Christopher Tyler Nickel - Symphony No. 2 (Clyde Mitchell)

Information

Composer: Christopher Tyler Nickel

• Symphony No. 2

Northwest Sinfonia

Clyde Mitchell, conductor

Date: 2021

Label: Avie

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Review

He may be best known through his sizeable output for film and television but a recent trilogy of concertos for the oboe family (11/20) confirmed Christopher Tyler Nickel (b1978) as no slouch when it comes to writing music for the concert hall. This impression is amply reinforced by the Second Symphony, which, composed during 2016-17 then revised the following year, tackles head-on this most historically resonant of genres. The result is a single movement of almost 55 minutes in duration, lacking little in ambition as it confronts the weightiest issues.

As the composer recalls, the symphony’s original conception lasted around 90 minutes and required substantial rewriting to endow it with both formal clarity and expressive consistency. Neither quality is lacking in what is heard here, this underlying cohesion the more remarkable given its mainly slow tempos and any refusal to indulge in variety for variety’s sake. Precedents in the Austro-German tradition are more apparent than real; a more relevant antecedent is the Swedish composer Allan Pettersson, whose predilection for lengthy one-movement structures – building incrementally through fractious emotional contrasts towards a conclusion hardly guaranteed of repose – is evident, together with melodic lines that evolve over wide-spaced textures and a conflict between tonalities that results in what is termed ‘cognitive dissonance’.

Whether or not Nickel makes comparable demands on one’s attention or stamina, there can be no doubting the intent of his musical vision or of the commitment that the Northwest Sinfonia has invested into this music under the assured direction of Clyde Mitchell – heard to advantage in a spacious but never unfocused acoustic. The decision whether to end the piece ‘with a thunderous close or to fade out enigmatically’ was only resolved on the night of the premiere: listeners must judge for themselves if the composer’s decision was the right one.

— Richard Whitehouse

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Christopher Tyler Nickel (born 1978) is a Canadian composer. A graduate of the University of British Columbia School of Music, he pursued further studies in New York and Los Angeles. Nickel has written numerous concert works premiered by major ensembles across Canada, the United States and Europe. He is also an accomplished screen composer, having written music for hundreds of hours of film and television for clients such as Discovery Channel and History Channel. His work has received multiple awards and nominations, including honors from the Park City Film Music Festival and the Leo Awards.

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Clyde Mitchell is the Founding Music Director of Lions Gate Sinfonia and creator of the Lions Gate Youth Orchestra. Following studies at Louisiana State University and California State University, Northridge, he enjoyed a distinguished career as a hornist with major orchestras in Colombia, the U.S. and Canada. He later earned advanced conducting credentials from CSU–Long Beach and the University of Southern California, leading to a nine-year tenure with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Mitchell also maintains an active international guest-conducting career and is a dedicated music educator.

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