When the Polish composer Henryk Górecki died in 2010, his Fourth Symphony was essentially complete; his short score gave indications of orchestration, and he had discussed the work with his son Mikołaj, whose subsequent realisation was given its belated premiere in this London Philharmonic Orchestra programme under the Russian conductor Andrey Boreyko.
Those who know and love Górecki's Third Symphony, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, may find the posthumous Fourth a tougher nut to crack. Entitled Tansman Episodes, it originated in a commission from a society dedicated to the memory of an earlier Polish composer, Alexandre Tansman, who died in 1986; no actual quotes from Tansman's music have been discovered in Górecki's draft, but he did make a musical encryption of his predecessor's name, which regularly provides melodic and harmonic material.
Massive and violently contrasting blocks of ideas dominate the four-movement, 40-minute span; multiple repetitions of the opening chordal sequence, interspersed by almighty blows on three bass drums, are characteristic. (Verdi needed just one for his Dies Irae.) An expressive solo cello, later joined by a violin, both floated over a soft piano accompaniment, form the still chamber-like centre of the otherwise manically vigorous scherzo. The extremity of such individual ideas, and the replacement of any sense of development by sheer repetition, give the symphony a rough-hewn, monumental feel.
The neglected Tansman also appeared at the beginning of the concert, when his Stèle in memoriam of Igor Stravinsky referenced the greater composer's early ballets and his later neoclassical phase, without coming close to equalling either – something instantly demonstrated when Julian Rachlin took centre stage for a performance of Stravinsky's Violin Concerto, a piece that distils all the mannerisms of neoclassicism into one perfectly formed masterpiece. Charged by the soloist with tension and energy, it provided the evening's most memorable music-making.
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