Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor VLADIMIR JUROWSKI Principal Conductor Designate EDWARD GARDNER supported by Mrs Christina Lang Assael Principal Guest Conductor Designate KARINA CANELLAKIS Leader PIETER SCHOEMAN supported by Neil Westreich Patron HRH THE DUKE OF KENT KG Chief Executive and Artistic Director TIMOTHY WALKER CBE AM Chief Executive Designate DAVID BURKE
Programme notes and texts: The Everest of piano concertos Wednesday 8 April 2020 | 7.30pm
Méhul Symphony No. 1 in G minor (19’) Ryan Wigglesworth Augenlieder, for soprano and orchestra (15’) Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor (39’)
The timings shown are not precise and are given only as a guide.
PROGRAMME NOTES 2009: THE EVEREST OF PIANO CONCERTOS Tonight’s programme includes works by three composers, two of whom found inspiration in sources originating wider than their own immediate surroundings. The audience is taken on a journey that starts in Napoleonic France, with an energetic yet rarely performed symphony from 1809 by Étienne-Nicolas Méhul that is replete with references to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and a French Christmas carol. Jump forward a century, and the next stop is an encounter with the epitome of all Romantic piano concertos, Rachmaninoff’s Third. Deeply Russian to the core, this challenging
1809
The French composer Étienne-Nicolas Méhul is rarely encountered on concert programmes today, but during his lifetime he garnered a much-envied reputation. In France this was equalled only by Italian opera composer Luigi Cherubini, who had scored many Parisian successes. Born in the Ardennes region, Méhul moved to Paris around 1778/9, where he remained until his death. The 1790s cemented his reputation as a master of the opéra-comique (a genre that combines sung arias with spoken dialogue); his works were widely performed across Europe. Méhul’s greatest successes coincided with the French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned several large-scale pieces. He was an early member of the Légion d’honneur and a founder of the Paris Conservatoire. Alongside various instrumental works, four complete symphonies and a single movement of a fifth exist, all
and passionate work was written to showcase the composer’s prodigious talents as a pianist for his American premiere. Moving into the 21st century we meet Englishman Ryan Wigglesworth, a composer, pianist and conductor with a firmly established reputation. His song-cycle for soprano and orchestra, Augenlieder, juxtaposes texts by Robert Browning, John Berryman, Arthur Rimbaud and Egon Schiele; Wigglesworth’s award-winning gifts for lyrical writing are readily apparent. Throughout, there’s a very European sensitivity at play, which is perhaps not that far removed from where the evening begins.
Étienne-Nicolas Méhul (1763–1817) Symphony No. 1 in G minor 1 Allegro 2 Andante 3 Menuet: Allegro moderato 4 Allegro agitato
written between 1805 and 1810. Two things prompted Méhul to write symphonies: he was increasingly disillusioned with writing for the stage and being beholden to the demands of opera management. Symphonies by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven also showed Méhul the genre’s possibilities. The First Symphony is modestly scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns with timpani and strings. Some contemporaries thought it did not enhance Méhul’s reputation as a ‘noisy’ composer, which several grandiosely scored operas secured. The symphony’s opening Allegro movement is robust and infused with nervous energy. An agitated first theme bears passing resemblance to Mozart’s Symphony No. 40. The strongly contrasting second theme reinforces the notion that the style of Haydn’s Sturm und Drang (literally ‘Storm and Stress’) period
symphonies greatly influenced Méhul’s writing. Indeed, he noted following the premiere, ‘I understood all the dangers of my enterprise; I foresaw the cautious welcome that music-lovers would give my symphonies. I tried to write them […] to accustom the public gradually to think that a Frenchman may follow Haydn and Mozart at a distance.” The Andante second movement provides some relief from the preceding movement’s drama with its gracious set of variations based upon a French Christmas carol. The third movement minuet, marked Allegro moderato, and the final movement, Allegro agitato, caught the attention of Robert Schumann, who noted the
2009
difference between Méhul’s writing and German symphonists. In 1838, following a performance by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Felix Mendelssohn, Schumann wrote in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), ‘the resemblance of the scherzo and the last movement of this symphony with the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony in C minor [the Fifth] is remarkable in several respects.’ Given that Beethoven’s fifth and Méhul’s first symphonies were written contemporaneously in 1805, but first performed in December 1808 and 1809 respectively, it seems unlikely that Beethoven’s work directly influenced Méhul’s writing. The Symphony ends as it began: restless, intense energy abounds.
Ryan Wigglesworth (born 1979) Augenlieder, for soprano and orchestra 1 2 3 4
Eurydice to Orpheus: A Picture by Leighton (Robert Browning) Visionen (Visions) (Egon Schiele) Voyelles (Vowels) (Arthur Rimbaud) Keep your eyes open (John Berryman)
The texts and translations begin over the page.
Berryman’s poem, ‘Keep your eyes open’, provided the initial stimulus for Augenlieder. On discovering the sonnet, it immediately became linked in my mind to a short neglected lyric by Browning – a poem written to accompany Frederic Leighton’s painting Orpheus and Eurydice at its showing during the Royal Academy exhibition in 1864. Here, in the respective texts, were pairs of lovers connected by the drama of a look – a look avoided, or a look consummated. Much later I chanced upon another, equally unlikely, marriage of poems. While the virtuoso excitement of Rimbaud’s synaesthetic experiment in Voyelles balances Schiele’s quieter word-colour painting, the crux of both poems resides again in the act of seeing. The deliberate ambiguity of Rimbaud’s ‘Ses Yeux’ offsets Schiele’s more straightforward, though ultimately no less complex, picture: his is a definitively first-person experience –
the experience, not surprisingly, of a great visual artist struggling to achieve a similar directness in a medium other than the one for which he is famous. In my 15-minute piece, specific sonorities underpin the crosscurrents and correspondences between the texts. In the first and last songs, for instance, the combination of harp and celeste acts as a reference point at several junctures, and in the second song a lack of conventional orchestral ‘colour’ (the accompaniment is provided more or less entirely by the violins alone) is relieved by the kaleidoscopic nature of the instrumental writing in the third song. Similarly, the harmonic and melodic materials for each of the four songs share certain characteristics; a seemingly innocuous, ‘split-second’ gesture in one song often provides the main point of expansion for another, and so on. The intention is for
PROGRAMME NOTES CONTINUED each song to stand as a distorted mirror in which to view the others. Augenlieder was written for Claire Booth and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and is dedicated to Sasha Siem. Ryan Wigglesworth
COMPOSER PROFILE: RYAN WIGGLESWORTH Leading composer, conductor and pianist Ryan Wigglesworth was born in Yorkshire in 1979. Educated at Oxford University and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, between 2007–09 he was a Lecturer at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. In 2019 he was appointed the Richard Rodney Bennett Professor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music in London. His orchestral work, Sternenfall, written for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and premiered under the composer’s direction in 2008, firmly established Wigglesworth as one of the leading composers of his generation. Augenlieder was premiered by Wigglesworth with the BBCSO in November 2009, and went on to receive the vocal prize at the 2010 British Composer Awards. Another orchestral work, Locke’s Theatre, was commissioned for the BBCSO and Aldeburgh to celebrate Benjamin Britten’s 100th birthday in 2013 and the dramatic cantata Echo and Narcissus was premiered at the 2014 Aldeburgh Festival.
© Benjamin Ealovega
As Composer in Residence at the 2018 Grafenegg Festival, Wigglesworth wrote Till Dawning for soprano and orchestra, premiered at the festival by Sophie Bevan and the Tonkünstler Orchestra under the composer’s direction. Wigglesworth’s Piano Concerto was given its world premiere at the 2019 BBC Proms by Marc-André Hamelin and Britten Sinfonia. It received its US premiere with Seattle Symphony in February 2020. In 2017 Wigglesworth’s opera The Winter’s Tale opened at English National Opera in a production directed by actor Rory Kinnear, with a cast including Iain Paterson and Sophie Bevan. Clocks from a Winter’s Tale, an orchestral work inspired by themes from his opera, was premiered by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in May 2017 and co-commissioned with Bergen Philharmonic.
AUGENLIEDER TEXTS 1 Eurydice to Orpheus But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow! Let them once more absorb me! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pass Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond: Hold me but safe again within the bond Of one immortal look! All woe that was, Forgotten, and all terror that may be, Defied, – no past is mine, no future: look at me! Robert Browning (1812–89)
2 Visionen
Visions
Alles war mir lieb — ich wollte die zornigen Menschen lieb ansehen, damit ihre Augen gegentun müssen; und die Neidigen wollt’ ich beschenken und ihnen sagen, daß ich wertlos bin. …ich hörte weiche Wulstwinde durch Linien von Lüften streichen. Und das Mädchen, das mit klagender Stimme vorlas, und die Kinder, die mich groß anschauten und meinem Gegenblick durch Kosen entgegneten, und die fernen Wolken, sie schauten mit guten Faltenaugen auf mich. Ich sah den Park: gelbgrün, blaugrün, rotgrün, violettgrün, sonniggrün und zittergrün — und horcht’ der blühenden Orangeblumen. Dann band ich mich an die ovale Parkmauer und horchte der dünnfüßigen Kinder, die, blau getupft und grau gestreiften mit den Rosamaschen. Die Säulenbäume führten just Linien dorthin, als sie sich sinnlich landgrund niedersetzten. Ich dachte an meine farbigen Porträtvisionen, und es kam mir vor, als ob ich einmal nur mit jenen allen gesprochen hätte.
All was dear to me – I wanted to look lovingly at the angry people so that their eyes had to reciprocate, and to the jealous I wanted to give presents and tell them that I am worthless. … I heard soft billowing winds waft through lines of air. And the girl, who read aloud in a sorrowful voice, and the children, who regarded me with huge eyes and on my return look replied through caresses, and the distant clouds which viewed me with kind folded eyes. I saw the park: yellowgreen, bluegreen, redgreen, violetgreen, sunnygreen and shivergreen – and heard the blooming orange flowers. Then I bound myself to the oval park wall and heard the thin-footed children, spotted with blue and striped with grey by the pink bows. The tree-columns led lines precisely there, where they themselves sat long around. I thought of my coloured portrait-visions, and it struck me that only once had I spoken to all of them.
Egon Schiele (1890–1918)
Translated by Ryan Wigglesworth
AUGENLIEDER TEXTS CONTINUED 3 Voyelles
Vowels
A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu: voyelles, Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes: A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles, Golfes d’ombre: E, candeurs des vapeurs et des tentes, Lances des glaciers fi ers, rois blancs, frissons d’ombelles; I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes; U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides, Paix des pâtis semés d’animaux, paix des rides Que l’alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux; Ô, Suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges, Silences traversés des Mondes et des Anges: —Ô l’Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux! —
A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels. One day I’ll tell you your embryonic births: A, black fur-clad brilliant flies Clustering round every cruel stench, Defiles of darkness; E, blank spread of mists and tents, Proud glacier spears, white kings, sigh of umbel; I, purples, blood spat, lovely lips laughing In anger or penitential ecstasies; U, cycles, divine shudder of viridian seas, Peace of pastures grazed by cattle, peace of high Pensive foreheads rucked by alchemy; O, the last trumpet, strange crescendo blast, Navigated silences of Worlds and Angels, —O Omega, the violet radiance of Those Eyes. Translated by Martin Sorrell
Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91)
4 Keep your eyes open Keep your eyes open when you kiss: do: when You kiss. All silly time else, close them to; Unsleeping, I implore you (dear) pursue In darkness me, as I do you again Instantly we part … only me both then And when your fingers fall, let there be two Only, ‘in that dream kingdom’: I would have you Me alone recognize your citizen. Before who wanted eyes, making love, so? I do now. However we are driven and hide, What state we keep all other states condemn, We see ourselves, we watch the solemn glow Of empty courts we kiss in … Open wide! You do, you do, and I look into them. John Berryman (1914–72)
PROGRAMME NOTES CONTINUED
1909 Public demand for compositions including the piano Prelude in C sharp minor (1892), the Second Piano Concerto (1900/1) and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1934) stalked Rachmaninoff lifelong throughout his parallel careers as a pianist and conductor. This irked him, but move beyond these works, and you get closer to Rachmaninoff’s true value as a composer.
The Third Piano Concerto’s initial ideas were sketched in 1905, but Rachmaninoff’s attention was focussed by the opportunity to make his debut as a pianist in the United States. Composition was completed just in time, in Dresden on 23 September 1909, allowing Rachmaninoff time only to practice the solo part on a silent keyboard he had built for his ocean liner voyage across the Atlantic. The premiere took place on 28 November with the New York Symphony and conductor Walter Damrosch. An important second performance with Gustav Mahler (whom Rachmaninoff considered his equal), conducting the New York Philharmonic followed at Carnegie Hall in January 1910. Thereafter, it languished until compatriot pianist Vladimir Horowitz arrived in America in 1928. Horowitz cautiously approached Rachmaninoff, as one does when meeting one’s hero. The two became friends and played the Concerto together in a version for two pianos. Rachmaninoff assuming the orchestral parts, which given his famously large hands was perhaps to be expected. Pianists approach the work cautiously due to its technical difficulty and above average length for a Romantic concerto. Many avoid it altogether, as did Josef Hofmann, the work’s dedicatee. Rachmaninoff considered it the favourite of his concertos, as it ‘fitted the hands better’ than the second, and thought
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor 1 Allegro ma non tanto 2 Intermezzo: Adagio 3 Finale: Alla breve
some pianists made it ‘a work for elephants’. His own performance style might indicate something of an ideal. One contemporary wrote, ‘after folding his body into the piano; his massive hands toyed with the keys. The music rippled and soared, but he remained calmly methodical.’ Listen to Rachmaninoff’s recordings and be struck by the tonal quality and subtle variations of touch achieved. Thus, any performance should balance precision with passion. Russian sensibilities deeply imbue the Concerto, and Rachmaninoff represented a link to key names in Russian pianism including Tchaikovsky, Arensky and Siloti. Contrary to many opinions, Rachmaninoff said of the first movement’s recurring initial theme, ‘It is borrowed neither from folk song nor liturgical sources. It simply wrote itself.’ The melody, presented across successive octaves over a rhythmic accompaniment, initially insinuates and is developed at length, contrasting with much of the movement’s subsequent writing. An expressive second melodic idea eventually emerges as orchestral instruments gradually join together to accompany the soloist. Rachmaninoff wrote two versions of the soloist’s cadenza, one initially fleeting and the other a lengthy, virtuosic tour-de-force. This concludes the development and includes the recapitulation section. The middle movement, marked Intermezzo: Adagio, initially provides the soloist some respite. Its melancholic mood in the key of A minor is related to the preceding movement’s first theme. The central section is a waltz-like variation upon the Andantino of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, a work central to Rachmaninoff’s pianistic career. A short cadenza links to the closing movement. After further references to the first movement’s themes, four other themes
PROGRAMME NOTES CONTINUED are explored at length: all the time both soloist and orchestra assuredly climb a daunting mountain to its expansive summit. Supposedly comprising some 55,000 notes, is it understandable why the work is often called ‘the Everest of piano concertos’.
Recommended recordings of tonight’s works
Méhul and Rachmaninoff programme notes © Evan Dickerson
Méhul: Symphony No. 1 Solistes Européens, Luxembourg | Christoph König (Rubicon)
by Laurie Watt
Ryan Wigglesworth: Augenlieder Claire Booth | Hallé Orchestra | Ryan Wigglesworth (NMC) Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 Marc-André Hamelin | London Philharmonic Orchestra | Vladimir Jurowski (Hyperion)