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J.Z. Herrenberg
Guest
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I understand Colin's and Kyjo's problems, but I also know exactly what calyptorhynchus is saying.
First, let's be clear - what music comprises 'late Brian'? The final 27 symphonies were all written after the age of 72! I always divide Brian's symphonic canon into four periods: 1-5, 6-12, 13-17, 18-32. Between symphonies 17 and 18 something happens to Brian and his style. He was 85 at the time. The music 'cools down', becomes more abstract, more contrapuntal. 'Romantic' passages that touch the heart remain, but sometimes they can be like flowers bursting through concrete...
I think that when Colin speaks about 'late Brian', he means this Brian, the Brian of symphonies 18-32. If that is so, I think that he is right that especially No. 23 is among the most abrasive and least 'appealing' of Brian's symphonies, and I don't 'like' it either, but it is an experience, and for me a compelling one. Calyptorhynchus talks about the 'current', and Brian certainly has that in spades. The music may not be beautiful, but it is 'there', like a very hard and very incontestable fact, and it's up to us to do something with it or not.
Symphonies 22-24 are a trilogy. No. 22 sets out the problem. It is a powerful work, very urgent, and I do think that Brian leaves enough breathing space. So, for all its brevity, No. 22 doesn't seem too short. No. 23 certainly does. Why? Harold Truscott once said that Brian sometimes could err on the side of terseness, and he mentions No. 23... Still, if we consider the symphony the middle part of a triptych, and one of a very warlike and uncomfortable nature, then the work does make sense. We're really in the 'mêlée', in the fray. We cannot desert, the battle is all around us. It's all sound and fury. But even here Brian intersperses moments of calm. But, I agree, they are not enough to let us forget that we're in the middle of something very harsh and unrelenting. And that is the whole point. In the final part of the trilogy, No. 24, the worst is over, so much so, that Brian can end the whole journey with a spacious and tranquil Adagio (which Alexander Walker should have taken slower, in my opinion).
Another thing about 'late Brian' - there are several symphonies or individual movements that are approachable and do 'breathe'. I really suggest those still struggling to listen to (again, if needs be) - the slow movements of Nos. 18 and 19, the whole of Symphonies 20, 27, 31. In a less overtly Romantic way than earlier symphonies, these certainly, in my opinion, can move you and leave you enough time to register every 'episode'.
One final remark: I know a Dutch writer and poet, Sybren Polet. He is now almost 90. He says he isn't able to write novels anymore because these take too long, demand a mental endurance he cannot muster anymore. So what does he write? Very elliptical and intellectually agile poetry... I think that in late Brian we have the privilege of entering the mind of a very old man. That the world he creates is more 'skeletal' than we should like is then only to be expected.
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