Symphony No. 2
for soprano, chorus and orchestra (1995/97)

Listen to an excerpt (360K MP3)

40 minutes

There are so few choral symphonies that any attempt to compose one in the modern era will always invite comparison with the great works of Vaughan Williams and Gustav Mahler (whose Second Symphony, like Bracanin’s was his first ‘choral symphony’). Bracanin’s Choral Symphony is probably closer in spirit and sound to the former than it is to the latter. But Bracanin organises his material more tightly than either. While, at forty minutes, it’s still an expansive work, the Choral symphony never conveys the impression of overstaying its welcome. As in the Third Symphony, the compositional weight is thrown into the outer movements. Bracanin chooses texts from Judith Wright and W. H. Auden for a work which, in keeping with the ‘philosophical’ theme of most choral symphonies, centres around the contemplation and celebration of time. It’s an optimistic work in which time is hailed as a creative and liberating force, and it marks perhaps the definitive statement by the composer on a concept which has intrigued him for more than a decade.

The Choral Symphony opens atmospherically and with utmost beauty. Icy chords in the strings usher in a brief brass chorale and then the chorus’ wordless entry establishes a mood of deep calm. But soon a crescendo leads to a secondary theme in which insistent motoric rhythms drive the movement on toward a trumpet fanfare and perhaps an unconscious echo of the opening of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (Judith Wright’s contrast between the adult and childlike perception of time is perhaps another poetic idea which Mahler himself might have enjoyed). A solo soprano enters on Wright’s words "Here is the same clock", establishing an elegiac, lyrical and nakedly emotional mood which will continue for much of the remainder of the movement, returns of the distinctive motor rhythms notwithstanding. The chorus, wordless once more, brings this inspired movement to a close.

After the stifling beauty of the opening Andante, the second movement, Allegro molto, is bright and breezy and scored for orchestra only. In an endless stream of melody (listen in particular to the modal inflections in the melody for cor anglais), the principal theme is tossed back and forth between sections of the orchestra in a movement which is as charming as it is brief.

The chorus returns in the third movement, and with them a ticking, recurrent quaver pattern that serves as an accompaniment to much of the movement as a whole. W. H. Auden’s words "going round and round" achieve the very musical effect which they describe, while the chorus closes off the movement by reminding "How wrong they are in being always right".

There is more than a hint of majesty in the choral writing in that third movement, but now the grandeur of the overall conception is laid bare in the finale, explicitly marked maestoso. Here, with Judith Wright again providing the text, the praises of time are sung in the grand English choral tradition (one can imagine this kind of uplifting movement being sung at the Three Choirs Festival).

Where the choir has woven itself in and out of the Symphony to date, here it dominates the opening of the movement. A swirling theme for orchestra introduced in the strings leads to a great climax, soon after which the mood of the opening movement returns as the solo soprano offers the innocent vision "Here where I walk was the green world of a child" and the plaintive falling semitone figure which we heard in the opening movement too.

A second orchestral interlude, lighter and with jaunty little wind figures, then prepares the way for the triumphant return of the choir singing the praises of time. At its triumphant conclusion, the symphony has offered not just an affirmation of time, but of life and love too, in a way which can appeal directly to the emotions.