Customer Reviews

Symphony No.2, Armenian Suite

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

 

 

I rather like the Phoenix catalog. They started out with some valuable reissues from obscure LP catalogs, especially Desto. Among their very first instalments the most enjoyable have been Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No.3/Four Scottish Dances, John Browning Plays Samuel Barber's Sonata for Piano and Richard Cumming's 24 Preludes (title says it all!), Ginastera's Milena (paired with Mennin's 4th Symphony,Symphony No.4/Milena) and Sonata for Piano/Concerto for Piano, Karel Husa's String Quartets No.2 and No.3, Britten's Diversions by no less than Leon Fleisher with Sergiu Commissiona (paired with Ezra Laderman's Concerto for orchestra, a great disc Diversions on a Theme/Concerto for Orchestra). Another major discovery afforded to me by their catalog has been Henry Brant's extraordinary and outlandish Kingdom Come/Machinations.

So I bought this Yardumian CD (the reissue of an original Varèse/Sarabande LP) more for the label than the composer. And indeed, I'm afraid I can't muster much enthusiasm for it. The Armenian Suite is an early work, written in 1937 when the composer was 19 (the seventh and final movement was added in 1954 at the behest of Eugene Ormandy, who was by then championing the composer) and is everything the title seems to imply: folksy. It develops folk themes sung by Yardumian's parents, who immigrated from Armenia in 1906 to escape religious persecution.

The second Symphony (with alto voice) was written over a time span of 17 years, the first movement in 1947 and conceived as a self-contained Psalm and the second movement added in 1964, again at the behest of Ormandy, who recorded and championed the symphony. Well, it sounds like Ernest Bloch's music at its least-inspired, grandiloquence and all. Add to that that Lili Chookasian (for whom the second movement was written) doesn't have a particularly ingratiating alto voice, and her delivery isn't particularly comprehensible either - but laudably the text is included. In fact the liner notes are excellent.

That Ormandy championed Yardumian and took him as composer-in-residence at Philadelphia for nearly fifteen years (ca. 1950-64) speaks long about - what, I wonder: Ormandy's lack of discrimination and taste when it came to modern music? But he performed music that was much better and original than that, including Penderecki's Utrenja! (to say nothing of Bartok, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Hindemith - and add Ives, Schuman, Persichetti, Piston, Harris, Ginastera). Or was it his belief that his audience would appreciate only the most inoffensive "modern" music? That none of his numerous recordings of Yardumian's music (including the compositions featured here) have been reissued on CD testifies, I guess, to the judgment of music History.

You might find more to enjoy in this disc than me if you warm for the neo-romantic style of Howard Hanson or Virgil Thomson.

Richard Yardumian (1917-85) had a modestly successful musical career, but his compositions hardly impinged on the consciousness of musical life in America in general. Part of the reason was presumably that he continued to write in a fully tonal (modal) style when most of the attention was turned toward the avant-garde - and his music is indeed relatively old-fashioned sounding in one sense. Yet Yardumian developed his own compositional method, a "non-Schönbergian" twelve-tone style (fully tonal), and the results is not without an individual dimension, although the closest points of comparison (phenomenologically) will include names like Bloch, Khachaturian and Prokofiev - in short, the music is, roughly, a brand twentieth century post-romanticism.

His catalogue is not particularly extensive, and much of the music is religiously based. Yardumian apparently spent years finishing a work, going through many revisions and restructurings. The Armenian suite (originally based on a piano piece) was composed in the Thirties, with the finale provided in the Fifties. It is an early work, and does show its influences (the Russian Silver Age in particular) quite clearly, though the end result lies somewhere between Khachaturian and Hovhaness. Despite some energetic passages it is generally melancholic, though in an "earthly" rather than spiritual-mystic manner. It is, however, not a particularly rewarding work - yes, there are enjoyable passages, but it hardly amounts to much.

The second symphony began life as a psalm for tenor and orchestra, and the final work (contralto instead of tenor), though appealing, does not strike one as particularly symphonic but more a sequence of psalm settings. There are many good ideas, and if the work convinces more as a sequence of movements than a unified whole that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's strongest parts, however, are the stirring opening and the very effective, march-like closing sequence. The second movement also contains a long passage for unaccompanied solo voice and while Lili Chookasian handles it impressively, it is an exaggeration to say that it is musically wholly convincing.

In general, Chookasian is impressive throughout and the performances by the Utah Symphony Orchestra are generally compelling. The music, however, has also been recorded by Ormandy - I have not heard those performances, but I cannot help suspect that they manage to make more of the music. There is, without doubt, a certain "flatness" to the performances here; the strings are sometimes a tad smudgy and there isn't quite the level of energy in the more quickly paced parts that one suspects could have been there. I do not wish to exaggerate the negative aspects, however - these are overall fine performances and the sound is good. In short, this is a disc of attractive and modestly interesting music in fine performances. It could easily have vied for four stars were it not for the fact that it gives us a total playing time of no more than 38 minutes.

I am biased since he is my Great Uncle. You have to appreciate this music to enjoy it. It is worth a listen too.