Dip Your Ears: No. 282 (Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Indelibly Interesting Symphonies)

Erkki-Sven Tüür Symphony No.5, Prophecy (Accordion Concerto) Nguyên Lê, Mika Väyrynen Olari Elts, Helsinki PO (Ondine, 2007) US | UK | DE

Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Fifth for Orchestra, Big Band and Electric Guitar

Erkki-Sven Tüür’s ongoing cycle of interesting symphonies (in 2017 he arrived at No. 9) makes him – by quality more significantly than quantity – the premiere symphonist of our time. Always good for the inclusion of seemingly eclectic instruments (electric guitar, accordion, big band, percussion, tape, synthesizer) in his orchestral works, he expands the tonal palate much the same way a Gustav Mahler did when the latter threw the mandolin or guitar or castanets or xylophones or a hammer into his symphonies, all before perfectly unsuspecting audiences. (Happily, this is much easier on the ears than when other composers stick with the traditional instrumental apparatus only to then make these instruments generate every sound except those they were meant to produce in the first place.)

In this Fifth Symphony, premiered in 2005 at the Stuttgart Eclat New Music Festival, the electric guitar has some particularly lyrical quasi-cadenzas in the second movement. The fact that we might find it curious is only a consequence of our aural associations and expectations with and of an electric guitar. But all the rest of the symphony is pretty classical, down to the four-movements and their structure, which goes to show that there’s still much left in the old form and ‘old’ – i.e. tonal – modes, if only a composer can muster sufficient imagination.

Erkki-Sven Tüür does. In fact, his works are bursting with originality and phantasy, freed of all academicism and perceived “ought-to’s”. Not all of them as successful as this Fifth (or the Seventh) Symphony, perhaps, but always full throttle and never displaying originality for its own sake. The groove of the third movement is befitting any classical Scherzo; the Big band gets its moment in the spotlight, backed by a percussive, happy but firmly embedded, organic beat (sound clip) – not as artificially superimposed and faddish as large percussion sections can sound in too many contemporary works (Higdon, Sierra, Widmann, Golijov et al.).

It’s possible that connoisseurs of conventional symphonies wrinkle their brow in disapproval of these allegedly foreign ingredients. This brings to mind a beverage-related spoonerism of composer and linguistic genius Franz Mittler: “I would rather have a boot in my rear / Than a root in my beer.” But Tüür’s symphonies are not symphonies-in-name only, they are decidedly real beer; just a modern variant of the classic original. Maybe something Dogfish Head Brewery would concoct.

Rounding out a fabulous disc is the accordion concerto Prophecy, a substantial concerto in four continuous movements, which often ends up a swarm of sound with intermittent, hallmark Tüür moments (dry timpani before a canvas of dark quiet, for example). In it, the accordion is less folksy than it is grave; the whole thing more redolent of an organ concerto than a polka. As a card-carrying accordion-lover, I dig it muchly.

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This review had been previously published on Classics Today.