Richard Yardumian
Orchestral Works

* Armenian Suite
* Symphony No. 2 "Psalms"*

Lili Chookasian (contralto)*
Utah Symphony Orchestra/Varujan Kojian
Total time: 38:12
Phoenix PHCD112

Summary for the Busy Executive: Fine music, well done.

Richard Yardumian, born and died in Philadelphia (1917-85), is an unusual
composer for several reasons.  In many ways, he remained a local boy.
The bulk of recorded performances of his work comes from Philadelphia
musicians.  With very few connections to New York, San Francisco, or Los
Angeles (where most attention is paid to composers), he hovered just
slightly below the general consciousness of most new music aficionados,
despite his appointment for many years as composer in residence with the
Philadelphia Orchestra.  Although his music could not have been written in
any century before the twentieth, it suffered for several reasons external
to the quality of the music itself.  First and foremost was its
old-fashioned sensibility.  Yardumian composed tonally and often modally at
a time when the extreme chromaticism of serial dodecaphony had the upper
hand, at least polemically.  Second, he himself created "a method of
composing with twelve tones," different from Schoenberg's and, in general,
tonally based.  Series were derived by alternating major and minor thirds
(similar to the octatonic scale, beloved by early Stravinsky).  A basic
series, for example, in Yardumian's system would be C-Eb-G-Bb-D-F/F# (these
two tones are functionally equivalent in this system)-A-C#-E-Ab-B.  I will
not forget a scathing review of a recording of Yardumian's work from the
Sixties, in which the reviewer went apoplectic over Yardumian's presumption
in creating another method.  He blew up particularly at the equivalence of
F and F#, snapping out the obvious - that they are not the same pitch.  In
short, the man demonstrated a willful ignorance and an incapability of
coming to grips with the artist on the artist's terms.  Of course, a system
means very little in any case.  The music produced is the most significant
thing about a composer, not how he went about producing it.

Third - and I believe fairly important - comes Yardumian's religious
sensibility, perhaps even a naively religious sensibility. He more than once
called Bach his favorite composer. His remarks on artistic coherence tended
toward the cosmological, rather than toward the nuts and bolts of writing.
Major works in his catalogue have an overtly religious inspiration: the two
symphonies, Chorale-Prelude: Veni Creator Spiritus, The Story of Abraham
(for me, his finest work), Missa "Veni Creator Spiritus", and the Cantus
Animae et Cordis. I very strongly suspect, however, that even more abstract
works like the violin concerto and the Passacaglia, Recitative, and Fugue
for piano and orchestra have some religious "program" at their base. Allied
to a post-Romantic and epic artistic voice, I think this kind of expression
obviously went against the positivist and existentialist temper of the
times. Despite the championship of Ormandy and John Ogdon, Yardumian's music
has yet to catch on. This doesn't mean that it won't. In fact, I hope that
it does catch on and that all it needs is greater exposure. I discovered him
through an Ormandy recording from, I think, the Fifties and instantly stuck.
That attraction has remained from then until now. I believe a composer of
great power and originality waits for us all to catch up with him.

Yardumian often took many years to compose his works.  Frequently, one
finds more than one version of the same thing.  The two pieces here are no
exceptions and show his considerable reworkings.  The Armenian Suite began
as a piano morceau of one the movements.  He finished most of the rest
(including the original piano piece) as an orchestral suite during the
Thirties.  In the Fifties, Ormandy asked for yet another movement, finding
Yardumian's then-finale insufficiently conclusive.  Yardumian supplied a
barn-burner.  The work as it now stands is a gem.  Probably because it's
an early work, its influences sound out rather clearly:  early Stravinsky,
Soviet Prokofiev, Borodinish orientalia, and here and there a bit of
Blochian meditation.  Among all these other voices, one also hears
something quite original - a melancholy, contemplative singing, tinged
with Middle Eastern melismata.

Yardumian's idiom differs from other well-known composers who use Armenian
folk materials.  Khachaturian, for example, applies Armenian folk material
as decorative color.  I doubt it would differ much from any other Soviet
composer's appropriation of such material.  On the other hand, Hovhaness,
a composer of aspirations more in tune with Yardumian's, employs Armenian
material and history as basic elements of his art.  Nevertheless, he seems
in comparison to Yardumian so mystical as to be disconnected from life on
earth.  As he goes on, he reaches out to other Eastern mystical traditions.
He winds up with as much connection to Hinduism and Zen as to Armenia.
Very few of us, however, routinely visit Nirvana.  Our lives are a bit
messier and smaller than the great cosmic wheel.  Yardumian's music may
aspire to serenity, but it also struggles for it.

Of course, the idiom is far more than folk music arranged.  It's fair to
say that Yardumian gives back the spirit rather than the letter.  We find
also a fascination with Baroque counterpoint and modal melodies from
Gregorian chant to Appalachian folk tunes.  We can see all this clearly
in the mature Symphony No.  2.  Again, the work began life as something
else - a setting for tenor and orchestra of Psalm 130 (by the way, Ormandy
recorded this in the monophonic era of the early Fifties).  Yardumian
intended from the outset to make this part of a "symphony of psalms."
When he finally mentioned his plan to Ormandy, the conductor, wanting
to work with Lili Chookasian, persuaded him to write the whole thing
instead for contralto, which Yardumian did.  One can make the case for
it as a symphony:  a more-or-less sonata first movement and a giant
prelude-and-fugue second.  However, it seems to me less a symphony than
something like Bernstein's Jeremiah is, and I could probably nit-pick
it past the point of caring.  In general, it comes across as a
"straightforward" setting of Psalms 24, 27, 95, 121, and of course 130.
One also hears quotations of the chorale "Aus tiefer Not," perhaps a tip
of the hat to Bach.

The symphony does not entirely escape the charge that it tends to fall into
sections, although clearly Yardumian works with and varies a small set of
basic themes.  The performing coherence of it is the responsibility of the
conductor.  Furthermore, what marvelous sections!  The remarkable opening
from the orchestra reminds one of bells on the wind.  There are mighty
fugal passages, an incantatory euphonium solo - the shofar calling the
faithful to worship - and a long-reaching march that concludes the work.
However, the passage that impressed me the most was an unaccompanied vocal
cadenza in the second movement.  It risks much - most basic, the question
whether the soloist will stay on pitch.  Also, without the color of the
orchestra, will the audience wink out, particularly since Yardumian writes
a genuine symphonic-concerto cadenza, one which summarizes and recombines
the basic themes, rather than a sensuous tune.

Yardumian had the great fortune of Ormandy as his chief conductor.  Ormandy
may have had his faults (and what conductor doesn't?), but he also had the
one thing needful:  the ability to tell the musical tale.  He brought out
the "narrative" thread of a work like few others of his day.  In this
regard, I believe he stands with Stokowski, Koussevitzky, Furtwangler,
Barbirolli, Bernstein, and Szell.  It's an art rare at any time and not
much in evidence these days among the current crop of eminent conductors,
perhaps because so few of them trained in opera.  If you can find Ormandy's
Yardumian recordings, snap them up.  Kojian does very well indeed.  The
Armenian Suite crackles and sings.  Kojian doesn't lose the coherence
of the symphony, but mainly because he takes it at a brisker clip than
Ormandy, at the expense of a certain grandeur.  Chookasian surpasses her
own performance on the premiere recording (Columbia MS6859).  Her weakness
is usually her diction, her usual strength that she is a genuine contralto
with a tone that puts me in mind of Mount Rushmore.  This isn't a mere
mezzo with some low notes.  On the new recording, she sings with a fabulous
musical understanding of Yardumian's lines - how they get from here to
there.  Her performance of the cadenza grabs you from beginning to end.

The sound is better than I expected - fine, in fact.  My one complaint
is that we get only a shameful 38 minutes of music on the CD.  This raises
an unnecessary barrier to potential buyers.  If I didn't already know
Yardumian's music, I'd certainly think twice.  Nevertheless, I urge those
who enjoy big-breathing post-Romantic music to take a chance.  Try checking
Berkshire Record Outlet (http://www.broinc.com) for a break on price.

Steve Schwartz