Tyberg: Symphony nr. 3

Prior to this CD's appearance in 2010 in the Naxos catalogue, the composer Marcel Tyberg was a totally unknown figure in recent musical history. Tyberg was an Austrian of partly Jewish descent who sadly perished in Auschwitz on New Year's Eve in 1944. Shortly before his abduction by the Nazis he entrusted his collection of manuscripts to an Italian pupil for safekeeping. Nothing happened with them and they were transferred to the ownership of the pupil's son who settled in Buffalo as a medical specialist. In 2005 he contacted JoAnn Falletta, chief conductor of the Buffalo PO, who decided the music was serious enough to embark, with members of the orchestra, on a time-consuming process of copying out and correcting the parts of the Third Symphony. Eventually they were able to present the work for the first time to the world in 2010. Naxos was courageous enough to want to record it. The story can be read in somewhat more detail here.

The Third Symphony must have been one of Tyberg's very late works, written in the late 1930s. It runs to 37 minutes and is traditionally laid out in four movements - an introductory allegro, a scherzo, adagio and concluding rondo finale (full performance on Youtube here). The musical language is unabashedly epigonic, with constant reminders of Bruckner's and Mahler's idiom. The opening of the symphony features a solo tenor tuba which transports us right back to Mahler's Seventh or Third. The remainder of the movement sounds totally Bruckner (say Third Symphony) with characteristic organ-like orchestration, block-like architecture and rustic melodies. The Scherzo might have been lifted straight out of an as yet undiscovered Mahler symphony. The Adagio is likely the most distinctive movement of all. It's quite beautiful, elegiac movement that is quite effectively scored. If Tyberg would have made it to the US he might have cut a good figure as composer for the white screen. The finale is a boisterous rondo which breathes the pastoral air from some of Dvorak's furiant-based symphonic movements and dances.

The Third Symphony is perhaps not a mindblowing masterpiece, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a pleasure to listen to. In fact, it is thoroughly enjoyable. Despite its lack of originality the symphony comes across as a balanced whole, with well proportioned movements, adequately distinctive melodic material, dense but skillful orchestration and a pleasing (if not genuinely adventurous) harmonic landscape. I would put it a couple of notches under Magnard's Fourth and even a notch under Guridi's Sinfonia Pyrenaica and Biarent's Symphonie (to name a few examples of less well known symphonic repertoire that I've explored over the previous months).

The performance by the Buffalo PO led by JoAnne Falletta is thoroughly engaged. The Naxos recording lacks a realistic spatial perspective but is adequate.