Alexander Moyzes: Symphonies Nos. 9 and 10
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Ladislav Slovák
Marco Polo 8.225092 [69:54]
Recorded 26-30 June 1995 (Symphony No. 9), 7-11 February 1994 (Symphony No.
10), Concert Hall, Slovak Radio, Bratislava
The late symphonies of Alexander Moyzes present a peculiar problem—not of quality, which is considerable, but of placement. Where does one situate a composer who, by 1970, had refined his idiom into something so deliberately oblique, so resistant to the grand gestures that even the Soviet aesthetic occasionally permitted? These two works, written when Moyzes was in his sixties and seventies, occupy a strange territory between disillusionment and—what?
Not hope, exactly. Perhaps endurance. The Ninth Symphony (1970) strips away orchestral heft with an almost vindictive thoroughness.
If you’re expecting the Mahlerian pileup of brass and strings, you’ve come to the wrong address. Moyzes here favors the skeletal, the exposed—think of “Der Abschied” from Das Lied von der Erde, that gossamer orchestration where every instrument stands naked before judgment. The three-movement structure itself feels like a rejection of symphonic tradition, though Moyzes doesn’t quite abandon narrative thrust.
He just makes you work harder to find it. That solo violin in the first and third movements—there’s the emotional core, really. It emerges in the third movement with a kind of keening disillusionment that makes the subsequent orchestral crescendo feel almost obscene in its forced optimism.
I can’t help wondering if Moyzes added that blazing conclusion under duress, a sop to the cultural apparatchiks who still demanded affirmation even in 1970. The real ending, the true culmination, comes in that violin’s lament. Everything after feels like mandatory applause.
The Allegro con brio offers some respite—those horns and trombones erupt with genuine; exultation, the kind of brass writing that recalls William Schuman at his most uninhibited. For four minutes near the end, the symphony grips with visceral force. But it’s a momentary outbreak, quickly subsumed by that prevailing atmosphere of…
what shall we call it? Querulous introspection? The texture remains diaphanous throughout, with Shostakovich’s ghost hovering somewhere in the wings (he died in 1975, between these two symphonies, and surely Moyzes felt that absence).
The Tenth Symphony (1978) pulls back slightly from the Ninth’s extreme transparency. Four movements instead of three, and a more conventional—though hardly conventional—orchestral discourse. Moyzes here seems to be sorting through his Central European inheritance: Brahms’s developmental rigor, Beethoven’s — formal clarity, Kodály’s folk-inflected brilliance (Háry János Suite, the Dances of Galánta), Bartók’s orchestral virtuosity.
The Concerto for Orchestra casts a particularly long shadow. Yet the profile remains elusive. I’ve lived with this symphony for some weeks now, and it resists easy characterization.
That Larghetto offers a ravishing solo for horn—vibrato-less in this rendition, which is exactly right—that nods toward Tchaikovsky’s Fifth without attempting that work’s long-breathed melodic spans. The horn player here (unnamed in the documentation, regrettably) deserves mention for the purity of tone, the absolute control of line. It’s a moment of genuine beauty in a work that otherwise keeps its charms half-hidden.
That particular brightness of period instruments catches the ear.
The Marco Polo recording captures these qualities with admirable fidelity. Listen to that piano pizzicato at 1:10 in the Ninth’s "Andante"—you can hear the Concert Hall’s acoustic signature, that particular Bratislava resonance that’s been such an asset throughout this integral cycle. Ladislav Slovák, who premiered the Tenth in 1979, brings insider knowledge to these readings.
The Slovak Radio Symphony Ensemble plays with conviction, though one occasionally wishes for more international sheen in the string tone. Both symphonies belong to what we might call the disillusioned tradition—Kurt Weill’s two symphonies established the template, that mixture of cabaret cynicism and genuine pathos. Moyzes adds Shostakovich’s sardonic edge and, surprisingly, touches of Debussy’s orchestral transparency.
It’s a potent mixture, though not always an immediately appealing one. This fifth installment in Marco Polo’s complete Moyzes cycle confirms the composer’s significance while also revealing his limitations. He was no Shostakovich, no Martinů.
But he developed a distinctive voice, particularly in these late works where bitterness and beauty achieve an uneasy equilibrium. The performances here sound carefully prepared—those album dates suggest real studio time, not quick run-throughs—and Ivan Marton’s notes provide essential context. Essential listening?
For those tracking Central European symphonism in the late Soviet period, absolutely. For the general collector, these are acquired tastes—prickly, sometimes forbidding works that reward patience without ever quite opening their arms in welcome. I find myself more drawn to the Ninth’s skeletal honesty than to the Tenth’s more diffuse utterance, but both merit serious attention.
Moyzes earned his place in this history, even if he remains a footnote in most Western narratives. This disc helps correct that oversight, though it won’t convert skeptics.
