LPO Summer Sessions programme: Session 2 Wind - 29 July 2020

Programme notes

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SESSION 2: WINDS WEDNESDAY 29 JULY 7.30PM Rossini Sonata for Wind Quartet No. 1 in F major Mozart Serenade in E flat K375 Janáček Mládí Composed at the height of the Classical era and originally written for string quartet, Rossini’s Sonata of 1804 is melodic and elegant, reflecting the Classical preoccupation with balance and good taste. Composed two decades earlier, Mozart’s Serenade sees the ensemble expand to eight players, adding two oboes to the pairs of bassoons, horns and clarinets. In a five-movement layout exhibiting a satisfying structural balance, the overall impression is one of beauty and elegant decoration. Tonight’s final work, Janáček’s Mládí (Youth) of 1924, explored a style of writing that matched the rhythms of Czech speech and captured the raw nature of peasant life and art. Although written during the final decade of the composer’s life, it is unmistakably a celebration of youth, ending tonight’s concert in buoyant fashion.

Gioacchino Rossini (1792–1868) Sonata for Wind Quartet No. 1 in F major 1 Moderato 2 Andante 3 Allegro Juliette Bausor flute Benjamin Mellefont clarinet

Chair supported by Friends of the Orchestra

Jonathan Davies bassoon

Chair supported by Sir Simon Robey

John Ryan horn When one of the future greats of Italian opera was 12 years old in 1804, he wrote a series of six sonatas for strings in the space of three days that were ‘composed … when I hadn’t even had a lesson in thorough bass’ (in his own words). Rossini further described his sonatas as ‘horrendous’ but he retained a fondness for them and was happy to see them published in Milan in 1826.

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That year, Rossini was in Paris conducting his new opera Il viaggio a Reims. In the orchestra was the outstanding clarinetist Frédéric Berr, for whom Rossini may well have purposely fashioned some of the opera’s clarinet solos. After the French Revolution, Berr embarked upon a new career arranging works for the combination of flute, clarinet, bassoon and horn – the instruments that had helped carry revolutionary songs throughout the country.

In 1828, Berr turned to Rossini’s string sonatas, arranging them for that very combination in the knowledge that Rossini, like those instruments, had never been more popular. The arrangement shows Rossini’s music for what it is: tasteful, clear, well-proportioned and abundant in melody. The first piece channels the spirit of the 18th-century ‘divertimento’, where the tune takes precedence and resounds over simple accompaniments. ‘Horrendous’? Certainly not.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) Serenade in E flat, K375 1 Allegro maestoso 2 Menuetto and Trio 3 Adagio 4 Menuetto and Trio 5 Allegro Ian Hardwick oboe Alice Munday oboe Benjamin Mellefont clarinet

Chair supported by Friends of the Orchestra

Thomas Watmough clarinet

Chair supported by Roger Greenwood

John Ryan horn Martin Hobbs horn Jonathan Davies bassoon

Chair supported by Sir Simon Robey

Simon Estell bassoon This Serenade by Mozart was born of instrumental fashion. The Emperor Joseph II had recently got himself a ‘harmonie band’ – a wind ensemble that was all the rage in the late 18th century. Mozart was desperate to find favour with the Emperor and in 1781 wrote a sextet for winds that he hoped would dazzle the imperial valet Joseph von Strack. When the Emperor finalised the line-up of his band to eight players, Mozart even re-scored the piece, adding two oboes to the pairs of bassoons, horns and clarinets.

Despite that reupholstering, at no point do any instruments in Mozart’s piece feel extraneous. The atmosphere, bathed in the key of E flat that resounds so vividly on wind instruments, is one of beauty and elegant decoration rather than of forthright declamation.

But there’s weight and poignancy to this piece too, and satisfying structural balance: a subdued Adagio is surrounded by two ‘Minuet and Trio’ sets and those, in turn, by two Allegro movements.

Even Joseph II, who had a notoriously short concentration span, would surely have delighted at the Serenade’s journey. Its first movement moves from solemnly glowing chords to all sorts of charming musical effects including heartfelt suspensions and instruments tracking each other at the interval of a third. Through the colourful dance movements, the singing Adagio and the breezy finale, Mozart exposes his own unique creative strengths while affording his players the chance to shine.

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Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) Mládí 1 2 3 4

Andante (Allegro) Moderato (Andante sostenuto) Allegro (Vivace) Con moto (Allegro animato)

Juliette Bausor flute Ian Hardwick oboe Benjamin Mellefont clarinet

Chair supported by Friends of the Orchestra

Paul Richards bass clarinet Jonathan Davies bassoon

Chair supported by Sir Simon Robey

John Ryan horn As musical nationalism swept through Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, a number of composers emerged in what is now the Czech Republic who sought to reflect the accent of their homeland in music. Janáček was among them, but he was different. While the likes of Dvořák and Suk were city sophisticates, Janáček was born into a rural peasant family.

That, in part, holds the key to unlocking Janáček’s very individual music. While most nationalist composers sought to ennoble the tradition of folk music by placing it in classical forms, Janáček turned the process on its head by taking vernacular music as his starting point. He explored a style of writing that matched the rhythms of Czech speech and captured the raw, unclean nature of peasant life and art.

Mládí is a good example: the work’s opening theme is often said to match the rhythm of the Czech phrase ‘Mládí, zlaté mládí’ (meaning ‘Youth, golden youth’). Janáček started writing this celebration of youth for wind sextet around the time of his 70th birthday in 1924; he was purposefully recalling elements of his own youth to aid a journalist who was starting work on the composer’s official biography. The piece, like many of Janáček’s great masterpieces, comes from the extraordinarily fruitful last decade of his life, a creative explosion fuelled by his unrequited but passionate love for a married woman named Kamila Stösslová.

We first hear the phrase associated with ‘youth, golden youth’ on the oboe, but it recurs throughout the first and last movements of the piece. The second-movement Andante presents a theme and subjects it to four variations. Next comes a Vivace scherzo, based on the composer’s March of the Blue Boys, a work from earlier in the year that recalled his time as a chorister at the monastery in Brno.

The main theme, with new material, returns in Janáček’s final Allegro.

Programme notes © Andrew Mellor

CHAIR SUPPORTERS The London Philharmonic Orchestra also acknowledges the following chair supporters whose players are not present: David & Yi Buckley The Candide Trust The Chiltern Friends of the LPO Gill & Garf Collins Andrew Davenport William & Alex de Winton Donors to the 2019 Gala Player Appeal Sonja Drexler

Irina Gofman and Mr Rodrik V. G. Cave Dr Barry Grimaldi Countess Dominique Loredan Victoria Robey OBE Bianca & Stuart Roden Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp Eric Tomsett Neil Westreich

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NEXT SUMMER SESSIONS CONCERT SESSION 3: BRASS & PERCUSSION WEDNESDAY 12 AUGUST 7.30PM Our third Summer Sessions concert, featuring members of the LPO brass and percussion sections, is a celebration of music written by composers who were members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from the 1940s to the present day – Leonard Salzedo, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Stanley Woods, Richard Bissill and Simon Carrington.

Programme to include: Richard Bissill Three Piece Suite for Four Horns (excerpts) Stanley Woods John Peel | Alexander Takes a Swing Salzedo Concerto for Percussion, Op. 74 (excerpts) Simon Carrington Hampden Celebration Arnold Four Fanfares Salzedo Divertimento, Op. 49 Subscribe to our YouTube channel for concert reminders: @londonphilharmonicorchestra

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