I last wrote about
Isasi when reviewing
the Claves CD of his orchestral works
from the Berlin period, 1911-14.
Andrés Isasi y Linares (known as Andrés
Isasi) was born in Bilbao on 28 October 1890. Towards the end
of the first decade of the 20th century he went to study with
that ardent Wagnerian, Engelbert Humperdinck in Berlin. He returned
to Bilbao in 1914 to a musical scene obsessed with song and the
musical theatre. He stuck doggedly with romantic orchestral music
and the style he had evolved while in Germany. The public were
not supportive. Although his Second Symphony was performed throughout
Spain during the period 1915-19, he found it increasingly difficult
for his music to makes headway. Like Bax and Vaughan Williams
he was not dependent on music to make a living. When his orchestral
works found a lukewarm or cold reception he moved to the family
home in Algorta where, in addition to acting as a Maecenas to
various Basque artists, he continued to write orchestral works
that found more success abroad than in Spain. His Second Symphony
did well in Budapest in 1931. In total there are two symphonies,
three suites, various tone poems, a piano concerto, many songs,
choral items and piano solos. He died at Algorta, without the
consolation of any musical revival, on 6 April 1940.
The Second Symphony opens in a hothouse wash
of stress and storm. This is music more magniloquent, complex
and less expressionist than his Berlin works. The textures are
so rich that they tend to choke. The treatment moves between the
styles of Wagner and Tchaikovsky. On the other hand there are
lighter and more idyllic moments but these soon boil back into
Tchaikovskian ferment (try 11.20, tr. 1). The second movement
(Adagio) is soupily Straussian with a touch of Wagner’s
Siegfried Idyll. This is followed by a dry-as-a-one Mephistophelean
pizzicato Scherzo which opens out into a swaying quasi-waltz -
almost Ravel. The Allegro Vigoroso is grand, anthem-like, full
of the sort of pomp to be found to the finales of Glazunov’s
fifth and eighth symphonies but without quite the wings of Glazunov’s
inspiration.
The Suite (the second of three) fares much better.
As Richard Whitehouse’s notes usefully point out, the Idyll
has the sultry lambent exoticism of Isasi’s Berlin tone
poems. There are momentary parallels with Griffes’ Peacock,
Baines Thoughtdrift and Island of the Fey, Bax’s small tone
poems and Eric Fogg’s Sea-Sheen. The Burleske possesses
similar qualities mixed with Sibelius’s lighter music; I
thought of the Sibelius’s Belshazzar’s Feast music.
Fugue sports a Stokowskian glow (Bach organ transcriptions) and
the triumphant flavour of Sibelius’s Second Symphony.
The Bilbao orchestra do not possess a luxuriance
of string tone. In fact, in the Symphony, they sound quite emaciated
and almost queasy on occasion. This is not the sort of sound expected
from a top-flight orchestra. Things seem to improve for the Suite.
Even so this disc will satisfy your curiosity
(in the case of the Suite much more) but would not make me rush
out to track down everything by Isasi. If you want a more intriguing
anthology then the Claves is the set to have although it is at
full price.
I hope though that we will hear from Sr. Mena
and his Bilbao orchestra again. Guridi’s Sinfonia Pirenaica
awaits.
Rob Barnett
.
Bilbao Symphony Orchestra/Juan José Mena Rec. Palacio
Euskalduna, Bilbao, 29-31 Aug 2001. DDD