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The Bath Orchestral Gala Concert 2022 The Bath Philharmonia and King Edward’s School Partnership Performance
Featuring music by: Tchaikovsky Lennon & McCartney Wilkinson Mendelssohn Strauss Hérold Offenbach And our Resident Composer, Mark D Boden
Tuesday 15th March The Guildhall, Bath KES-GP-2022-06-aw.indd 2
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Rupert Drury DIRECTOR OF MUSIC KING EDWARD’S SCHOOL
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very warm welcome to this, an exciting evening of Music for Dance in this exquisite venue of the Guildhall, Bath. Echoing the chandeliers and ornate panelling of the Banqueting Room, tonight’s repertoire will take you on a wonderful journey through some of the world’s greatest, most beautiful, and uplifting music written to support the art of dance in its many forms. With elements of Ballet, Latin, raucous Can-Cans and even Club Dance music, I’m sure you are going to enjoy hearing the wealth of orchestral colour that produces the beating heart of sounds designed for physical movement. With several pieces infused with other genres and styles, it has been hugely rewarding for our young musicians to learn about the nuances that each require, often with direct access to the talented contemporary arrangers and composers. It has been thrilling once again to work alongside our partnership orchestra and the South West’s finest – Bath Philharmonia, in what is a most exciting ninth Side-by-Side project. Whilst the Gala Concert is the showcase of the project, the real backbone of the partnership is a set of rousing and nurturing musical opportunities, unique in their depth and approach, that take place throughout the year: a day of orchestral workshops
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with section leaders; five solo performance masterclasses with talented section leaders from Bath Phil (Upper and Lower Strings, Woodwind, Percussion and Brass); the addition of a KES piano masterclass with BBC Young Musician of the Year Winner 2010, Lara Melda, who performed Chopin’s lovely Piano Concerto No. 1 in a KES sponsored concert with Bath Phil last week; the KES Senior Orchestra leader, Aoi Seiki’s mentoring by Bath Phil’s leader Sophie Langdon as well as the exciting opportunities to watch Bath Phil rehearsals and attend their concerts free of charge. For tonight’s concerto soloist, and the numerous other soloists who shine this evening, their journey of musical discovery has perhaps been the most rewarding. It has been a privilege for us to support and watch them develop and we wish them every success this evening and in their extremely promising musical futures. I would very much like to thank our talented resident composer, Mark Boden, for creating another imaginative and driving work that brings together all our performers tonight, as well as for expertly matching the individual parts with the abilities of our young players. It is an honour and a privilege for me and the KES Music team to not only be supporting such gifted and enthusiastic young KES musicians, but also to work alongside the magnificent Bath Philharmonia team once again. I would like to heartily thank all the Bath Phil orchestral players and management team for helping to bring these opportunities to fruition. A special mention must also go to the KES team of highly professional instrumental staff, for their inspirational commitment in helping our pupils master tricky passages in tonight’s repertoire. Finally, thank you to all the parents of our KES musicians for their tireless logistical and motivational support; the KES major events team; the Headmaster, Governors and the Senior Management Team for their continued support and belief in the value of these inspirational musical experiences for our pupils. I hope you are moved, thrilled, and hopefully inspired by tonight’s exhilarating programme of Music for Dance.
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Jason Thornton MUSICAL DIRECTOR BATH PHILHARMONIA
www.bathphil.co.uk
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nquestionably, the impact of the pandemic has been far-reaching. I remember the first lockdown being announced, which was just four days before our 2020 Bath Orchestral Gala Concert was set to take place in the Forum. Although not unexpected, I had no idea at the time that we would not come together again until March 2022! All of us at Bath Philharmonia have missed live music-making, but I guess most of all, live music making with young people. This evening’s concert represents the first stage in the recovery of that essential link with young musicians, facilitating and inspiring participation in orchestral musicmaking moving forward. Our sights are firmly fixed on the future with hope and celebration. Music for Dance is the perfect theme for this evening’s concert. It represents a celebration: a coming together of both life and music and all that this represents. I truly hope that tonight you will be uplifted and transported by our young musicians’ infectious enthusiasm and passion for performing live music, which I am sure, will continue to grow and flourish.
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directors’ notes
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Mark D Boden RESIDENT COMPOSER KING EDWARD’S SCHOOL
Programme notes on the première of Pick Me Up Given the brief of Music for Dance, I wanted to create an energetic and uplifting score with an immediate sense of accessibility for KES musicians. Pick Me Up is a collection of three independent tracks which have strong links to EDM (Electronic Dance Music), a term given to a compilation of electronic music subgenres intended for crowds of dancers. I ~ Velocity II ~ Pick Me Up III ~ Galaxy
Velocity is built on range of simple hooks, with references to sidechaining, drops and cut-off filters built into the orchestration. Pick Me Up references elements of house and soul music, with uplifting lyrics, and greater emphasis on rhythmic hooks and brass stabs. Galaxy is a love song with simple lyrics and allusions to trance music, including repetitive melodic phrases, superimposition of layers of energy and sidechaining. There are conscious references to the how a DJ might combine the tracks in a nightclub setting, notably within the transitions between tracks where frequency cuts, drops and the slicing of melodic and rhythmic elements are used are added to enable one track to ‘fade’ into the other. I would like to extend my thanks to Mr Drury and Miss Perris who have coordinated rehearsals of this piece in my absence.
original score
Whilst substantial passages of material are harmonically simple and built on repetitive gestures, there are some quite intricate and challenging rhythmic passages for instrumentalists, especially given the fast tempo used throughout.
Within the score, much of the synthesised material and electronic drum machine patches have been pre-recorded, acting as a ‘click’ track to which live instrumental elements are superimposed. The score includes extensive passages of exposed soloistic material for synthesizer, drum kit, saxophones and guitars, performed by highly talented KES musicians, in addition to the use of vocals in both Pick Me Up and Galaxy.
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Gil
gala soloist
YEAR 12
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Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 3rd Movement – Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace Being a member of the KES Senior Orchestra, KES Baroque group and being able to take part in the performance opportunities the School affords, has fuelled my passion for music. Experiencing the Side-by-Side project and masterclasses with Bath Philharmonia since Year 7, has allowed me to benefit from their expertise and mentoring. I am very grateful to the music staff of KES for giving up so much of their time to make these things possible. I am also very grateful to my violin tutor, Professor Robert Turrell, for his encouragement and support. The Mendelssohn, which I will be performing, is a staple of the violin repertoire. The 3rd movement is cheeky and celebratory in style. The piece is full of challenging and exciting passages; sometimes the soloist is even providing accompaniment for the orchestra. This makes it an incredibly fun piece to play. I can’t thank Bath Philharmonia enough for this amazing opportunity and I hope you enjoy the performance.
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Danse de la Fée Dragée (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy) from The Nutcracker Ballet Op. 71 PYOTR I TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) ARRANGED BY MERLE ISAAC Conducted by Jason Thornton Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
repertoire
Grand Ballabile (Waltz of the Flowers) from The Nutcracker Ballet Op. 71
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PYOTR I TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) ARRANGED BY MERLE ISAAC Conducted by Jason Thornton Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
Danse des Mirlitons: She Loves You – No. 6 from the Beatlecracker Suite JOHN LENNON (1940-1980), PAUL McCARTNEY (1942-) AND PYOTR I TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) ARRANGED BY ARTHUR WILKINSON Conducted by Rupert Drury Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
Grand pas de deux: All My Loving – No. 10 from the Beatlecracker Suite JOHN LENNON (1940-1980), PAUL McCARTNEY (1942-) AND PYOTR I TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) ARRANGED BY ARTHUR WILKINSON Conducted by Rupert Drury Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
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Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 3rd Movement – Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Conducted by Jason Thornton Soloist: Gil Nowak (Year 12) Accompanied by Bath Philharmonia
Clog Dance from La Fille mal gardée FERDINAND HÉROLD (1791-1833) ARRANGED BY JOHN LANCHBERY AND ADAPTED BY DAVID STONE Conducted by Jason Thornton Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
The Blue Danube JOHANN STRAUSS II (1825-1899) Conducted by Rupert Drury Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
The Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld JACQUES OFFENBACH (1819-1880) ARRANGED BY NIGEL WICKEN Conducted by Jason Thornton Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
Pick Me Up (Première Performance) MARK D BODEN (1986-) Conducted by Mark D Boden Performed by KES Senior Orchestra, Bath Philharmonia and KES Contemporary
Call On Me ERIC PRYDZ (1976-), STEVE WINWOOD (1948-) AND WILL JENNINGS (1944-) ARRANGED BY STEVE PYCROFT Conducted by Rupert Drury Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
‘Italian’ Symphony in A Major Op. 90: Mvt. 4 – Saltarello: Presto FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Conducted by Jason Thornton Performed by Bath Philharmonia
Libertango ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) ARRANGED BY DJURO ZIVKOVIC Conducted by Rupert Drury Performed by KES Senior Orchestra and Bath Philharmonia
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repertoire notes We start with a selection of four arrangements from the famous ballet, The Nutcracker (1892), one of the composer’s most popular compositions and a highlight of Romantic era music. Although the original production was not a huge success, the 20-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. The full ballet has enjoyed huge popularity since the late 1960s, performed by countless ballet companies the world over every year, generating, it is estimated, 40% of ballet ticket revenue! Two movements we have selected, get a special 20th century treatment!
Grand Ballabile (Waltz of the Flowers) from The Nutcracker Ballet Op. 71
Grand pas de deux: All My Loving – No. 10 from the Beatlecracker Suite
PYOTR I TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
JOHN LENNON (1940-1980), PAUL McCARTNEY (1942-) AND PYOTR I TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Danse de la Fée Dragée (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy) from The Nutcracker Ballet Op. 71
JOHN LENNON (1940-1980), PAUL McCARTNEY (1942-) AND PYOTR I TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
PYOTR I TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is one of The Nutcracker’s best-known musical numbers, used a great deal on the TV in commercials, especially at Christmas, and is a dance for a ballerina, originally Antonietta Dell’Era. It is the third movement in the pas de deux from Act 2 and it was requested of Tchaikovsky that the music sound like “drops of water shooting from a fountain”. He found the ideal instrument to do this job whilst in Paris in 1891, the recently invented Celeste. Tchaikovsky wrote that it’s “midway between a tiny piano and a glockenspiel, with a divinely wonderful sound!” and it has now forever become identified with the Sugar Plum Fairy.
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The Waltz of the Flowers is the final dance of the ballet, where all the Sugar Plum Fairy’s sweets celebrate Clara and the Prince and is a hugely popular work. Many remember it from their childhood as Walt Disney Studios animated the waltz for the movie Fantasia. Tchaikovsky said: “It’s awfully fun to write a march for tin soldiers, a waltz of the flowers.” He raised the waltz to higher levels of sophistication thanks to his symphonic training and his devotion to ballet, it now being not just a string of bewitching tunes but thoroughly theatrical with lovely countermelodies and decorative figures.
Danse des Mirlitons: She Loves You – No. 6 from the Beatlecracker Suite
In the late 1960’s, Roy Castle’s special guest on his BBC TV variety show was the dancer, Doreen Wells, who asked if she could dance to some Beatles music. Arthur Wilkinson was commissioned to provide the music and, using The Nutcracker Suite as a model, you can hear the results! It soon became a popular EP recording with a total of eight movements! In this movement, listen how Wilkinson carefully captures the Tchaikovsky colours and orchestration – busy flutes and pizzicato strings – yet weaves in the fab fours’ famous 1963 tune!
Another movement from Wilkinson’s suite where he exquisitely merges the Grand pas de deux – Adagio with All My Loving (1963). Tchaikovsky’s original Adagio features a descending, one-octave melody, which is said to have originated from a friend’s wager with the composer that he could not create a piece with such a simple melody. Notice how The Beatles melody’s pitches move smoothly by step, roughly within a one-octave scale, lending itself perfectly to this beautiful, yet tongue-in-cheek ‘mash-up’!
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 3rd Movement – Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) This Violin Concerto was Felix Mendelssohn’s last concerto. It holds a central place in the violin repertoire and has developed a reputation as an essential Romantic era concerto ‘right of passage’ for all aspiring concert violinists. Mendelssohn wrote the concerto for one of the most accomplished violinists of his day, Ferdinand David, who he’d been close friends with since they were teenagers. It took six years to write with David making many suggestions on revisions, themes and structure, and David premièred it in 1844. Teen stars have often made their name performing this piece, fourteen-year-old prodigy, Joseph Joachim, was the second person to perform the piece, and more recently, Nicola Benedetti, who KES Senior Orchestra players have been fortunate enough to meet, recorded it early in her career. This evening’s performance sees another young violin star enjoying its challenges and beauty.
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Clog Dance from La Fille mal gardée FERDINAND HÉROLD (1791-1833) The Poorly Guarded Girl is a comic ballet inspired by Pierre-Antoine Baudouin’s 1765 painting, La réprimande/Une jeune fille querellée par sa mère. It was premièred in July 1789 in Bordeaux and tells the story of a farmer’s daughter and her two suitors – a young farmer and the son of a rich vineyard proprietor. The ballet is one of the oldest and most important works in the modern ballet repertory, having been kept alive throughout its long performance history using several composers’ scores. This jaunty movement is from Act 1 and presents the music from Hérold‘s 1928 score, used famously for the 1959 Frederick Ashton choreographed revival, and highlights the sound of the clogs in the percussion section on a woodblock.
The Blue Danube JOHANN STRAUSS II (1825-1899) The Blue Danube is the common English title of An der schönen, blauen Donau, Op. 314 (By the Beautiful Blue Danube), a waltz composed in 1866. This hugely famous piece’s initial performance was only moderately well received! Strauss said, “The devil take the waltz, my only regret is for the coda – I wish that had been a success!” We can imagine the impact it’s romantic lines must have on young dancers at its UK première in 1867 in the ‘promenade concerts’ in Covent Garden. The piece is a ‘suite’ of five different waltzes and a coda (a rather long coda that takes up a quarter of the whole work!) and it was famously used in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, heard as a space plane docks with a space station and reprising over the film’s closing credits.
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‘Italian’ Symphony in A Major Op. 90: Mvt. 4 - Saltarello: Presto
The Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld
FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
JACQUES OFFENBACH (1819-1880)
Between 1830–31 Mendelssohn, in his early 20’s, toured Italy to enjoy the climate and the art, which he did. However, Italian music, he did not! “I have not heard a single note worth remembering” and the orchestras in Rome are “unbelievably bad”. Perhaps in hopes of righting this, Mendelssohn began his Italian Symphony while still on tour, being finally completed in the Autumn of 1832 via a commission from the Philharmonic Society of London. With the composer himself conducting its première it was a tremendous success, “the jolliest piece I have so far written… and the most mature thing I have ever done.” Its final movement, perhaps the most dramatic music he ever wrote, depicts a rural scene in southern Italy and uses the lively rhythms of Neapolitan folk dances: the Saltarello and the Tarantella., The dances are wild, energetic and swirling, and unquestionably display Mendelsson’s love of Italian folk music. This piece is one of our A Level Music set works, so some of tonight’s performers will gain much from observing the piece performed in a live context!
Originally danced by both men and women and evolved from a couple’s dance called the Quadrille, the Can-Can is a style of dance, usually conjuring up images of a historically scandalous French dance for women, characterised by highkicking, usually while holding up the front of a full ruffled skirt. Several famous pieces of music were written for can-can dancing, including this, The Galop Infernal composed by French composer, Jacques Offenbach. Written in 1858 for his operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, a satire about Greek mythology, it is one of the final scenes of the play where the gods are having a wild party and galloping around the stage! Can you tell?
Libertango ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) Moving into the snappy world of Latin dance music, Libertango is a composition by tango composer Astor Piazzolla. Recorded and published in 1974 in Milan with vibrant, driving percussion, it has become his most famous work and it has recently been estimated that there are now over 500 different versions of this piece recorded by a plethora of artists! The title is a portmanteau merging ‘Libertad’ (Spanish for ‘liberty’) and ‘tango’, symbolising Piazzolla’s break from classical tango to ‘tango nuevo’. Piazzolla revolutionised tango music by incorporating elements of jazz and classical music into his traditional tango compositions. Enjoy the spicy rhythms and the fiendish, angular melody. This arrangement is particularly challenging (obtained from Sweden!) providing an exciting test for our young players, as well as showcasing several soloists, particularly the saxophone, in torturous improvisation-like countermelodies.
Call On Me ERIC PRYDZ (1976-), STEVE WINWOOD (1948-) AND WILL JENNINGS (1944-) Now, let’s get you all on your feet as we continue to move into some repertoire well-outside the usual staple diet of classical orchestras! Parents, I bet you remember partying to this one! Call on Me (2004) was co-written and produced by Swedish DJ and producer Eric Prydz. The original song is based on a sample of Steve Winwood’s 1982 song Valerie from the album Talking Back to the Night. Call On Me reached No.1 on the UK Singles Chart during a time when the chart was experiencing low CD sales due to the new world of the digital download, which at the time was not an eligible format in the chart. It gained the short-lived accolade for selling the lowest number of singles bought in a week to gain the No.1 chart position in the UK. Who knows how many downloads it had back then! KES and Bath Philarmonia are delighted to have been able to work with the arranger Steve Pycroft, enabling us to be only the second orchestra, after his Kaleidoscope Orchestra, to perform this fabulous arrangement of this exciting song, a piece we have very much enjoyed playing together!
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Programme designed by Caroline Curran Design
KESBath
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