George Walker: Sinfonia No. 2 - Single

It’s a testament to George Walker’s fertile imagination that his Sinfonia No. 2 extends so widely, spanning foot-tapping basslines, a sinuous flute cadenza and brooding brass chorales. The mosaic-like score, from 1990, is especially notable for the way the late composer filtered African American musical traditions through his bracingly modernist syntax. Walker at times voiced an ambivalence towards jazz—not the genre itself but the problematic assumption that Black musicians have a particular affinity for it. But the third movement of the Second Sinfonia grooves along with swing-band-style riffs over a walking, pizzicato bassline. As a result, this is the most approachable of Walker’s five sinfonias, the National Symphony Orchestra’s music director Gianandrea Noseda tells Apple Music Classical. “The way of composing is not as complex or as extreme as No. 1,” he says. “No. 2 is a little bit more lyrical, also because the second moment is a beautiful cadenza for flute solo—really beautiful—and it finishes with a guitar and harmonics in the cellos. It’s sort of an oasis just floating in the air.” The piece opens with a series of jagged melodies that are dispersed among different instrumental groups. “Even if he uses a big orchestra, he basically uses groups of the orchestra,” Noseda explains. “It’s very rare that he uses all resources of the orchestra together.” Noseda and the musicians imbue these textures with tautness and lucidity, highlighted by beautifully shaped woodwind solos and a finale that fizzes with energy.