Symphathon on the London coach

It’s March and I have kept to my resolution of listening to a symphony a day for a second month, despite a few travels.

February’s symphonies were Balakenskas Ostrobothnian Symphony (for strings only), Chausson (in Bb), Copland 3 (one of the best American symphonies), Glazunov 5 (good in parts, rhetorical ending), Harris 2 and 11, Holmboe 11 (for me, the best of his 13), Kokkonen 3, Meulemans 3, Moeran 1 and 2, Madetoja 1; Miaskovsky 8, 11, 19 (no strings), 20, and 27 (27 symphonies!); Prokoviev 3, 4, 5, and 7; Rautavaara 1 and 8; Sibelius 3, 4-7 (all live courtesy of Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic); Schmidt 4, Svendsen 1 and 2, Randall Thompson 2 (not very symphonic), and Zemlinsky 1.

Of these, it was good to be reminded of the Copland, and the Schmidt was a discovery. As for Prokoviev, I think of him as rather spikey and sardonic, but his music has moments of a curious, elusive magic (especially in no.7) which make me want to get to know him better. It was a real treat to watch a TV broadcast of characterful performances of Sibelius 4, 5, 6 and 7 from London.

I recommend Madetoja’s first symphony, especially its hypnotic middle movement, to anyone who doesn’t listen to much symphonic music. It has a haunting atmosphere. E.J. Moeran’s symphony (he only finished one in his lifetime) is long-ish but has many wonderful passages.

Travelling to London a few weeks ago I was listening to Arthur Meulemans’ second symphony. He was a prolific Belgium composer whose music doesn’t seem well known or much recorded. I found a Naxos CD in Brussels several years ago and took a chance on it. One of the pieces is called ‘May Night’. It is swooningly romantic. I don’t normally go for that style but this sneaked (sneaked, not snuck) under the radar when I first heard it. You can hear it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDfyBQSeav0

I reflected on how astonishing technology is in our time – that a Belgium composer sat in a room somewhere in 1910 and scratched out notes on manuscript paper, and a century later, I’m sitting on a coach in England hearing those notes from a Sansa player the size of a matchbox in lossless audio on noise-cancelling Bose headphones … Amazing.