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MusicaNova Orchestra, Warren Cohen, conductor

MusicaNova Orchestra mission statement:

“We believe in the value of performing great new and unjustly neglected musical works of exceptional quality which enhance and enrich the musical experience.”

The MusicaNova Orchestra, which was founded in 2003, specializes in the performance of new and unjustly
neglected repertoire. Each season they present a series of 4 subscription concerts in Scottsdale Arizona in which they introduce their audience to many world and regional premieres. Among the works that have been presented to American audiences for the first time are in recent concerts are compositions by Richard Arnell, Boris Tchaikovsky, Aldo Finzi, Franz Schreker, Hans Gál and Walter Braunfels.

MusicaNova Orchestra presents the US recording premiere of Symphonies 4 and 5 of Richard Arnell.

Richard Anthony Sayer Arnell is one of Britain’s leading symphonic composers and this CD represents two of his most mature works. Arnell describes the Fourth as “the most condensed, the most intense, and perhaps the most personal.”

The first and third movements are introduced by the tympani, the first opening with a prelude; as described by Arnell, “this movement contains ideas used and greatly expanded in the following Allegro.”

The theme of the second movement is described as “nostalgic, first happily so, alternatively sadly so” by the composer. The beautiful theme ebbs and flows, and occasionally swells over a varied and meticulously detailed undulating accompaniment. The tympani’s fiercely rhythmic beginning of the third movement is emulated by the rest of the orchestra and ends savagely and abruptly. Reminiscent of the opening movement, the tympani’s three notes - F, E, and A - are, in the composer’s words, “components of the mysterious Phrygian mode.” (An interesting note is that Arnell described the work as “looking into a telescope, each movement becoming shorter and more concentrated than the last.”)

Symphony No. 5 opens with startling orchestral harmonies and gives the brass section a challenging and dramatic role. All three movements are marked Andante with subsequent tempo changes. Arnell describes the middle movement as a vigorous scherzo introduced and often interrupted by music of a slow, lyrical nature, and the finale is a joyful, triumphant ending to an entrancing, visionary work of art.