2023/24 SEASON CONCERT PROGRAMME
MARIUS NESET: GEYSER Friday 17 November 2023, 7.30pm Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall
MARIUS NESET: GEYSER Friday 17 November 2023, 7.30pm Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall Marius Neset Geyser (2022) I. Waterfall II. On Fire III. Out of Sight IV. Under the Surface V. Lava VI. Flow VII. Meeting Magma VIII. Outbreak Marius Neset saxophone Conor Chaplin double bass Ivo Neame piano Anton Eger drums Jim Hart percussion Geoffrey Paterson conductor London Sinfonietta: Karen Jones flute/piccolo Melinda Maxwell oboe Mark van de Wiel clarinet/bass clarinet Patrick Bolton bassoon Timothy Ellis horn Richard Blake trumpet Byron Fulcher trombone Jonathan Morton violin Thomas Gould violin Thomas Aldren violin
Miranda Fulleylove violin Sophie Mather violin Rebecca Dinning violin Paul Silverthorne viola Zoe Matthews viola Katie Wilkinson viola Zoe Martlew cello Cecilia Bignall cello Enno Senft double bass
The London Sinfonietta is grateful to Arts Council England for its support of the ensemble, as well as the many other individuals, trusts and businesses who enable us to realise our ambitions. The work of the London Sinfonietta is supported by the John Ellerman Foundation, and this concert is produced by London Sinfonietta as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival 2023. Geyser was originally commissioned by the BBC Proms.
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WELCOME Welcome to tonight’s concert
Welcome to the Southbank Centre
Having just returned from the Baerum Jazz Festival in Norway with this project, it’s great now to be performing this exciting work once again, now in the EFG London Jazz Festival. Marius’ amazing musical imagination provides a thrilling challenge for our musicians who relish the virtuosity of the music.
We’re the largest arts centre in the UK and one of the nation’s top visitor attractions, showcasing the world’s most exciting artists at our venues in the heart of London. We’re here to present great cultural experiences that bring people together, and open up the arts to everyone.
While we are grateful to Marius that he chooses to return and write for us and work with us, we are also honoured to play alongside his colleagues – Ivo, Jim, Conor and Anton – whose extraordinary improvising and ensemble skills have resulted in a mutual admiration society between the musicians on stage. I don’t think you can help but see how much they are enjoying this project. I also want to thank Geoffrey Paterson for keeping this rollercoaster ride on track, and for the BBC Proms for originally commissioning Geyser. And also to Southbank Centre where we are proudly a Resident Orchestra. I hope you enjoy the evening. Andrew Burke Chief Executive and Artistic Director
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Programme Notes Norwegian composer and saxophonist Marius Neset explains the manifold inspirations behind this work for jazz quintet and chamber orchestra. When I started work on Geyser [in 2021], I had decided I was done composing music that reflected the pain of the pandemic. This new piece was to be instead a celebration - of music, its welcome return and that unique atmosphere created by musicians when they meet to perform. Its mood was to be predominantly joyful and optimistic, while its title, named after the erupting hot springs common in Scandinavia and Iceland, was a metaphor for the music’s underlying rhythmic energy, unleashed intermittently in ecstatic outbursts. This idea of tension boiling under the surface is a theme I return to in a lot of my music. Then, in February [last year], Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. It was a similar feeling to when the pandemic first hit: I was in shock, only able to watch the news on repeat. I had already written much of the piece but I found that I couldn’t finish it. When I did eventually
begin composing again, it was impossible to pick up from where I’d left off. As someone who writes with a lot of emotion, such events will always affect the music. So I revisited many of the elements I had already written and dismantled them, loosening the structure and tonality in many places - a metaphor for how beauty, pleasantness and safety can so quickly be lost. A good example of this can be found in the second movement, ‘On Fire’, where a deliberately cliched, ‘romantic’ theme, apparently in a straightforward 4/4 rhythm, is undercut by an accompaniment with a different rhythmic impetus (a triple-time figure in 9/4). This warps the theme, which eventually morphs into something else entirely. A similar effect can be found in the outwardly optimistic movement, ‘Meeting Magma’, whose rhythmic undercurrent is based around a grouping of 13 eighth-note triplets. This sense of darkness and despair, prompted by the Russian invasion added a new layer of meaning to the title and its original associations. It also helped inform the overall
structure of Geyser, which shifts from dark to light over the course of its eight movements. Following a secretive opening, the moody atmosphere of the first half gradually dissipates. The music becomes brighter, with more rhythmic and harmonic freedom; tonality gradually breaks down until the huge climax in the final movement, ‘Outbreak’: the Geyser is released. As stated, the darker edges of this sequence were applied to the music after the news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But this should come as no surprise. Though I always have a plan for how a work will be structured when I start composing, I have to follow where the music takes me - to reflect what is happening in my life and in the world around me. This piece was no different. Geyser was composed for the London Sinfonietta in combination with my own jazz quintet. My hope was to integrate the freedom and spontaneity of jazz into the written-down, ‘classical’ idiom that the Sinfonietta is used to working in. Inevitably, this means using improvisation. However, while it is almost entirely the players in the band who improvise in Geyser, the Sinfonietta’s role is not simply to provide an orchestral accompaniment for a series of solos. It is very actively involved in the process, echoing and developing melodic themes and ideas. This, I hope,
gives the music a real energy and freshness. Because Geyser is the third large-scale work I have composed for the London Sinfonietta (after 2015’s Snowmelt, which later came out as an album, and 2019’s Viaduct), I have a good understanding of the ensemble’s sound. I know what works and how I can use the players most effectively. When we first collaborated, it was a very different experience to anything I had done before. Though with my own group we always write out and learn our parts, we also open up and move away from the score during a performance (if you tried to follow a score during one of our gigs, it wouldn’t make much sense!). With these projects, however, it is not possible to open up in the same way: the score has to be much more ‘finished’ when I hand it over. That said, in Geyser there are still many similarities with my previous work. In devising the shape and form, for example, I think in exactly the same way as I have always done, whether that’s composing a symphony, a saxophone concerto, or improvising. I want to tell a story that’s what it’s all about. I hope you enjoy the story you hear tonight. Marius Neset
Geoffrey Paterson conductor
Marius Neset saxophone
Geoffrey Paterson studied at Cambridge University and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. While a member of the Jetter Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, he assisted Sir Mark Elder, Daniele Gatti, Andris Nelsons and Sir Antonio Pappano. For two seasons he worked at the Bayreuth Festival as musical assistant to Kirill Petrenko. He made his BBC Proms debut in 2020 with the London Sinfonietta. Other recent orchestral highlights include appearances with the BBC, Danish National and Hamburg Symphony orchestras, Nagoya and Copenhagen Philharmonic orchestra, Aurora Orchestra and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Norwegian saxophonist and composer Marius Neset studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. He has performed with artists including Arild Anderson, Django Bates and his bands StoRMChaser and Human Chain, Chick Corea, Danish Radio Big Band, Petter Eldh, E.S.T. Symphony, JazzKamikaze, Latvian Radio Big Band, Lionel Loueke, Marcus Miller and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, as well as his own band, the Marius Neset Quintet. He has performed and recorded several times with the London Sinfonietta, and worked with classical musicians such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Michala Petri, Louisa Tuch and Ingrid Neset.
LONDON SINFONIETTA The London Sinfonietta is one of the world’s leading contemporary music ensembles. Formed in 1968, we are a Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre and Artistic Associate at Kings Place, with a busy touring schedule. We have commissioned over 450 works and premiered hundreds more. We experiment constantly, working with the best artists, collaborating with young people and the public to produce projects often involving film, theatre, dance and art. We challenge audience perceptions by commissioning work which addresses issues in today’s society, including tackling climate change and racial inequality. We support musical creativity in schools and communities across the UK, while our annual London Sinfonietta Academy is an unparalleled opportunity for young performers and conductors to train for their professional future with our Principal Players.
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