Tuur: Symphony No.4 "Magma" [CD]

I love Tuur and found this album to be his most recommended which is shcking considering it is the worst and I would favour any released on ECM over this. I did enjoy the three works accompanying the symphony 4 for percussion, but that work itself is pretty lame.
If you would like to hear why I consider Tuur one of the finest living composers-check out all of his ECM discs(proably Oxymoron last). The other three works on Magma will give you a better idea of what to expect and, at least I hope, the symphony 4 is not a tu(ur)n for the worst in this intersting and unique composers ouvre.

Erkki-Sven Tüür is one of the interesting composers that have emerged from the demise of the Soviet Union and of the overbearing rule of the twelve-tone derived avant-garde, and the reason why he is so is that, unlike many others, he has not relinquished all compositional exigencies in order to write just any kind of cheap neo-romantic rehash that comes out to his pen. The music is more original and has more dramatic impact than that.

In the previous works of his that I heard and reviewed, namely his Second Symphony and Oratorio "Ante Finem Saeculi", composed between 1985 and 1987, one could still distinctly hear the original mixture of radical Penderecki and less radical American-minimalism-to-World-Music (Tüür: Oratorio Ante Finem Saeculi/Symphony No.2). Well, now (three of the four compositions featured on this disc date from between 2002and 2006), the second branch of Tüür's stylistic mix is all but gone.

Remains, in the percussion symphony (2002), a raw power that fully deserves the title "Magma" chosen for the piece. Tüür's original grounding in rock music is much in evidence, especially in the mighty cadenza starting at 14:25. He calls it a "Symphony for solo percussion and symphony orchestra", but really it is a Concerto, or a Symphony Concertante. There is also a genuine sense of orchestral color, and a reminiscence of the "atmospheric" Ligeti from the 1960s is more perceptible than in Tüür's previous compositions. Evelyn Glennie is, as usual, stupendous. James MacMillan's "Veni Veni Emmanuel", also written for her, has found here a worthy mate (Evelyn Glennie: Veni, veni emmanuel or MacMillan: Veni, Veni Emmanuel).

A fine sense of atmosphere and shimmering colors also pervades "The Path and the Traces" (2005) for string orchestra, dedicated to the other big name of Estonian music: Arvo Päart, whose 70th birthday was in part the spur to the piece's composition. "Igavik" (Eternity) is a short funeral tribute for male choir and orchestra written in 2006 to the memory of Lennart Meri, former foreign minister and president of the newly-independent Estonia. It is based on rhythms and motives from Estonia's time-old Shamanic tradition, and moves from the sombre and brooding ritual chanting to more vehement utterances, but the music remains always quite simple. Ever heard of the French progressive rock band from the 1970s "Magma" and its invented language, the "Kobaïan"? That's a little what Igavik sounds like.

"Inquiétude du fini" is an earlier cantata, from 1992. And my minute of French philology: "Inquiétude du fini" is translated in the liner notes by "concern that it is over", but the meanings are much more subtle than that: "fini" is not only what is over, as in "c'est fini"/"it is over", but also the completed, as in "j'ai fini" /" I am finished", "I'm done", or the finite, as opposed to the infinite. "Inquiétude" is the state of being worried, anxious.

Already present are the sense of shimmering string colors (harking back to Penderecki's Threni for the victims of Hiroshima and Ligeti's Atmospheres), the brooding chant-like utterances from the chorus, the effective but unsubtle Carl-Orff-derived moments of pounding (which was a strong influence of the Magma rock band as well).

What is also in the cantata but gone in the more recent pieces is the atmosphere of romanticism of some parts, the gossamer passagaes in twelve-tone language (7:00), and the very beautiful and aetheral passage, very much in the style of "Gothic Voices", starting with women's voices at 8:58, the dance-music syncopations in the section starting at 11:05 (The British minimalists, Steve Martland and Michael Torke comes to mind). Like a kid in candy store filling his pockets, Tüür started very much as an eclectic but he seems to be shedding the influences like the snake its skins.

Tuur decided to call the percussion concerto he wrote for Evelyn Glennie his Symphony No. 4 -- "Magma." Here it is, performed by Glennie and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, led by Tuur's friend and compatriot Paavo Jarvi. It's not bad, but it's not great either. Repeated listening hasn't budged me from this lukewarm assessment. (It seems to be a rare case of a unanimous critical response, at least on Amazon!) For a much better Tuur disc, see EXODUS on ECM, also with Jarvi conducting, but featuring his City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra -- see my review.

The other three compositions on this disc are somewhat better, but all are minor works, and the disc does not cohere well overall. Two are choral pieces, "Inquietude du Fini" for chamber choir and orchestra, and "Igavik (Eternity)" for male choir and orchestra, which is less than 5 minutes long. "The Path and the Traces" is an impressive piece for string orchestra inspired by the island of Crete and Greek Orthodox plainchant.

"Magma" features a percussion solo, of course, a sort of rock concert interlude for drum-kit as second movement, but Glennie plays vibraphone and glockenspiel in the first movement, marimba and woodblocks in the third movement, and congas in the dance-inspired finale. I am struck by the Debussean orchestration and feel of this concerto/symphony hybrid. A colleague recently maintained that Debussy is the reigning composer of our time, and I was initially skeptical, but it certainly seems as though many younger composers are retrenching from various avant-garde pursuits to a Debussean soundworld, including the Nordic/Baltic composers Saariaho, Lindberg and Tuur. I do not see this as a good thing, but I am no doubt outvoted by the classical concert-going public.