Search - William Schuman, Leonardo Balada, Lorin Maazel :: Schuman: Symphony No. 7; Balada: Steel Symphony

Schuman a bit disappointing in its predictability, Balada's

Discophage | France | 12/16/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Heard immediately after Schuman's masterful 3rd and 8th symphonies in Bernstein's recording (part of the Bernstein Century collection on Sony), I found myself somewhat disappointed by his 7th. All his stylistic traits are present - the brooding introductory movement heavily reliant on long string melodies and woodwind and brass interjections, rising to a dramatic climax, the jagged and menacing scherzo (Schuman just calls it "Vigoroso") underpinned by the deep sonorities of the low brass, the serene, post-Mahlerian or Shostakovichian adagio harking back to the symphony for strings, the agitated finale ("Scherzando brioso") with its flurry of scampering woodwind over brass interjections - but what I find amiss is the unpredictability that makes the two above-mentioned compositions such breathtaking masterpieces: there is always in them a twist of orchestration, of rhythmic or melodic writing that keeps you on your toes. In the 7th , Schuman, to my ears, takes an idea and just develops it, period. You know more or less where you are going from the first bars on - and where you are going is nowhere that Schuman hasn't explored in his earlier symphonies - or other composers in their own (Tippett, Hindemith and even Britten fleetingly come to mind).



Leonoardo Balada's Steel Symphony is fun. First performed in 1973, it is a kind of modernized and vastly expanded Mossolov Iron Foundries, in which Balada seeks to express musically the sensations elicited from the Pittsburgh steel mills. But where Mossolov just harps for a short duration on a huge orchestral ostinato, Balada conveys a much wider array of sounds and atmospheres (including, like his predecessor, various machine-like ostinatos), starting with the tuning of the orchestra and going from hushed, quasi-nocturnal mystery to unleashed violence. The basis of his orchestration is strings and brass, augmented of, to quote the liner notes, "a formidable battery of forty-eight percussion instruments (including automobile brake drums, garbage-can lid, thunder sheet, siren, and "a big piece of wood")".



I hear nothing really new in Balada's language - I find myself constantly playing the game "oh, this sounds familiar, where have I heard it?", and I did recognize touches of Ligeti and Lutoslawski and even of Varèse - but the way he composes theses ingredients into his own dish is efficient and palatable.



The New World CD's timing of 49:40 minutes is appropriate for an LP but short for a CD. As usual with that label, liner notes are a treasure-trove of information, including selected bibliography and discography for both composers.

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