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CRESTON Symphonies: No. 1; No. 2; No. 3, “Three Mysteries” Ÿ Theodore Kuchar, cond; Ukraine National SO Ÿ NAXOS 8.559034 (72:39)
The years from 1940 to 1950 represent a fertile period in the
development of the American symphonic repertoire, during which a wealth of
distinctive and compelling new works appeared, reflecting a variety of
musical personalities. The most notable examples include William
Schuman’s No. 3 and No. 6, Aaron Copland’s No. 3, Walter Piston’s
No. 2 and No. 4, Samuel Barber’s controversial No. 2, Howard Hanson’s
No. 4, Peter Mennin’s No. 5, and Vittorio Giannini’s No. 1. Among this
company also belong the three symphonies by Paul Creston (1906-1985)
brought together on this new release in Naxos’s ambitious “American
Classics” series.
Creston rose to national prominence with remarkable rapidity. Not
until 1932, when he was 26, did he produce his Opus 1, a group of short
piano pieces, and thereby commited himself to a career as a composer. In
1940, he completed his Opus 20, the Symphony No. 1, which won the New York
Music Critics Circle Award shortly thereafter (having been chosen over
such works as Copland’s Lincoln
Portrait and Gould’s Spirituals).
His Symphony No. 2 was introduced by the New York Philharmonic under Artur
Rodzinski in 1945, and the Symphony No. 3 by the Philadelphia Orchestra
under Eugene Ormandy in 1950. (But his fame disappeared as quickly as it
had appeared: By 1965, his major works, like those of so many other
accessible American symphonists, had gone into eclipse. For the next 20
years, i.e., the rest of his life, his reputation rested on rousing
overtures for concert band and pieces for odd instruments, such as
accordion, trombone, and saxophone. It is only during the past ten years
that his more serious works have undergone something of a revival.)
Largely self-taught, Creston developed his own highly individual
aesthetic—and the unique and unmistakable “sound” that was its
outgrowth—within a few years of his Opus 1, and he deviated very little
from this approach throughout his career. Considered in its entirety,
Creston’s musical output suffers from considerable unevenness in
quality. Like other composers who prided themselves on their own
uniqueness of approach, he became hermetically impervious to outside
influences, his creativity suffocating in a self-protective vacuum. Thus,
much of his music seems to have been produced through the routine
application of rather trite compositional formulas that served his modus
operandi. But a dozen or so of his works represent his most ambitious
aspirations and their most successful fulfillment; each constitutes an
individual creative response to a particular compositional challenge or
premise, with a result that is both original and utterly characteristic.
Into this group fall the three symphonies presented here; together on one
disc, they provide an excellent opportunity for listeners to become truly
acquainted with Creston’s compositional personality, and to validate
Henry Cowell’s assertion, “There is no one known to me who handles
more expertly the traditional types of development of a musical germ [than
Paul Creston].”
Creston’s Second and Third Symphonies were released together on a
Westminster LP during the mid 1950s, in performances by the National
Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Howard Mitchell. (Mitchell was a
vigorous advocate of Creston’s music, and the composer endorsed his
interpretations whole-heartedly.) Both symphonies have also been recorded
subsequently. But the Symphony No. 1 is presented here in its first-ever
recording, and it is welcome indeed. The work may be seen as a bold
statement of self-definition, as well as an ambitious young composer’s
presentation of his compositional “credentials,” offered confidently
within traditional guidelines that allow no ambiguity or subterfuge of
interpretation. Each movement represents a mood or character that Creston
was to elaborate and develop further in subsequent works. The marvelous
first movement, marked “With Majesty,” is relatively conventional in
form, if quite distinctive in its content: a proudly Whitmanesque
assertion of self, as a brash primary theme is offset by a more subdued
secondary theme whose sense of urgency is barely suppressed. The second
movement, “With Humor,” is a scherzo, playful in character, with unexpected, off-kilter rhythmic
tricks. The third movement, “With Serenity,” is a typically Crestonian
fusion of sensual and spiritual yearning, reminiscent of the “Gregorian
Chant” movement of his String Quartet. The finale, “With Gaiety,” is
a rondo of joyful exuberance. It is not hard to imagine what so impressed
the critics at the time of its premiere. As the work of a composer new to
the scene, it is seemingly without dogma, pretension, or self-indulgence.
Instead, it is direct, concise, straightforward, and clear as to its
intentions.
The Second Symphony is a further, more profound statement of
self-definition. In this work Creston elaborates his belief that song and
dance represent the two essentials of musical expression. He propounds
this notion in a work of two movements, each based on a single long theme
of 27 notes that embrace all twelve tones, and each an “apotheosis” of
its respective element. The theme is developed exhaustively and with
remarkable ingenuity, first in a rich and beautifully serpentine
contrapuntal Introduction, which blossoms into the warmly luxuriant Song.
The second movement opens with a bold and defiant Interlude that explodes
into the Dance, a wild orgy of syncopated polyrhythms, a device that
became one of Creston’s trademarks. The symphony is a masterpiece of
conceptual polarization and integration, executed with fluency, clarity,
and economy. In its consummation of an abstract idea through a work that
is utterly individual, while displaying great immediacy of appeal, the
Second Symphony looms as Creston’s most important composition, and is
arguably the most notable American symphony of the 1940s.
If the Second Symphony is a musical representation of Creston’s
aesthetic principles, the Third may be seen as an expression of the
spiritual side of his character. Subtitled, “Three Mysteries,” the
work presents the composer’s expressive commentary on the Nativity,
Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. With characteristic
conceptual orderliness, Creston turned to Gregorian Chant for all the
work’s thematic material, subjecting these haunting melodies to the most
thorough developmental processes. Although each movement follows an
explicit program, the entire work is an autonomous, fully coherent formal
structure. One of the symphony’s most salient aspects is its unabashedly
robust, visceral, and earthy treatment
of content usually presented with ascetic reverence. The treatment is
certainly reverent enough, but it is Creston’s brand of reverence, and
ascetic it is not. The other notable aspect of the work is its ingenious
development of the thematic material. The second movement, for example, is
one of the composer’s most deeply inspired creations, centering around a
mournful passacaglia that weaves two Gregorian melodies contrapuntally,
one of which is presented in several metrical denominations
simultaneously, building to a dramatic climax of great emotional
intensity. Yet despite its immediacy of effect (which at times has
prompted the contemptuous epithet, “Hollywood!”), the movement’s
formal articulation follows an unerring logic.
The
performances on this new Naxos release are quite adequate in conveying the
import of the music, although the Ukrainian orchestra cannot offer the
precision or refinement of a truly virtuoso ensemble, and its handling of
some typically American rhythmic figures is a little awkward. Theodore
Kuchar, who seems to divide his time among the Ukraine, Colorado, and
Australia, is, at age 40, one of Naxos’s most favored conductors. How
deeply he knows and understands this music is hard to determine, but he
certainly delves into it with suitable gusto; some of the results are more
convincing than others. On the whole, his reading of the Symphony No. 1 is
quite satisfactory, displaying the requisite fervor and energy. The only
problem involves the scherzo,
which Kuchar seems to perceive as a waltz, but which strikes me as
requiring a lighter, livelier approach; the melody that appears in the
“B-section” of the movement gives the clue to the right tempo. Kuchar
seems to have looked more deeply into the Symphony No. 2, which is
presented in a highly convincing interpretation. This work is currently
available in some pretty impressive readings: Pierre Monteux with the New
York Philharmonic (on their recent American
Celebration set [Fanfare 23:3])
and Neeme Järvi with the Detroit Symphony (Fanfare
19:3). While the Ukrainian orchestra cannot match their sharp
precision and suave refinement, Kuchar’s shaping of the phrasing—in
the first movement, especially—reflects a sympathy with and
understanding of the music’s focus and direction that the more
illustrious figures fail to capture fully; he also effectively reigns in
Creston’s tendency toward overblown rhetoric. The performance of the
Third Symphony is the least satisfactory of the three. Here Kuchar is less
successful in restraining Creston’s moments of bombast. In addition, the
Third’s radiant and—at times—ethereal orchestration makes the
relative crudeness of the Ukrainian orchestra more clearly apparent. One
suspects that perhaps this work received less rehearsal time than the
other two, as the players often tend to sound as though they are unaware
of what is happening two or three measures ahead, and there are passages
when accompanimental patterns overbalance primary thematic material. Here
I would have to give the nod to the Seattle Symphony recording (Fanfare 16:2), conducted by Gerard Schwarz, who tailors the work
more smoothly and tidily (although that rendition too has some of the same
defects).
Nevertheless, these quibbles about the performances cannot negate
the obvious value represented by this recording: three truly engaging but
relatively obscure American symphonies, one a recording premiere, in
adequate-to-good performances, available on one budget-priced CD—an
indispensable release for anyone who wishes to be acquainted with some of
the best American symphonic music of the mid-20th century.
One assumes that a subsequent disc will follow, presenting
Creston’s Symphonies Nos. 4 through 6. That should also be a valuable
document, as neither Fourth nor Sixth has ever been recorded; both are
relatively weak, however (although the Fifth is great). But several of
Creston’s most important other
orchestral works have never been recorded adequately or, in some cases,
even at all. One is the Chthonic Ode,
an aptly compelling musical commentary on the sculptor Henry Moore;
another is Janus, the best of
the composer’s pieces in the prelude-and-dance format (neither of these
has ever been recorded); and Walt
Whitman, a symphonic portrait of Creston’s favorite poet, who was a
major inspiration throughout his compositional career. Walter Simmons
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