Symphony No. 1 in B flat minor opus 4
Symphony No. 2 in C minor opus 9
Symphony No. 3 in A major opus 22
Kapelmeister KAP 008
Kapelmeister KAP 008
Khrennikov was named a Hero of Socialist Labour in 1973, the year in which his First Symphony was recorded and in which his Third and last Symphony was completed. He studied composition with Shebalin and piano with Neuhaus - combing the two when he premiered his First Piano Concerto in 1933. He was much occupied with the political life of the USSR and rose to high office. In May 1945 he entered Berlin with the Soviet Army. In 1947 he joined the Communist party and became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet. This Elets-born, tenth child of a modest provincial family became secretary-general of the Union of Soviet Composers. His compositional output includes six operas, a ballet and an operetta as well as film music and incidental music alongside chamber pieces, songs and choruses. There are two of the three piano concertos on the Swiss Relief label review, two violin concertos review , a cello concerto and much else.
The First Symphony is Khrennikov's graduation exercise from the Moscow Conservatoire premiered in Moscow on 10 October 1955. It combines the engaging and cheery playfulness of Prokofiev with the arching heroic songful writing of Miaskovsky. The central movement uses a rising and dipping theme for strings and memorably describes a curve typical of Miaskovsky and of Khrennikov's teacher, Vissarion Shebalin. A distinctive Arctic heroism saturates the serious melody that rises in the finale. It's just a shame that the composer shied from closing the work with that noble theme. Clearly he felt it necessary to return to the knockabout wheeziness with which the movement begins. It is similar, in that respect, to the clowning movements in Shostakovich 6 and 9.
The wartime Second Symphony expresses ‘the irresistible will to defeat the Fascist foe’. It has the heroically whooping energy we expect from a work of those times, galloping away, sustained, tense, adrenaline-soaked and hortatory. Its ‘cavalry charge’ power in the first movement can be likened to similar moments in Miaskovsky's Symphonies 22, 24 and 25. The brass make a gloriously ripe sound - tragic and heroic at the same time. As the first movement closes I became sure that Khrennikov's frame of reference must have included Tchaikovsky's Pathétique. The nostalgia-soaked autumnal scene of 7.10 is similar to Miaskovsky. This precedes a final convulsive 'assault’ with heaven-scouring brass. The second movement is plangently thoughtful and is led off by a reflective clarinet solo. There is no bitterness here, more a case of a leisurely resigned tiredness rising to Tchaikovskian nobility à la Pathétique (tr. 5 5:03). The thrusting and capering clarinet and bassoon initiate the third movement. Their playfulness contrasts with a long melody typical of early Scriabin. The movement ends in riotous fury and a retching profound braying from the brass. The finale has rasping brass but lacks an Odysseyan sense of homecoming. It has grandeur aplenty but is a notch or two slacker than the first two movements. It all finishes too early but it is still good fun and the trembling blaze at the end is well worth hearing. This work was premiered in Moscow on 10 January 1943. The present recording was issued on a Vox-Melodiya CD coupled with the Second Violin Concerto but that disc has now disappeared from sight.
The Third Symphony is the most Shostakovich-like of the three. The first movement is relentlessly active, racing away with acid humour mixed in; circus knockabout stuff. The second movement has a high, sleek and quiet romantic theme for stratospheric violins like a hybrid of the dreamy focus-slither of Silvestrov’s Fifth Symphony and of the Grand Adagio from Khachaturian's Spartacus. The acrid chronometer 'tick' at the end of the third movement recalls the Shostakovich Fifteenth Symphony. The finale is effective after some vapid gestures. The high strings swoon fit to burst and very high in the register. They make connections back to the ultra-high passages in the second movement. This Himalaya-mystery sounds extremely filmic - part Steiner, part Jarré, part Silvestrov.
All three symphonies are fastidiously constructed and tellingly orchestrated. Khrennikov had a long and no doubt bruising apprenticeship in the Soviet film industry. However the orchestrational skills it imparted served him well.
The playing is outstanding with the USSR Symphony Orchestra at the peak of their dizzyingly virtuosic powers under Svetlanov's inspirational conducting. The 1970s Russian brass are regally commanding complete with unabashed vibrato.
This coupling has appeared before on the Scribendum label review but the present version is to be preferred not least because of the extensive notes.
The same label has also recorded other Khrennikov: there’s a disc apiece for his chamber music, three piano concertos and film music. I only hope that DI Music (who handle this label in the UK) are able to source review copies and if Kapelmeister read this I would be grateful if they would contact me.
Khrennikov has had a knee-jerk drubbing in many quarters - seemingly richly merited in relation to his activities as a bureaucrat. His music, however, has its bright-eyed virtues. Some of it is sub-Shostakovich but much has a noble bearing and is impressively laid out. The First Symphony is excellent as are the first two movements of the Second and much of the Third. Give it a try. Sniffy and politically correct friends may yet get a surprise if you play one of these symphonies to them without telling them who wrote it until after it has finished. Tell them beforehand and you can virtually guarantee it will condemned unheard as slipshod and shallow.
Rob Barnett
Musicweb, April 2006
The First Symphony is an early work completed when he was twenty-two. The opening movement has a vital motor and a trivial heart. Feints toward the fugal mesh with Prokofiev-like dynamism and a brash surety ensures that orchestral commas are assured and not lumpy. It’s the central movement that impresses most. Here a Miaskovskian tinge aerates the music and a degree of introspection warms it with long Rachmaninovian paragraphs; I find the influence of Rachmaninov on the slow movements pronounced in the early symphonic writing. The finale is folksy and leads to a rather undeserved grandiloquence and slapstick conclusion. I think it would work better as a scherzo with a rewritten fourth movement finale. Despite the rather loquacious tiresomeness of much of this early work the gravity of the slow movement sounds promise.
Symphony No.2 is actually cast in four movements. Opening with such violent defiance identifies it squarely as a war symphony. Big fat Russian trumpets blare, contrasted with more reflective writing rather reminiscent of his teacher Shebalin. The evocative solo violin and Tchaikovskian patina are effective and the deft symmetry of the writing is formally controlled. The slow movement’s lilting melody and ensuing march climaxes are powerfully scored and aurally titillating, comments that apply to the scherzo’s tangy militaristic drama. The finale looks forward to victory with pastoral reflections, folkloric hues and ends in a goose-stepping blaze of glory.
Khrennikov waited until 1973 to write his Third Symphony. This reverts to a three-movement scheme. Prominent is his trademark percussive drama and a very Shostakovich-like rhythmic drive. The insistent and incessant motor rhythms lead to a high degree of tension, well sustained, and a sardonic circus of sonorities. The tick-tocking of time seems to inform the central movement where nostalgia is displaced by insistence and inevitability. Its resolution in the finale sounds unsatisfying. The rather exhausting fissures of it are rooted very much in the procedures of the 1950s; that’s not necessarily a criticism but the symphony carries no real weight of expressive journey.
Jonathan Woolf
Musicweb, December 2006