Michael G. Cunningham (1937-2022)
Symphony No. 5 
Symphony No. 6
The Mountain Poem
Janáček Philharmonic, Ostrava/Jiří Petrdlík, Stanislav Vavřínek
rec. 2020-23, Ostrava, Czech republic
Navona NV6544 [48]

The American composer Michael G. Cunningham taught composition for over thirty years at the University of Wisconsin. His output is apparently extensive – the present disc is the eleventh in the Navona series – but this is the first I’ve heard him, or of him. The style is unmistakably twentieth-century, incorporating a modicum of dissonance. He imaginatively interweaves themes and motifs with one or two planes of vertical sound to create textures that are both clear and full-bodied. A less felicitous tic, perhaps, is the tendency of the music just to “stop,” without any real setup; the end of the Sixth Symphony, at least, is suitably emphatic.

The Fifth Symphony begins rather like an American postwar score, though with a softer-edged momentum: the music doesn’t drive forward, but unfolds. The textures, as noted, are varied: even the tuttis feel comparatively light. Here, unfortunately, the third movement, Scherzo, loses momentum as it proceeds. The final Rondel begins promisingly, but gets caught in a dog-chasing-its-own-tail loop, after which it just stops.

The movement titles in the Sixth Symphony – Opposure, Lull, Manic, and Decisive – suggest a program symphony, but there’s no overt program. (Is “opposure” even a word?) The first movement flips the Fifth’s aesthetic, casting rounder, sometimes tonally lush themes in a more angular, dissonant framework; clear, spacious textures help smooth the edges.  And Manic isn’t that at all: broad thematic lines arch over tik-tik-tik string afterbeats and buoyant pizzicato arpeggios.

The opening of The Mountain Poem, with woodwind trills answered by sort-of-splashy brass chords, reminded me uncomfortably of 1960s television themes! Although neither the leaflet nor the track listing indicates this, the piece is for concert band – at any rate, I didn’t hear any strings in it, but I did hear some of the usual band tropes: midrange phrases assigned to horns and low clarinets rather than, say, cellos and violas. It lands gently,

The Ostrava Janáček Philharmonic – including its beefed-up wind complement for the Poem – mostly comes off well, although the trumpets occasionally sound a bit “off” tonally, perhaps reflecting instruments of mediocre quality. The engineering is clean enough to allow us to hear that, and a lot of good detail as well.

Stephen Francis Vasta

stevedisque.wordpress.com/blog

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