John Corigliano - Symphony I

John Corigliano - Symphony I

2.5/5 Stars

The impetus behind Corigliano’s first symphony was his overwhelming feeling of frustration and sadness from losing so many close friends to the AIDS epidemic. Knowing this fact gives many of his compositional choices a lot more meaning and context. Being unaware of it might leave a listener with some major questions.

Movement I, “Apologue*: Of Rage and Remembrance”, seemed to start with real promise: a vigorous tremolo from the strings all on a single pitch. The pitch however slowly changes timbre (probably due to playing the same pitch but shifting strings) and gives a real since of intense frustration. Shortly after the opening, the mood was quickly spoiled by a barrage of brass. This sudden interjection felt both careless and hokey. The composer failed to develop the brilliant opening gesture and spilled into a chaos of brass in an unprepared fashion. The over structure seemed to be in a lose ABA’ format where the opening and the unfortunate brass “fanfare” made up the A section. The B section, while coming out of left field, had a very interesting juxtaposition of haunting strings slowly shifting from dissonance to suspension to consonance and an offstage piano that sounded like it belonged in the slow movement of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto (upon later research it appears the piece was actually Isaac Albeniz’s "Tango"). The texture was unusual and intriguing—it was hard to focus on both event simultaneously which made it engaging as I tried follow both. The A’ section was much like we might expect but with an even bigger brass apex. It does however end on the same pitch it began with but an octave higher—nice symmetry—perhaps a simple message: we are the same but different.

Movement II, “Tarantella”, was a complete mishmash of thoughts. Within the first 30 seconds there seemed to be at least 3 themes conveying 3 different moods. It felt like a renaissance version the Disney’s “It’s a Small World” ride. It sort of aimlessly meandered through various versions of the folk like melodies and had a few disturbing fff interruptions. On the plus side, around the second half, the piece did seem to start growing in intensity and tempo, accelerating to the end—a key feature of a Tarantella.

Movement III, “Chaconne: Guilio’s Song”: the saving grace of this piece. Corigliano captures sadness like a master. Sounding like a cello concerto, the soloist plays a desperately sad melody that aches for resolution, almost achieves it, and then slips back into darkness. The composer sets up a really nice state of emotion though the use of a chromatic melody that moves around slowly enough that the listener almost thinks they hear a home key, but then it shifts to somewhere new. It’s a brilliant mix of anxiety and peace, discontent and content. I almost feel as though the movement might be more accurately named “Purgatory”. However, that really doesn’t fit into the programmatic concept of the piece…nonetheless I found myself completely satisfied with dissatisfaction :) There was some unfortunate bombardment of noise and bells toward the end that I didn’t really follow. But I was so taken with the first half that I barely cared.

Movement IV, “Epilogue”. This was utterly disappointing. If the purpose of this movement was to leave the listener with a mildly irritated, confused, empty sense, then job well done…..and given the topic and the hopelessness of the disease perhaps that was the purpose. This 4 minute movement was completely underwhelming. It called back some old themes and brought back the offstage nostalgic piano, but on the whole this seemed to do nothing. It didn’t have to end with some huge V-I-V-I Beethoven-like bonanza, but something more than we got would have been nice--something with purpose and with a statement that says more than: “sigh”.

Upon reading back, this turned into more of a scathing review than I expected. And don’t get me wrong, there were many nice features: memorable melodies, beautiful orchestration, some interesting textures, and a great concept behind the piece. I personally feel the concept was, unfortunately, not realized to its full potential. All said and done, I would encourage any listener to choose another piece if they are hearing Corigliano’s music for the first time.