Wartime Music, Volume 8 = GAVRIIL POPOV: Symphony No. 3 “Heroic” for a Large String Orchestra, Op. 45; Symphonic Aria for Cello and String Orchestra, Op. 43 – Dmitry Khrychov, cello / St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra / Alexander Titov – Northern Flowers NF/PMA 9972, 69:54 [Distr. by Albany] ***:
Several years ago, when Gavriil Popov’s First Symphony appeared on Telarc conducted by Leon Botstein, it caused quite a stir and divided opinions pretty equally. Some listeners thought it represented a talent on a par with Popov’s fellow student Shostakovich, one virtually extinguished by Soviet censorship. Other listeners heard a slap-dash piece that hinted at raw talent, one that never fully developed. My reactions lie somewhere between these poles. I find the symphony a remarkable if flawed work, a bravely modernist statement, given the reactionary musical climate in which it was launched in 1935. As to whether it bespeaks a talent on the par with the finest Soviet-era composers, I’m skeptical, but then I’m probably looking at things through the unsullied rearview mirror of musical history.
So it was with a good deal of curiosity that I turned to Northern Flowers’ recording of Popov’s Third Symphony. Debuted in 1946—long after the First Symphony was banned (not to be heard again until after the composer’s death), and a chastened, rehabilitated Popov had started writing acceptable patriotic works and film music—the Third Symphony was apparently approved of in musical circles. At least it didn’t prevent Popov from being given the rank of Honored Worker of Arts of the Russian Federation in 1947. But, then, this was Stalin’s Russia; the very next year Popov was castigated along with Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and Myaskovsky as an “anti-national” radical. That’s a different story, however. Back to 1946 and the Third Symphony.
Strangely scored for a large body of strings alone, it is a strange work. It calls to mind other pieces: Ernest Bloch’s First Concerto Grosso and especially Honegger’s wartime Second Symphony for strings with trumpet obbligato. But unlike that work—which celebrates the indomitability of the human spirit in the time-honored progress from gloom to glory, from darkness into light—Popov’s Heroic Symphony is more equivocal. It starts with a slow movement where grinding dissonances give way to consonance and an almost roseate Romantic glow toward the end. That’s followed by two relatively upbeat fast movements, the first a sonata-allegro, the second a scherzo whose skittering figurations recall the first movement of Popov’s own First Symphony, which I’d describe as a series of musical gestures in search of a structure.
The scherzo (referred to by the composer as a “scherzo tarantella”) also recalls the slithery glissandos of the second movement from Prokofiev’s Third Symphony, “The Fiery Angel,” which Popov undoubtedly knew. But in Popov’s Third Symphony, daringly modernist gestures are blunted and given shape by the inclusion of folk music, specifically Spanish folk music, recalling Glinka’s and Rimsky’s use of Spanish motifs. When Popov was later asked why he didn’t score the work for full symphony orchestra, he responded, “The choice of string orchestra. . .was prompted by domination of folk-song, melodic and dancing (in the symphony’s scherzo) thematic material. . . . Adding brass and percussion instruments to the texture of this score would completely destroy the organic perception of this style.”
The fourth movement is the emotional heart of the piece, tragic in its bearing and, according to the notes to the recording, “an echo of the national tragedy” of the late war. It has some of the dark intensity of Shostakovich’s slow movements, but I can’t say, as with most Shostakovich symphonies, we’re quite prepared for it.
The fifth and final movement takes us back to the themes of the first movement but uses them to launch a steady progress toward a subdued triumphalism. Given the equivocal nature of the symphony’s course up to this point, it would have to be subdued, I suppose.
So there you have it—or maybe you don’t—my analysis of Popov’s Third Symphony. As you can see, it left me somewhat mystified, if not outright frustrated. Like the First Symphony, it’s obviously the work of a talented, thinking composer, not a mere apparatchik despite the Communist party’s best efforts to rehabilitate him. But like the First Symphony, it doesn’t convincingly hang together or make an especially coherent statement, as interesting as its various parts may be. Is the Third Symphony a masterwork, as the notes to the recording maintain? Decidedly not. Can I recommend it as a listening experience? Yes, certainly.
The Symphonic Aria, a near relative of the symphony, is easier to talk about. Composed in reaction to the death of author Alexey Tolstoy in 1945, it balances quietly elegiac music against passionate outcries. The cello is the mourning protagonist of this dark-hued tone poem. It’s clearly heartfelt and mostly compelling.
The performances by the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra are sympathetic as usual but also rather rough and ready. This music doesn’t call for sumptuousness—no need to invite the Fabulous Philadelphians to this party—but it could benefit from more disciplined and accurate playing. That criticism doesn’t extend to Dmitry Khrychov, who’s a reliable soloist, though he isn’t called on to perform heroics in the solemn Symphonic Aria.
As to the recorded sound, well, that’s pretty much rough and ready too. But if you’re the adventurous type and aren’t deterred by the drawbacks I’ve described, by all means go for it. Popov should prove a worthwhile find.
-Lee Passarella
