A recording of the 2nd Symphony [1907] of Julián Carrillo is to be released by Toccata 6 Nov. Don't see it yet at Amazon UK.
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8829349--julian-carrillo-orchestral-music
https://smile.amazon.com/Orchestral-Music-Orquesta-Sinfonica-Potosi/dp/B08JLXYGZ6/ref=sr_1_14?dchild=1&keywords=Julián+Carrillo&qid=1601935148&s=music&sr=1-14-catcorr (https://smile.amazon.com/Orchestral-Music-Orquesta-Sinfonica-Potosi/dp/B08JLXYGZ6/ref=sr_1_14?dchild=1&keywords=Juli%C3%A1n+Carrillo&qid=1601935148&s=music&sr=1-14-catcorr)
Toccata: "Although the Mexican composer Julián Carrillo (1875–1965) came to be remembered as a pioneer in the science of acoustics, the music he wrote in the first part of his career has a late-Romantic opulence and spaciousness that was very much of its age. Here his powerful and dignified Second Symphony, which sits somewhere between Bruckner and Rachmaninov, is joined by two early pièces d'occasion and excerpts from his grand historical opera of 1910, Matilde, or Mexico in 1810, which marked the centenary of the Mexican War of Independence."
This is an extremely beautiful work - with the exception of much of the scherzo which seems to descend into motiveless, sardonic cacophany at various points, and all this in the context of what is otherwise a very euphonious work. Perhaps someone can follow the composer's logic here - I can't. Perhaps I'll get used to it, but at present it just seems to me to blow a hole (not to say a rather indecent raspberry) in the overall conception. Not like Wagner, Bruckner or Rachmaninov at all, which is how the work is billed. It's as if Strauss at his most modernist has walked on stage only to walk off again when the finale strikes up.
Still, I suppose three movements out of four isn't a bad return. But that Scherzo sticks out like a sore thumb...
You're absolutely spot on, Alan. It's a really rather grand, lovely work spoiled by the completely anachronistic Scherzo. For my second and third hearings I just didn't play the track and enjoyed it as a three movement symphony, and that would be my recommendation to anyone approaching the piece.
This is very odd, isn't it? Don't get it at all.
I have his First which is decent enough, but I have listened online to this one and I can do without it. I never managed to like Strauss´s Alpine Symphony and this is far inferior stuff. I wonder what the early philistine Hanoverians would have made of it
Funnily enough, I was put in mind of the Alpine Symphony too - and, as I said before, I'm surprised that Strauss wasn't mentioned in the brief list of influences mentioned in the blurb for this release. An interesting and enjoyable symphony, but a badly flawed one.
It's really the first minute or two of the scherzo (which isn't really a scherzo anyhow) that may be slightly offensive to some, and I am assuming this section is based off of Mexican folk music (which often uses surprisingly complex rhythic and melodic structures). Then again, it sounds like a conscious "musical conflict" of the type heard in Tchaikovsky's 1812, where two or three themes battle it out and one prevails. After that bit, it becomes very engaging, though.
It's not the opening that sticks out, but rather the way it later descends into pointless dissonance.
I don't know about "pointless" - but without any background knowledge (and I'm listening to Spotify) it's difficult to say anything useful. Musically it does make sense to me though - different sensibilities, surely.
Oh, quite. It doesn't make any sense to me, though - certainly not in the context of a work in which there are no other instances of the same thing.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 25 November 2020, 16:05
Oh, quite. It doesn't make any sense to me, though - certainly not in the context of a work in which there are no other instances of the same thing.
Having listened to the symphony again twice on Spotify, I'm beginning to wonder whether we've been listening to the same thing. There is incidental use of dissonant chords throughout the work that I hear, most notably (but very mild, early-Ives-esque) at the end of the 2nd movement. But it's all very careful. The scherzo, after a rather hectic beginning, sounds rather unadventurous to me. There is another short section around the 5:30 mark, but it's not even really dissonant. And I will maintain that the symphony works for me in its totality.
But following our exchange I've been thinking about how I don't mind "ugly"* music very much if it's at least interesting. Carrillo's symphony is a good example of one of the many ways in which art music tried to extricate itself from the quagmire the Austro-German schools got themselves into around WW1. That's long been framed as an inevitable march towards post-WW2 serialism, but personally I find the immediate post-1918 period uniquely interesting because of the diversity of these experiments, both tonal and non-tonal.
Of course, no one likes to listen to stuff that is
only ugly. But
only pretty music can also be problematic - a good example is the Lauber symphonies, which should have hit all the right notes but which I found supremely unengaging.
* defined as: conflicting with one's present aesthetic sensibilities.
I don't mind 'ugly', but can't see how it fits with the rest of the symphony. It doesn't work for me, so we'll have to part company there.
I think part of the problem is how the symphony is being marketed, i.e. as being in the mould of Wagner, Bruckner and Rachmaninov. For example, there is no such 'blot' (to be perjorative about the matter) in Rachmaninov 2, which is almost exactly contemporary with Carrillo 2. If more had been made of the parallels with Richard Strauss, I would have been forewarned - and probably more sympathetic!
But honestly, I'm curious whether we're listening to the same thing - I simply hear hardly any dissonances in the scherzo (and more at the end of the slow movement). Could it be that there are different versions floating around somehow?
how'd we get to talking about the immediate post-WWI period? Did he revise his 1907 2nd symphony after 1918? Also, I'm sure Medtner, at least, would disagree with Alan about lumping Rachmaninoff in with Bruckner, as iirc he was very negative about some of his (Medtner's) friend's later music, harmonically speaking especially (the opening of the finale of the 3rd symphony, I think, was one example, with those alternating tritones...)
The point, Eric, was made in the advertising blurb for the release -
not by me:
<<Although the Mexican composer Julián Carrillo (1875–1965) came to be remembered as a pioneer in the science of acoustics, the music he wrote in the first part of his career has a late-Romantic opulence and spaciousness that was very much of its age.
Here his powerful and dignified Second Symphony, which sits somewhere between Bruckner, Wagner and Rachmaninov, is joined by two early pièces d'occasion and excerpts from his grand historical opera of 1910, Matilde, or Mexico in 1810, which marked the centenary of the Mexican War of Independence.>>
https://toccataclassics.com/product/julian-carrillo-orchestral-music/ (emphasis added)
As for the dissonances, they may not be great in the grand scheme of things, but they're pretty obvious (in this context). It also seems curious that both Mark and I came to the same (negative) conclusion...
Now that I've stopped trying to relate the symphony to Wagner, Bruckner and Rachmaninov and started putting it into a Straussian context (Don Quixote, Alpine Symphony, etc) the music makes more sense. Not sure yet whether I like that third movement, but who knows...
Fair enough :)!
After reading today´s review in Musicweb, I am again trying to come to terms with the work. I am not a musicologist but I wonder whether his 1957 revisions concentrated mainly on that totally out of place Scherzo. At times, one of the themes in the opening movement, which I prefer, reminded me of something from Auber or Flotow. I have now moved on to humming Martha...........
I broke my promise to myself, and bought the CD. Where should I start? Jimmy Durante, ´the patron of the arts´,would have found it ´stupendious´. Gottschalk on the road to Damascene Gliere......... Swooningly over the top at times, this is music dedicated to Porfirio Diaz, who was not incapable of being overblown himself. My cockatiel took fright and flew to his cage.
It's buried somewhere in my study, probably never to be unearthed again.
On repeated hearings (not too many), I've grown to quite enjoy it's over-the-top-ness - even the Scherzo, which I initially felt to belong to a later era stylistically. A Latin Khachaturian comes to mind....
I'll have to un-bury it and give it another listen...
Don't put that disinterment at the top of your list, though ;)
Now that what I am briefly calling the New York State blizzard of early February 2021* has removed/postponed some things from/on my schedule, you've reminded me that actually, I have been rather meaning to hear this, in part for some of those reasons.
*hopefully redundantly. There'd better not be a different one of mid-February 2021, yet another of.. who am I kidding? If there is, it's not like I can do anything about it.
I'd say Myaskovsky rather than Khachaturian in the opening bars? (or Prokofiev ca. one of the versions of his 4th symphony :) )... I don't know.
I wasn't serious, Eric. Just a reference to the rather unrestrained, overblown character of Carillo's symphony.