Classifying the musical style of Lukas Foss (1922–2009) is no easy task. Known as a neoclassicist in his youth, Foss seemingly shifted gears to become one of America's most forward-looking composers in the 1950s and 1960s. Copland–influenced compositions such as The Prairie (1944) gave way to “experimental” works such as Time Cycle (1959–60), which includes improvised interludes, and Echoi (1961–63), which uses free serialism and allows the performers to skip back and forth between pages. In his later years, he sought to assimilate all of these stylistic forces with works such as American Cantata (1976). Foss himself saw no inconsistency in his output. As he told Russell Platt in 2005, “I don't change style, but I change technique, and I make more techniques my own because the more techniques I use, the richer my vocabulary.”Footnote 1 However one views the distinction between style and technique, Foss's music unquestionably features seemingly infinite variety, much of which is informed by Foss's status as an immigrant in the United States. One recent recording effectively summarizes this variety on a manageable scale. The Boston Modern Orchestra Project's Lukas Foss: Complete Symphonies (BMOP/sound 1043, 2015), perhaps paradoxically, surveys the most tradition-bound of genres to take listeners through many of the highlights of Foss's eclectic artistic journey.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is well qualified for this definitive (and so far only) recording of Foss's complete symphonies. The group's catalogue includes recordings of Foss's The Prairie (BMOP/sound 1007, 2008) and opera Griffelkin (Chandos 10067, 2003). BMOP artistic director and founder Gil Rose is a longtime performer and advocate of new American music as well as neglected American works of the twentieth century. The diversity of repertoire that BMOP has performed and recorded has prepared them for the challenges of Foss's symphonies. In a sense, the city of Boston, where he got his start as pianist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1944–50) and where he taught in his final years (at Boston University from 1991 until shortly before his death), bookended Foss's career. It is therefore almost poetic that a Boston ensemble would release an encyclopedia of Foss's symphonies, the first of which was completed in 1944 and the last in 1995.
Foss's Symphony no. 1 was premiered in 1945 by Fritz Reiner and the Pittsburgh Symphony. The work has made few if any public appearances in the years since (as of 1988, Foss himself thought that the premiere could very well have been the only performance).Footnote 2 Symphony no. 1 represents the immigrant Foss trying to establish himself as an “American” composer, most obviously through the influence of Aaron Copland. Listeners will have no trouble detecting the older composer's imprint on the symphony, but they will also discern the systematic approach to composition that Foss learned from Paul Hindemith (with whom he studied at Yale) in addition to a more heavily contrapuntal texture than is typical of Copland. BMOP captures the spirit of this work with a sensitive performance that ranges from the delicate understatement of the first movement (Andantino—un poco Allegretto) through mastery of the Adagio's rhythmic difficulties, sectional balance in the Scherzo, and the majestic affect of the finale (Andantino—Allegretto).
If Symphony no. 1 was an expression of a budding American identity, Symphony no. 2 (“Symphony of Chorales”) clearly looks back to Foss's German origin. Completed in 1958 and premiered the same year by William Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony, this work is, according to the composer, “a big piece based on Bach chorales” that “didn't get too many performances.” Stylistically, Foss viewed this work as transitional: “I think I was already getting inwardly ready for new things to happen, which then happen in subsequent pieces.”Footnote 3 The chorale tunes are presented in a modernist context and are often obscured both tonally and texturally, which is perhaps why Foss felt the need to name his chosen melodies in the score. In its reinterpretation of Bach, Symphony no. 2 foreshadows Foss's Baroque Variations (1967), which distorts the music of Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach to create the impression of a dream sequence. Listeners will find BMOP's interpretation of Symphony no. 2 to be both accessible and dramatic, from the instrumental virtuosity of the opening toccata to the tight ensemble playing in the finale (Introduzione—Vivace).
Symphony no. 3 (“Symphony of Sorrows”), premiered by Zubin Mehta and the Chicago Symphony in 1992, absorbs two earlier Foss compositions as its interior movements: Elegy for Anne Frank (1989, the symphony's second movement) and Exeunt (1982, the third movement, here retitled “Wasteland”). Identity negotiation and stylistic anthologizing are ever present in this symphony, which alternates atonality with tonality in its four movements. In the symphony's second movement, the “Horst Wessel Lied,” a Nazi anthem, obliterates a childlike melody that represents Frank, a dramatic expression that can also be easily related to Foss's childhood flight from Nazi Germany. It was not the first time Foss incorporated this famous Nazi song into a composition; Curriculum Vitae (1977) also treats the “Horst Wessel Lied” in an explicitly autobiographical context. Symphony no. 3 includes progressive techniques Foss had used in the past, such as “random alternation” of percussion figures in the third movement and harmonic obfuscation of pre-existent melodic materials in the second movement. Like the composer himself, BMOP negotiates this work's diverse styles and techniques with skill and artistry. Highlights include the flawless execution of the frequent meter changes in the first movement, the slowly rising crescendo to the introduction of the Nazi tune in the second movement, and the dark orchestral colors in the third movement.
Symphony no. 4 (“Window to the Past”), premiered in 1995 by the Boston University Symphony Orchestra with Foss conducting, continues an understandable late-career impulse to recycle and summarize. The work's finale (“Fireworks”) calls overt attention to the subtitle through its rehash of Foss's American Fanfare (1990). Engagement with the past (both his own and that of music history) is characteristic of Foss's style in general and his late style in particular. This work feels more hopeful than its predecessor, as if the composer were striving for a serene reconciliation among all of his opposing personal and professional forces. BMOP's performance of Symphony no. 4 is characterized by impressive command of dynamic range, rhythmic precision, and an effective portrayal of the work's inherent nostalgia.
As a portrait of American music viewed through the lens of a composer who was both an outsider and an insider, this CD deserves a wide hearing. Beyond its historical value, the recording is both enjoyable and entertaining, and the informative and insightful liner notes by Matthew Guerrieri enrich the listening experience. The only flaw in this release is in the packaging, which will probably lead to scratches on the CDs after multiple removals. This problem is easily solved with a couple of inexpensive jewel cases. With their recording of the complete Foss symphonies, BMOP has contributed to the preservation of these unjustly neglected works, which would not be easily available otherwise.
