WILLEM JETHS (b.1959): Symphony No. 1 for Mezzo-Soprano and Orchestra, Recorder Concerto.

Catalogue Number: 04R008

Label: Challenge Classics

Reference: CCS 72693

Format: CD

Price: $15.98

Description: There is a great deal that is Mahlerian about Jeths' powerful, brooding, neo-romantic symphony, and intentionally so. The core of the work consists of the central two large, purely orchestral movements, rewritten versions of two pre-existing works, the first of which 'Scale' expressly explores the theme of death in Mahler's music, with quotations from and allusions to a number of the symphonies, especially the tenth, third and sixth. The second part of this orchestral diptych is a revision of Metanoia (2012), which follows seamlessly from its predecessor in much the same idiom, the same 'neo-Mahlerian' gestures. Jeths' approach to orchestral color is virtuosic, highly inventive and original, like Mahler's, and he also employs offstage forces, though Jeths uses different instrumental means, including steel drums and musical wine glasses. The framing outer movements are philosophical, settings of poems by Goethe that give the symphony a cyclic structure to match its existential journey through life, death and the hereafter. If the idea of a recorder concerto suggests something diverting and 'pretty' this emotionally searching work, specifically written for a robust-sounding Renaissance variant of the instrument, soon dispels this idea. The work is in a single span containing clearly delineated movements, the vocabulary very tonal in a rather expanded, highly chromatic sense. The solo line has an eloquent purity in long melodic lines, and occupies centre stage throughout in a dark and sometimes turbulent orchestral landscape against which its plaintive voice shines like a shining silver thread. Again, the orchestration - inventive, original, sonorous and perfectly judged to provide color and texture while never obscuring the soloist - is worthy of note. Karin Strobos (mezzo), Erik Bosgraf (recorder), Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Edo de Waart.

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