Hungarian composer Tibor Serly is best known for adding the finishing touches to
Béla Bartók's last works, the Piano Concerto No. 3 and the Viola Concerto. Serly did not claim to be particularly expert in
Bartók's compositional style, but he was
Bartók's friend and knew of the composer's intentions. Serly also made recordings of
Bartók's music in the early '50s, which reveal that he did have a terrific grasp of
Bartók's idiom as an interpreter. Serly's work on
Bartók's behalf, insists curator of the Free Library of Philadelphia's Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music Kile Smith, came at the cost of his own reputation as a composer and theorist of note. Utilizing orchestral scores in the Fleisher Collection,
Paul Freeman and
Czech National Symphony Orchestra revive three major scores of Tibor Serly on Albany's Music from the Fleisher Collection Vol. 5: Music of Tibor Serly. Of the three works here, only Six Dance Designs is a first recording, the first two having been recorded in the 1970s under the baton of the composer for Musical Heritage Society.
Serly was the propagator of his own formalized system of musical composition, Modus Lascivius. Although he devised it during the Second World War, the manual for this system wasn't published until 1975. Modus Lascivius deals with relating enharmonics in a manner that results in mixed modes that sound curiously similar to twelve-tone rows. Upon hearing Serly's Concertino 3x3 here, one might swear that it is serially organized, but one would be wrong, as it is fashioned out of Modus Lascivius instead! Composed in 1944, Concertino 3x3 certainly does not sound like
Boulez or even Webern, though on the surface it does resemble the work of Joseph Matthias Hauer. Concertino 3x3 does have an unusual form in that each movement of slightly less than 10 minutes contains a three-movement mini concerto of its own. Serly's language is highly compact and it makes for some engrossing listening, but when the ax falls on these short sub-movements one thinks, "Gee that ended abruptly -- he could have gone on." The Six Dance Designs are pseudo-jazzy, neo-Classical pieces dating from the early '30s that are pithy and witty in the manner of
Stravinsky's music from a bit before. Serly seems not to have used Modus Lascivius in composing the latest of these works, the Concerto for Violin and Wind Symphony; it vaguely resembles
Bartók, but is serious minded and original and of the three works here comes closest to being a masterwork of some kind.
The soloists here are very interesting and young performers on the scene. Carla Trynchuk is Canadian and teaches at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI. Lynn Kao, concert pianist, has won a number of first prizes on the piano competition circuit. Kao deserves special mention for negotiating Serly's knotty modal writing in the Concertino 3x3. Conductor
Paul Freeman turns in his usual "not lovin' it, but we'll make it through okay" type performance. It will take more recordings than this one to re-establish Serly as a composer whose work demands renewed scrutiny -- after all, he was also represented on LPs with some depth, and those recordings have somehow not made it back to us. Nevertheless, one is grateful to Albany just for having the nerve to reignite the discussion about Serly and in providing exposure to these fine soloists.