Lepo Sumera (1950-2000)
Symphony No.1 (1981)
Symphony No.6 (2000)
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra/Olari Elts
rec. 2023, Estonia Concert Hall, Tallinn, Estonia
Ondine ODE1449-2 [53]
This is my first encounter with the music of the Estonian composer Lepo Sumera. Kerri Kotta’s useful liner note states that “Sumera’s Symphonies 1 & 6 represent important milestones in the evolution of the composer’s musical language. The First Symphony marks the abandonment of atonality and following [Arvo] Pärt’s example, his turn towards a neo-modal language. The Sixth Symphony, however, is his swan song, the quintessence and summary of his creative journey. With the work’s premiere taking place barely a month before the composer’s sudden death”.
Even on an initial and relatively superficial listen, it is clear that textures and instrumental timbres and the interaction of instrumental groups are key to Sumera’s aesthetic. Hence, the very high quality of the playing of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra under Olari Elts, and the demonstration quality recording afforded them by the Ondine production team is to be praised. Both symphonies are in two movements. Symphony No.1 is the longer work – 30:20 with the first movement dominated by various bell sounds and figurations that seem to suggest a kind of ritualistic meditation. Written in 1981 when Estonia was still a satellite state of the Soviet Union, Kotta suggests that Sumera was not alone in using this bell ‘imagery’ as an expression of expectation although quite what is meant by that is unclear. The wide dynamic range and the use of sub groups from the orchestra or solo instruments playing quiet figurations relies on the engineering to realistically position these events across the sound stage. To my ear this is exceptionally well achieved in this recording with the layers of Sumera’s orchestration clearly defined without any sense of synthetic balance or manipulation. The basic pulse of the opening movement is steady and relatively unchanging with variety achieved through texture and melodic variation. Another feature seems to be lurching modulations that occur at significant points in the movement. A climactic point arrives around the 11:00 mark from which the music recedes back to silence and stillness save for a single chiming celesta.
The second movement emerges from the silence with sinuously creeping high violin chromatic scalic figures – this sounds tortuous to play and the Estonian strings do an excellent job. The liner notes the use of “numerous quotations and stylistic references” one being where the scalic figues morph into a quote of Corelli – although I would not recognise this as a specific work rather a kind of neo-baroque string figuration. Aggressive brass fugato-figurations compete with the baroque strings and an Ivesian woodwind off-key woozy march/tango with all these elements overlapping and competing for the listener’s attention. The slithering strings return as does the mournful lonely celesta. According to Kotta, all the main motifs from the symphony return now played pp before “dissipating into oblivion” – a neatly and accurate description. Again this performance benefits hugely from the engineering which allows these closing pages of near-silence minimalism to register as effectively as they do.
As mentioned, Symphony No.6 is again in two movements – a 13:10 Andante furioso followed by a 9:21 Andante. Kotta indicates that the first movement uses a chaconne-like repeating harmonic ostinato as the basis for a series of variations. He further suggests that the variations that derive from this form a three-in-one movement structure which emulate traditional symphonic form of first movement-slow movement-scherzo. Given Kotta’s background in Schenkerian analysis I am sure that he is right but for the amount of time/number of listens I have been able to give this work before writing this review I cannot say this structure was immediately evident. Certainly there are extreme contrasts of stasis and action, loud and very soft, thick and light instrumental textures but whether these translate into ‘movements’ within the movement I could not discern. At the risk of repetition, I must stress I cannot imagine more convincing or secure musical guides to this complex music than Olari Elts and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. Kotta suggests that if the opening movement in fact comprises three, then the second fulfils the role of traditional finale which Kotta suggests is a “transcendental ending” with Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique and Mahler’s Symphony No.9 cited as other examples. The analogy escapes me – one I wonder borne out by the retrospective knowledge that both those composers were to die – like Sumera – not long after these works. As with the earlier symphony, the closing pages vanish into the far distance without a sense of resolution or finality. With any creative artist who died too young, the question remains about what the future would have held.
The Guardian newspaper’s obituary from 2000 for Sumera sums his style and skills neatly; “he evolved an idiom that, in common with the music of many of his compatriots, seems to embrace minimalism, but the roots for which lay not in any American model, such as Philip Glass or Steve Reich, but rather in the ancient runic songs of Estonia… [he] also had an acute ear for instrumental sonority.” Sumera’s role in the political and artistic life of Estonia cannot be overestimated and I suspect the evident quality and dedication of these new recordings are in no small part because of the respect both he and his work continue to command in that country. BIS produced a cycle (across three discs) of the six symphonies the best part of thirty years ago – the Symphony no.6 recording not appearing until 2003 with the same orchestra as here. So clearly there is room in the catalogue for a new survey of one of Estonia’s most important 20th century composers – Ondine’s website states this is the first disc of new cycle. For those interested in this style of music I cannot imagine it being more persuasively performed or more truthfully recorded.
Nick Barnard
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