Richard Yardumian
Orchestral Music

*  Violin Concerto (1949, rev. 1960/1985)
*  Symphony #2, "Psalms" (1949, rev. 1964)*
*  Armenian Suite (1937, rev. 1954)

Alexandr Bulov, violin
Nancy Maultsby, mezzo*
Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Lan Shui
BIS BIS-CD-1232 Total Time: 66:25

Summary for the Busy Executive: Psalmist from Philly.

Born, grown up, and dead in the environs of Philadelphia, Richard
Yardumian buckled down to composition relatively late, in his twenties,
encouraged by figures like Stokowski and Iturbi.  He had very few contacts
in the places it would have done him the most good, like New York or
London.  His music got disseminated mainly through recording, almost
exclusively by Ormandy and the Philadelphia and later, Anshel Brusilow,
Ormandy's former concertmaster.  Yardumian also picked up the advocacy
of John Ogdon and Gerald Abraham.  Unfortunately, he remains a somewhat
of a cult figure, out of joint with his time, something that probably
bothered him.

His music, dissonant although modal, religious in inspiration, ran
counter to the anti-religious, pro-technical sentiments of the musically
influential.  More than once, he called Bach his favorite composer, and
when he discussed music, it was usually in terms of analogies to the
cosmos.  He also had the misfortune to create his own dodecaphonic system,
generated by the alternation of major and minor (or minor and major)
thirds up and down the piano keys - in other words, something very close
to the octatonic scale, and thus tonally based.  I remember one writer
(probably British, but after so many decades, I'm not sure) who threw a
fit over this.  "How DARE he?" the critic thundered, as if Yardumian had
done so for the sole purpose of supplanting Schoenberg, and thus the
reviewer missed the point of any system, which is not the system itself,
but what it allows the composer to create.

Yardumian's music exhibits a certain roughness, awkwardness even. You
can't him imagine writing something like Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks"
Concerto or Ravel's Introduction and Allegro.  He created only a very
slim catalogue, and he often took years to get a piece into its final
form - true of every work on this program.  However, he has a very high
proportion of winners.  At his frequent best, he achieves a beautiful
nobility of expression, sometimes epic, sometimes meditative, similar
to Ernest Bloch, although you can easily differentiate between the two.

The Armenian Suite, the earliest piece on the program, shows Yardumian's
initial influences, mainly Prokofiev, Bloch, and, surprisingly,
Rimsky-Korsakov.  It began as a single piano piece and grew to an
orchestrated, multi-movement suite.  Ormandy asked for a new ending,
thinking that Yardumian's original, though fine as a movement in itself,
lacked the necessary "wow" factor for a finale, and Yardumian obliged.
The movements - songs and dances - take either traditional Armenian tunes
or Armenian-inspired ones original with Yardumian.  The fast movements
in general use bright sonorities, the slow movements more muted ones.

The violin concerto originally consisted of the first movement only.
A second movement appeared in 1960.  At Ormandy's insistence, Yardumian
also added a fast finale, and Ormandy recorded this version with Brusilow
as soloist.  The problem was that the finale, though full of interesting
ideas, was over in the blink of an eye.  It seemed tacked on.  Yardumian
revised the finale yet again, expanding it, teasing out the implications
of its themes.  I consider it now one of the great American violin
concerti.

In 1947, Yardumian wrote a setting for tenor and orchestra of Psalm
130, De Profundis, which Ormandy and the Philadelphia recorded.  Years
later, Ormandy asked for a symphony as well something for contralto Lili
Chookasian, with whom he wanted to work.  Yardumian rewrote his De
Profundis and added a second movement, nearly twice as long as the first,
with more psalms for texts.  Chookasian was that rare commodity, a true
contralto, rather than a mezzo with low notes, and this seemed to have
inspired the composer, who came up with a part that exploited her huge
range and rich vocal color.  The symphony, however, can impress a listener
as extremely loose.  Not only does it threaten to break down into
individual psalms, it's hard for performers to find the structural thread
and keep it going.  Much of the work's coherence depends not only on the
conductor, but on the soloist, who has a huge solo cadenza made up of
the work's principal ideas.  But even in a loose performance, the power
of the symphony comes across.  To me, there's nothing else like it,
either in structure or in mood.  Yardumian takes huge risks, and they
pay off.  What we get is the voice of the Psalmist.

All the music on this CD has received other recordings.  Recordings
exist somewhere of Ormandy and the Philadelphia doing not only the
Armenian Suite and the Symphony, but the original Psalm 130 and the
Armenian Suite.  Chookasian, the Utah Symphony, and Varujan Kojian
recorded the symphony, as well as the Armenian Suite (see my review).
It's time for recording companies to move on through Yardumian's catalogue
and give us the Symphony #1, Cantus animae et cordis, Missa "Come, Creator
Spirit," the Chorale Prelude, and his masterpiece The Story of Abraham,
an oratorio that sums up and crowns the composer's artistic achievement.

Frankly, I saw the words "Singapore Symphony Orchestra," and my heart
sank as I conjured up the Firesign Theater's "Musical Heritage Surplus
Club of Hong Kong" - a quick route to a quick buck or, more likely, the
last resort of an enthusiast with not-enough money to get the music
recorded by anybody decent.  Boy, was I wrong! I admit my mistake.  These
readings overall are the best I've heard, surpassing even an old hand
like Ormandy, which is saying something.  The playing is crisp, the
sonics clear.  Of the three recordings of the symphony I've heard, this
reading coheres most without sacrificing any of the score's considerable
drama.  Lan Shui may let you see the Legos that Yardumian manipulates,
but he also builds a compelling narrative.  Mezzo Nancy Maultsby hasn't
Chookasian's monumental vocal quality and she has occasional intonation
skews.  Since she sings all by herself a lot of the time, this could
cause problems when the orchestra enters, but she's never far enough out
to make you cringe.  It's an incredibly difficult part.  Chookasian
mastered it over the years.  Maultsby does a fine, credible job,
nevertheless.  The Armenian Suite throws off sparks.  The Violin Concerto
is the only CD recording of this work and the only recording of the final
version.  Simply on the level of performance, it compares well to Brusilow
and Ormandy, although Brusilow plays with more blood than Bulov does.
On the other hand, Bulov plays cleaner.  It's not really a matter of
preferring one over the other but of appreciating two fine accounts.

Steve Schwartz

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