(revised 27 March 2024)
...are worth a listen. There are six of them. The first five were written
in successive years between 1942 and 1946; the sixth came later, in 1953.
The first five are also in many respects much alike; Martinů ranks poorly on
the how-many-different-kinds-of-symphony test, but the symphonies are more
differentiated than some of his concerti, which regrettably bring to mind the
old crack about Vivaldi having written the same concerto 500 times.
All six employ progressive tonality; the second, which we will take a closer
look at, begins and ends in D but it does not just stay there in the manner
of the Classical unity of tonality: it gets there.
Martinů's second symphony is also his shortest, and, in some sense, "clearest";
and it contains classic examples of the Martinů tropes, so it is a good place
to start. Here is a score video (from the publishers themselves, no less!):
Martinů's orchestral sound is unique. You hear one flavor of it right at the
beginning: D minor in the winds, plus fuzz in the harp and the piano. But
there are two different kinds of heterophony (the technical term for fuzz).
This way he gets a very complex texture, but everything is dead easy, except
for the piano part. On one level, the idea comes from Le Sacre du Printemps,
but the implementation and the effect are new.
Then look at how the tune is split between the first and second violins -- and
the violas are not merely accompanying. Notice the characteristic rhythms
within 6/8, and the subtle placement of the B-flats and E-flats. All of these
things gradually intensify on the next two pages as the music moves into G
minor. In 20th (and 21st) Century tonality, the first move away from home can
be a very significant foreshadowing. In this case, the move from D minor to
G minor might be expected to set up a general leaning to the flat side, or
specifically some kind of triangulation between D, G, and a third key. The
most obvious choice would be B-flat -- and sure enough, this movement ends in
B-flat!
At this rate, a couple of dozen pages of detailed analysis could be written
about this symphony; we are not going to do that, but the point is that the
things that we have pointed out, which are so easy to hear and see, are what
make the style sound the way it does.
The ordering of the two inner movements does not conform to the principle of
maximizing contrast, particularly of tempo. From that standpoint, the scherzo
ought to have come second. The slow movement (which is lighter, really an
intermezzo) does come second, and it moves from C minor to F. The scherzo
begins and ends in C, so the overall tonal path of the symphony would have
worked either way.
The scherzo (page 46) begins in C minor/major with a spiky, almost Shostakovian
tune, but by page 50 it has resolved into a characteristic Martinů out-of-doors
march in B-flat. Note the offbeat rhythms ("syncopated" is not quite the right
word), which suppress the pulse just enough to enable the metric modulation
into 3/8 on the bottom of page 50. Tonality and meter are both somewhat oblique
in this music: comparably oblique, even though the comparison must be
qualitative rather than quantitative. There are no throwaway gestures, either
on the surface or in the structure: everything has a purpose and an effect.
If the game is to get back to D -- we know that it is, because we have looked
ahead, but we should probably pretend that we do not know that -- then we need
sharpness. The simplest approach would be to start the finale on A, and so he
does. The final arrival (back?) on D, at page 106, is reached by a process
(spread over the preceding seven pages) whose workings do not leap to the eye;
close analysis would be required to understand exactly what is going on. But
it works -- for me, at any rate.
The other Martinů symphonies are all worth your time. The first has a
particularly impressive slow movement. The fourth perhaps came closest, when
it was new, to gaining a toehold in the standard repertory; its scherzo is
Martinů's best-known orchestral movement, and would be recognized by many
people who could not necessarily name its origin. The sixth is one of those
symphonies (like Sibelius 7 or the Schumann D-minor) that was originally meant
to be titled a "symphonic fantasy"; it contains a fascinating passage in which
Martinů strips down the orchestral texture and shows us how its components fit
together.
When I said above that this is the clearest of Martinů's symphonies, I was
pointing to things like the proportionality between the handling of tonality
and meter, and the almost pedagogical simplicity of the global tonal scheme.
The style is legible and self-explanatory as well as economical; none of these
things come free by themselves and still less in combination. But the range of
contrast could be wider; and if one were to binge-listen the first five
symphonies, they might begin to dedifferentiate. He has a bag of tricks, and
very fetching and distinctive tricks they are, but ultimately he does not rank
high by the criterion of don't-repeat-self.