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On record: Steve Elcock: Orchestral Music, Volume Three (Toccata)

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Steve Elcock
Symphony No. 6 Op.30 ‘Tyrants Destroyed’ (2017)
Symphony No. 7 Op.33 (2020)
Manic Dancing Op. 25 (2015)

Marina Kosterina (piano, Manic Dancing), Siberian Symphony Orchestra / Dmitry Vasiliev

Producer/Engineer Sergei Zhiganov
Recorded 21-25 June 2021, Philharmonic Hall, Omsk

Toccata Classics TOCC0616 [75’54”]

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics continues its survey of Steve Elcock’s orchestral music with a third volume that features two of his most recent symphonies alongside his piano concerto malgré-lui, each demonstrating a visceral immediacy and a quixotic individuality as previously encountered.

What’s the music like?

After the Beethovenian dialectic of his Fifth Symphony, Elcock concentrated on smaller scale projects prior to its successor. Cast in two movements (the first slightly longer), this might be felt to emulate another totemic Fifth, that by Nielsen, but Elcock’s Sixth is a wholly different proposition. The opening Molto moderato unfolds incrementally and even hesitantly from its subdued beginnings on lower strings, so making the baleful climactic processional the more unnerving when it suddenly arrives. Nor does the ensuing Allegro bring any real catharsis – its gradual and methodical build-up (via that cumulative harmonic and rhythmic intensifying found in Pettersson but which Elcock has made his own) at length culminating in a vehement peroration which would seem to fulfil the remit of this work’s subtitle in unequivocal terms.

Three years on and the Seventh Symphony sees a very different approach. Here every aspect speaks of intended equivocation, the single movement redolent of Elcock’s Fourth in variety of incident yet eschewing its tonal and textural complexity for an overt transparency abetted by relatively modest instrumentation and modally informed clarity of content. Vestiges of an expanded sonata design can be sensed in the stealthy alternation of slower and faster tempos, leading to a central developmental crux as brings in its wake less a reprise than the statement of a melody evidently heard in a dream but whose eloquence and poise seem nothing if not tangible. From here the music heads back towards its modal origins, then it evanesces away for what is the deftest and most affecting conclusion in any of Elcock’s symphonies thus far.

Placed between these symphonies as (necessary) shock-absorber, Manic Dancing is another of Elock’s concertante pieces. The integration of piano and orchestra recalls the Sinfoniettas Giocosa and La Jolla by Martinů, even if the febrile velocity of its outer Allegros could hardly be mistaken for urbanity. The central Largo in the emotional heart in every sense – its limpid opening offset by a restiveness to the fore in twin climaxes, with cadenza-like facets emerging out of the texture before the animated music resumes its designedly manic course.

Does it all work?

Indeed, not least in underlining the overt distinctiveness of Elcock’s symphonies as taken on their own terms. As before, the playing of the Siberian Symphony Orchestra leaves nothing to chance in bringing out the sheer imagination and richness of the orchestral writing, with Dmitry Vasiliev ensuring that formal cohesion remain paramount. Marina Kosterina contributes animated and resourceful pianism, and those who have responded positively to earlier volumes in this series (TOCC0400/0445) will be gripped or maybe even a little disconcerted by this latest addition.

Is it recommended?

Yes, not least with sound of clarity and impact comparable to earlier instalments, and detailed notes from Francis Pott. Toccata will hopefully continue its series of Elcock’s chamber music, while the English Symphony Orchestra has recorded his Eighth Symphony for future release.

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For further information, audio clips and purchase information visit the Toccata Classics website. For more on Steve Elcock you can visit the composer’s website

On record – Alexander Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Music Volume One (Siberian Symphony Orchestra / Dmitry Vasiliev) (Toccata Classics)

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Alexander Tchaikovsky
Symphony no.3 Op.75 (1995-2002)
Symphony no.7 Op.139 ‘Quarantine Symphony’ (2020)

Siberian Symphony Orchestra / Dmitry Vasiliev

Toccata Classics TOCC0587 [60’12”]

Producer Vadim Dedik
Engineer Adaq Kahn

Recorded in live performances: 19 May 2019 (Symphony no.3), 20 September 2020 (Symphony no.7) at Philharmonic Hall, Omsk

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics continues to investigate those paths lesser trod with this first instalment of symphonies by Alexander Tchaikovsky, likely the leading composer of the older generation in Russia, whose music is directly and audibly in the lineage of his geographical forebears.

What’s the music like?

Born in Moscow in 1946, Alexander Tchaikovsky is a nephew of composer and pianist Boris – but, in contrast to the latter’s selective output, has built an extensive catalogue featuring 14 operas (in addition to operettas and musicals) and three ballets, alongside numerous concertos and (to date) seven symphonies that frequently evince an illustrative or at least programmatic aspect. This is borne out in music highly evocative in import if without loss of that formal or expressive focus needed to sustain the two, wholly different, abstract arguments pursued here.

With its lengthy gestation and opulent instrumentation, the Third Symphony is a key work in the composer’s output. Its minimalist aspects occasioned more by Nielsen or Prokofiev than any post-war figure, the initial Allegro opens stealthily as its main theme gradually comes to the fore – tension increasing through a series of dissonant outbursts towards a massive climax across the orchestra that subsides into a sombre close. The central Allegro molto is described as ‘‘essentially a sequence of waltzes’’, which indicates its motion but not its stark emotional contrasts and violent denouement. It remains for the final Andante, proceeding without pause, to attempt a reconciliation; its furtive gestures opening-out onto a sustained expression whose restive and volatile content does not pre-empt the inexorability of the waltz music at the close.

Its title referring to the COVID-19 pandemic that occasioned its compact design and smaller forces (strings with percussion and piano), the Seventh Symphony comprises two movements. The first of these alternates between a plaintive Andante and trenchant Allegro molto, which latter gradually comes to the fore in a conclusion of unbridled abandon. Almost twice as long, the Adagio unfolds on the lines of a ‘prelude and fugue’ – the initial section sustaining a rapt eloquence that is intensified after the strings’ airy ascent and the commencement of the fugue in its methodical while deeply felt progress towards a fervent close. It is worth noting that the composer himself contracted the virus soon after completing this work – and which duly led to his missing the premiere in Omsk – but from which he has fortunately made a full recovery.

Does it all work?

For the most part, yes. This is music governed by the impulses as brought it to fruition, such that its underlying logic can be difficult to discern even on repeated hearings, while ensuring that a sense of destination – and arrival thereat – is never absent. The playing of the Siberian Symphony Orchestra is up to the standards of earlier releases for this label, Dmitry Vasiliev bringing a discipline and cumulative momentum to the often lengthy individual movements. There is little evidence of audience ‘presence’ in what are designated as live performances.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. The sound conveys the impact of these symphonies (the Third in particular) with no lack of immediacy, and there are insightful notes by pianist and composer Jonathan Powell. Hopefully more volumes of Alexander Tchaikovsky’s orchestral music will be forthcoming.

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You can discover more about this release at the Toccata Classics website, where you can also purchase the recording. You can read more about Alexander Tchaikovsky here, and more about conductor Dmitry Vasiliev here

On record: Steve Elcock: Orchestral Music, Volume Two (Toccata)

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Steve Elcock
Incubus Op.28 (2017)
Haven: Fantasia on a Theme by J.S. Bach Op.4 (1995, rev. 2011-17)
Symphony no.5 Op.21 (2014)

Siberian Symphony Orchestra / Dmitry Vasiliev

Producer/Engineer Sergei Zhiganov
Recorded 8-12 July 2019, Philharmonic Hall, Omsk

Toccata Classics TOCC0445 [77’20”]

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics continues its coverage of Steve Elcock (b1957) with this second instalment of orchestral music – dominated by the Fifth Symphony with provocative allusions to its most famous predecessor, together with shorter yet distinctive pieces from either end of his output.

What’s the music like?

Although it marks a return to the four-movement format of his first two such works, the Fifth Symphony is hardly conventional in formal or expressive follow through. As with the almost contemporaneous Fifth by the late Christopher Rouse, the presence of that archetypal ‘No. 5’ feels undeniable – even more so given Elcock’s explicit referencing at the start of each outer movement; a head-on approach hardly less confrontational than that with Beethoven Nine in Tippett’s Third Symphony a half-century ago. In all other respects, Elcock goes entirely his own way: the visceral charge of that beginning quickly subsides into an opening movement whose restive searching seems becalmed emotionally while not tonally, as the music strives increasingly to regain its initial energy before relapsing into a mood of pervasive desolation.

The next two movements unfold without pause as a contrasting duality. As its title suggests, the Ostinato builds explosive impetus over a remorseless rhythmic motto that climactically implodes to leave a musing clarinet melody as expands into the ensuing Canzonetta. Less a slow movement than extended intermezzo, what might have brought a return to the earlier sombreness rather assumes a more compassionate aura that makes possible the final Allegro. Comparable to the first movement in its scale, this unfolds as a sonata design of unflagging dynamism whose twin themes are drawn into a process of continuous development on route to a peroration which, though it could hardly evince the triumph of Beethoven, is never less than affirmative in its bringing the work decisively and, moreover, demonstrably full circle.

A notable achievement, then – less ruggedly distinctive if ultimately more cohesive than the Third Symphony (recorded on TOCC0400), and evidently a statement with which to reckon. It is preceded here by two pieces that further attest to the consistency of Elcock’s underlying vision. Haven: Fantasia on a Theme by J.S. Bach takes the Sarabande from the First Violin Partita as basis for a series less of variations than of paraphrases such as pass from nostalgia, through militaristic brutality, to renewed concord with the theme newly explicit at the close. Derived from a recent string quartet, Incubus is a study in nocturnal imaginings – ostensibly the result of insomnia – which seems predictable only in its marshalling a disparate range of ideas into a taut ‘curtain raiser’ whose outcome is the more telling for being so unexpected.

Does it all work?

It does. Just occasionally taxed in those more demonstrative passages, the Siberian Symphony Orchestra otherwise yields little to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic as to the conviction of its playing, with Dmitry Vasiliev demonstrating an absolute grasp of Elcock’s combative musical vision.

Is it recommended?

It is. Orchestral sound has commendable heft and perspective, while Francis Pott’s extensive annotations situate all three pieces within an appropriately wide context. Hopefully Elcock’s Fourth Symphony will feature on the next volume in what is an absorbing and valuable series.

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For further information, audio clips and purchase information visit the Toccata Classics website. For more on Steve Elcock you can visit the composer’s website