel Sejna. I give Pešek the edge. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic turns in velvety smooth performances.

This was recommended to me as a possible "in-kind" short-term departure from Sibelius. Vítezslav Novák (d. 1949) was among those post-Dvorák Czech composers who carried on in the late-Romantic tradition. By virtue of his circumstances, his music here borrows from Slovak and Moravian inspirations. All three of these works feature a dramatic sense of time and place abetted by a preponderance of long, undulating melodic lines. Orchestral color is accented with brief recurring flourishes from a host of exotic timbres, especially the harp and various percussion. Eternal Longing is probably the most musically substantive work here -- a most affecting Romantic expression full of dramatically extended crescendos and beautiful legato melodies that can set the heart reeling apace. The lengthier Slovak Suite is marked by the same beautiful lyrical expression which lays easy on the ear while ultimately weighing lightly and positively on the mind.

However, despite Czech conductor Pesek's presence on the podium, all this music as presented here takes on more the flavor of pastoral England than anything one would think of as being East European; i.e., I hear much more that's redolent of Delius than of Dvorák! I'm sure the fine playing of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which here sounds as English as any band I've heard, as well as the semi-spacious recording from Virgin, more diaphanous than truly vivid, have much to do with this impression. I would hazard to guess that a native orchestra would lend a much more idiomatic flavor to the proceedings, if that is indeed what the listener seeks. That consideration aside, however, this recording presents a most beautiful, elegant, and musically homogeneous program lasting well over an hour -- indeed, a most delicious, if less substantial respite from Sibelius.

Novak's music is lushly late romantic and dramatic, and sounds overall more like Richard Strauss than Dvorak. The folk music inspiration is actually stronger than it may sound to "non-Czech" ears - the melodic profile is deeply rooted in folk music, but it is treated in a manner that makes it sound more "generically late romantic" (I mean that in a non-pejorative sense). That is not to deny that Novak's music exhibit a personal voice, and although his music may not always be strikingly individual, it is superbly crafted, excellently scored and full of strong melodic ideas.

The Slovak Suite is of course one of his more immediately noticeably folk-music based work; it is a gorgeously atmospheric but big-boned work, full of ravishing moments (indeed the invention rarely if ever flags throughout its relatively substantial duration); the movement "At Church" must be singled out in particular as one of the more stirring examples of deeply felt tone painting. Pesek's recording with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is overall excellent, full of spirit, power and color, but it sometimes come across as a little too sleek (a more "Slovak-sounding" (whatever that is) profile may have benefited the performance even further) - could one even say that it is slightly anonymous? Another notable problem is taht the organ in "At Church" is misbalanced to the effect that it completely obliterates much of the orchestral detail.

Although the Slovak Suite may be the strongest work on the disc (it is a near-masterpiece), the two symphonic poems are stirring, powerful works as well. "In the Tatra Mountains" lets Novak exploit his whole range of colors and tone-painting skills, and the result is certainly an imaginative, wonderful series of atmospheres or impressions convincingly pulled together. "Eternal Longing" has fared well on disc, but is somehow the work the impressed me the least - it is still an imaginative, colorful and memorable score, but perhaps containing a few too many standard fin-de-siècle ploys. I have fewer qualms about the performances of either of the symphonic poems, however, although I am perhaps still missing a little in "Eternal Longing". The sound quality is, apart from the balance problems mentioned with respect to the Slovak Suite, pretty good though perhaps not ideally vivid. Five stars for the symphonic poems overall (especially the Tatras), but it is the Slovak Suite that should be the main attraction and I am not sure it comes off as well as it might have.