June 2019 with the MSO by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

CONCERT PROGRAM

J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 9 B O L É R O!

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M OZ A R T ’ S R E Q U I E M

TC H A I KOV S K Y ’ S V I O L I N C O N C E R TO

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R AC H M A N I N OV 3

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Music enhances the education of our children by helping them to make connections and broadening the depth with which they think and feel. If we are to hope for a society of culturally literate people, music must be a vital part of our children’s education. – Yo-Yo Ma

If you think music education is important, please support the MSO’s Education Appeal today: mso.com.au/support

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CONTENTS

05 10 16 32 38

THE MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Your MSO Guest musicians BOLÉRO! SLAVA GRIGORYAN AND THE RHYTHMS OF SPAIN Friday 7 June | 7.30pm Melbourne Town Hall

MOZART’S REQUIEM Thursday 20 June | 7.30pm Saturday 22 June | 2pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONCERTO Friday 28 June | 7.30pm Saturday 29 June | 7.30pm Monday 1 July | 6.30pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

RACHMANINOV 3 Wednesday 3 July | 11am Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone. Many MSO performances are recorded for future broadcast by ABC Classic. Visit abc.com.au/classic to listen online and view a broadcast schedule. Cover image: MSO Associate Conductor Benjamin Northey. Credit: Wayne Taylor

mso.com.au

(03) 9929 9600

Our Artistic Family

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is a leading cultural figure in the Australian arts landscape, bringing the best in orchestral music and passionate performance to a diverse audience across Victoria, the nation and around the world. Each year the MSO engages with more than 5 million people through live concerts, TV, radio and online broadcasts, international tours, recordings and education programs. Under the spirited leadership of Chief Conductor, Sir Andrew Davis, the MSO is a vital presence, both onstage and in the community, in cultivating classical music in Australia. The nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first professional orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has been the sound of the city of Melbourne since 1906.

The MSO regularly attracts great artists from around the globe including Anne-Sophie Mutter, Lang Lang, Renee Fleming and Thomas Hampson, while bringing Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finest musicians to the world through tours to China, Europe and the United States. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we perform and would like to pay our respects to their Elders and Community both past and present.

Your MSO

Sir Andrew Davis Chief Conductor

Benjamin Northey Associate Conductor

Tianyi Lu

Cybec Assistant Conductor

Hiroyuki Iwaki

Conductor Laureate (1974–2006)

FIRST VIOLINS Dale Barltrop Concertmaster

Sophie Rowell

Concertmaster The Ullmer Family Foundation#

Peter Edwards

Assistant Principal

Kirsty Bremner Sarah Curro

Michael Aquilina#

Peter Fellin Deborah Goodall Lorraine Hook Anne-Marie Johnson Kirstin Kenny Ji Won Kim Eleanor Mancini Chisholm & Gamon#

Mark Mogilevski Michelle Ruffolo Kathryn Taylor Michael Aquilina

SECOND VIOLINS

CELLOS

Matthew Tomkins

David Berlin

Robert Macindoe

Rachael Tobin

Monica Curro

Nicholas Bochner

Principal The Gross Foundation# Associate Principal

Assistant Principal Danny Gorog and Lindy Susskind#

Mary Allison Isin Cakmakcioglu Tiffany Cheng Freya Franzen Cong Gu Andrew Hall Isy Wasserman Philippa West Patrick Wong Roger Young

Principal MS Newman Family# Associate Principal Assistant Principal Anonymous*

Miranda Brockman

Geelong Friends of the MSO#

Rohan de Korte

Andrew Dudgeon#

Keith Johnson Sarah Morse Maria Solà#

Angela Sargeant Maria Solà#

Michelle Wood

Michael Aquilina# Andrew and Theresa Dyer#

VIOLAS

DOUBLE BASSES

Christopher Moore

Steve Reeves

Principal Di Jameson#

Principal

Andrew Moon

Lauren Brigden Katharine Brockman Christopher Cartlidge Michael Aquilina

Anthony Chataway

Dr Elizabeth E Lewis AM#

Gabrielle Halloran Maria Solà#

Trevor Jones Fiona Sargeant Cindy Watkin Elizabeth Woolnough

Associate Principal

Sylvia Hosking

Assistant Principal

Damien Eckersley Benjamin Hanlon Suzanne Lee Stephen Newton Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser#

FLUTES Prudence Davis Principal Anonymous#

Wendy Clarke

Associate Principal

Sarah Beggs

Sophia Yong-Tang#

Your MSO

PICCOLO Andrew Macleod

HORNS

PERCUSSION

Nicolas Fleury

Robert Clarke

Saul Lewis

John Arcaro

Principal John McKay and Lois McKay#

Principal

OBOES

Principal Third The Hon Michael Watt QC and Cecilie Hall#

Jeffrey Crellin

Principal

Thomas Hutchinson Associate Principal

Ann Blackburn

The Rosemary Norman Foundation#

COR ANGLAIS Michael Pisani

Principal

Abbey Edlin

Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM#

Trinette McClimont Rachel Shaw

BASS CLARINET Jon Craven Principal

BASSOONS

TROMBONES Brett Kelly

Principal

Richard Shirley

Tim and Lyn Edward#

Mike Szabo

Principal Bass Trombone

TUBA

Elise Millman

Timothy Buzbee

Associate Principal

Natasha Thomas CONTRABASSOON Brock Imison

Principal

John and Diana Frew#

Jack Schiller

Principal

Yinuo Mu

Shane Hooton William Evans Rosie Turner

Craig Hill

HARP

Principal

David Thomas

Associate Principal

Drs Rhyll Wade and Clem Gruen#

TRUMPETS

Associate Principal

Philip Arkinstall

Tim and Lyn Edward#

Robert Cossom

Owen Morris

CLARINETS Principal

Principal

TIMPANI** Christopher Lane

Principal

# Position supported by ** Timpani Chair position supported by Lady Potter AC CMRI

Guest Musicians

Guest Musicians BOLÉRO | 7 June Aaron Barnden

Molly Collier-O’Boyle

Tristan Rebien

Zoe Black

Ceridwen Davies

Jessica Buzbee

Jacqueline Edwards

Lauren Jennings

Christine Turpin

Karla Hanna

Mee Na Lojewski

Conrad Nilsson

Jenny Khafagi

Rebecca Proietto

Evan Pritchard

Michael Loftus-Hills

Rohan Dasika

Leah Scholes

Ioana Tache

Grace Elliot

Melina van Leeuwen

Nicholas Waters

Vivian Qu Siyuan

Louisa Breen

Merewyn Bramble

Rachel Curkpatrick

Luke Carbon

William Clark

Ian Wildsmith

Justin Kenealy

violin violin violin violin violin violin violin violin viola viola

viola viola cello cello cello

double bass double bass double bass oboe

principal third horn

associate principal trumpet principal trombone timpani

percussion percussion percussion harp

piano & celeste tenor saxophone soprano saxophone

MOZART’S REQUIEM | 20–22 June Tair Khisambeev

Danielle Arcaro

Rob Nairn

Aaron Barnden

William Clark

Vivian Qu Siyuan

Jacqueline Edwards

Heidi von Bernewitz

Carla Blackwood

Madeleine Jevons

Sharon Grigoryan

Brent Miller

Michael Loftus-Hills

Zoe Wallace

Calvin Bowman

Susannah Ng

Rohan Dasika

Stefan Cassomenos

assistant concertmaster violin violin violin violin violin

viola viola viola cello cello

double bass

*Courtesy of Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra 8

Information correct as of 28 May 2019

double bass double bass

associate principal horn timpani organ

celeste

William Clark

Jonathon Ramsay*

Aaron Barnden

Isabel Morse

Peter Neville

Madeleine Jevons

Mee Na Lojewski

Lara Wilson

Jenny Khafagi

Rebecca Proietto

Melina van Leeuwen

Michael Loftus-Hills

Rohan Dasika

Justin Kenealy

Nicholas Waters

Vivian Qu Siyuan

Merewyn Bramble

Ian Wildsmith

assistant concertmaster violin violin violin violin violin viola

viola viola cello cello

double bass

principal trombone

Our Artistic Family

TCHAIKOVSKYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S VIOLIN CONCERTO | 28 June â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1 July Tair Khisambeev

percussion percussion harp

alto saxophone

double bass

principal third horn

RACHMANINOV 3 | 3 July Tair Khisambeev

Susannah Ng

Vivian Qu Siyuan

Aaron Barnden

Nicholas Waters

Ian Wildsmith

Madeleine Jevons

William Clark

Timothy Hook

Jenny Khafagi

Rebecca Proietto

Peter Neville

Michael Loftus-Hills

Rohan Dasika

Donald Nicolson

assistant concertmaster violin violin violin violin

violin violin viola cello

double bass

principal third horn percussion percussion celeste

BOLÉRO!

Slava Grigoryan and the Rhythms of Spain 7 June 2019 | 7.30pm Melbourne Town Hall Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Benjamin Northey conductor Slava Grigoryan guitar FALLA The Three-Cornered Hat: Suite No.2

[12']

BERIO Four Original Versions of Luigi Boccherini’s Ritirata notturna di Madrid [10'] RAVEL Rapsodie espagnole [15'] — INTERVAL — RODRIGO Concierto de Aranjuez [21'] RAVEL Boléro [13']

Running time: approximately 2 hours including a 20 minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. Organ Recital: 6.30pm, Melbourne Town Hall. Calvin Bowman presents a free 30-minute recital on the mighty Grand Organ.

BOLÉRO! | 7 June

Benjamin Northey

Slava Grigoryan

Benjamin Northey is Chief Conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and Associate Conductor of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

As a major prizewinner at the Tokyo International Classical Guitar Competition, Slava was signed by the Sony Classical Label in 1995 and released 4 solo albums. His later discs for ABC Classic are amongst Australia’s most celebrated classical recordings – Sonata and Fantasies, Bach: Cello Suites Volume I and Bach: Cello Suites Volume II all received the ARIA award for Best Classical Album.

conductor

Northey appears regularly as guest conductor with all major Australian symphony orchestras, Opera Australia (Turandot, L’elisir d’amore, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Carmen), New Zealand Opera (Sweeney Todd) and State Opera South Australia (La sonnambula, Les contes d’Hoffmann). His international appearances include concerts with London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. With a progressive and diverse approach to repertoire, he has collaborated with a broad range of artists including Maxim Vengerov and Slava Grigoryan, as well as popular artists Tim Minchin and James Morrison. An Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, his awards include the 2010 Melbourne Prize Outstanding Musician’s Award and multiple awards for his numerous recordings with ABC Classics.

guitar

A regular soloist at many international festivals, Slava has also appeared with the world’s leading orchestras – including the London Philharmonic, Israel Symphony Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and all of the major Australasian Symphony Orchestras. He has toured extensively with American great Ralph Towner and legendary jazz guitarist from Wolfgang Muthspiel. His collaboration with his brother Leonard Grigoryan has led to several recording releases and recital tours – both internationally and throughout Australia. Slava Grigoryan has been Artistic Director of the Adelaide International Guitar Festival since 2010.

BOLÉRO! | 7 June

Program Notes MANUEL DE FALLA

(1876–1846)

The Three-Cornered Hat: Suite No.2 Seguidillas (The Neighbours’ Dance) Farruca (The Miller’s Dance) Jota (Final Dance) In 1907 Manuel de Falla had left his native Spain in some frustration. Two years before he had won a prize for his opera La vida breve (Life is short), a work in which he established the principles of working with distinctly Spanish sounds and forms, but when the promised production failed to eventuate, he left for Paris. There he became acquainted with Debussy, Ravel, Dukas and Stravinsky, and absorbed some of their stylistic idioms to the extent that when he returned to Spain upon the outbreak of World War I his ‘ballet with songs’ El amor brujo (Love, the Magician) was criticised as sounding too French.

Falla had long been taken with the idea of composing a stage work to El corregidor y la molinera (The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife), a novel by Pedro de Alarcón. Sergei Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, was keen to add Falla to a stable of composers that included Stravinsky and Ravel, and suggested a ballet of El corregidor. The war (and the Russian revolution, which meant Diaghilev was forbidden to enter Spain) intervened, but by way of a ‘dry run’ Falla produced a pantomime of the story for performance in Madrid. When Diaghilev finally saw the pantomime he suggested several major revisions out of which the ballet (another ‘ballet with songs’) El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) was born. The new work, premiered in London in 1919, had sets by Picasso and choreography by Léonide Massine.

Alarcón’s story tells of a miller and his wife who, despite his being ugly and she beautiful, are devoted to each other. A distant song, however, warns that all women should lock their door. The local magistrate passes in a procession past the mill, and returns shortly thereafter to try and seduce the miller’s wife. She dances a provocative fandango, colluding with her husband to lead the magistrate on and humiliate him. The magistrate realises that he is being set up and leaves angrily. Part 2, from which the second suite is drawn, begins with the miller, his wife and their neighbours dancing the seguidillas. The miller then dances a vibrant farruca before being arrested by the magistrate’s bodyguard. The magistrate returns and chases the miller’s wife; she takes advantage of his falling into the millstream to disappear into the night. The magistrate gets out of those wet things, and leaves them to dry while he takes shelter in the miller’s empty hut. The miller escapes from the bodyguards and returns, puts on the magistrate’s clothes (including his threecornered hat, a symbol of authority) and goes off vowing to seduce the magistrate’s wife; the magistrate puts on the miller’s clothes. The miller’s wife returns, as do the townsfolk. Predictable confusion and remonstrances ensue, but once who’s who is sorted out the magistrate is tossed in a blanket and the townsfolk launch into an energetic and triumphant jota – the final dance complete with castanets. Gordon Kerry © 2005 The MSO first performed the suite (Three Dances) from The Three-Cornered Hat in September 1946 under Sir Bernard Heinze, and most recently in February 2016 with Benjamin Northey.

Quattro versioni originali della Ritirata notturna di Madrid (after Luigi Boccherini String Quintet in C, Op.30 No.6, G.324, La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid) The piece is absolutely useless, even ridiculous, outside Spain, because the audience cannot hope to understand its significance, nor the performers to play it as it should be played. Harsh words, but so Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) wrote to his publisher saying that the sixth ‘quintetto’ of his Op.30 should not be made available to the public. He was wrong. Boccherini wrote the piece around 1780, at which point he been living and working in Spain for over a decade as ‘chamber composer and virtuoso’ to the Spanish King’s brother Don Luis at the palace of Aranjuez; when Luis married a commoner and was exiled to the provinces, Boccherini went too, and, like Haydn at Eszterháza, found in isolation the perfect environment for composition. Also like Haydn, with whom he corresponded and whose work he admired, Boccherini kept his chamber music largely free from illustrative or programmatic elements. La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid is, therefore, atypical, being a musical description of the myriad of sounds of Madrid at night, bells and beggars, singers and soldiers, and was so successful that Boccherini made four versions of the stirring Ritirata final movement. In 1975, Luciano Berio was commissioned to write a short orchestral piece for La Scala, Milan. Berio had always had a loving relationship with the music of past, reinterpreting everything from Purcell to Brahms, and for his La Scala piece he links and overlays the four versions of the Boccherini quintet’s

final movement to create an iridescent orchestral showpiece. A drum sounds (represented by tremolo strings), and in a series of crescendos and diminuendos the garrison approaches from a great distance and retreats again to signal the curfew and herald the fall of night.

BOLÉRO! | 7 June

LUCIANO BERIO

(1925–2003)

MAURICE RAVEL

(1875–1937)

Rapsodie espagnole Prélude à la nuit – Malagueña Habanera Feria Rapsodie espagnole dates from 1907 – a year in which the composer also produced the opera L’heure espagnole. Though born only a short distance from the Spanish border in France’s Basque territory, Ravel only set foot in Spain two or three times. His ability to sound ‘more Spanish than the Spanish’ has delighted yet bewildered many admirers, and astonished even so Spanish a composer as Manuel de Falla, who finally ascribed Ravel’s ability to an ‘ideal Spain’ represented by his mother, undoubtedly the strongest emotional tie of his life. Marie Ravel’s singing of Spanish folksongs had been among Ravel’s earliest memories. The four movement headings of this work promise a suite of Spanish dances. There is more to Rapsodie espagnole than ‘Spanish flavour’. The first movement functions as mood setting. ‘Nuance accounts for a great deal in this exceedingly beautiful piece of nocturnal music,’ says musicologist Laurence Davies. ‘An enormously large orchestra is at hand throughout, but… the listener rarely gets the sensation –

BOLÉRO! | 7 June

inevitable in the closing Feria – of being overwhelmed by a sheer mass of sound.’ Indeed, the almost inaudible taps of the celeste, combining with the cellos and double basses, in the dying seconds of the movement testify to the discretion of Ravel’s intentions. Ravel’s love of cross-rhythms is expressed right from the outset. Hearing the descending four-note figure in the strings, the listener assumes a movement in duple time, but ‘short-long’ patterns in the woodwinds reveal an overriding 3/4. With barely a breath we are bundled into the Malagueña. Subtle similarities in tone-colour and rhythm echo the preceding movement. The opening tempo slows down as the cor anglais enters for a brief solo. There is a glimpse of the four-note descending figure and the spectacularly brief movement ends with an upward flourish. Ravel took care to have the date 1895 printed above the Habanera movement in the score. Rapsodie espagnole came out five years after Debussy had written La soirée dans Grenade and Ravel was accused of plagiarism. Notwithstanding the fact that Rapsodie espagnole is closer in style to two works written later – Debussy’s Ibéria and Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain – this movement is virtually a transcription of a student work of Ravel’s from 20 years earlier. The Hispanic was in Ravel’s blood, and habaneras were an early passion.

With its carnival associations, the Feria is the longest and most cheerful movement. Ravel uses five popular tunes in a real whirling divertissement. A slow intermezzo, introduced by the muchfavoured cor anglais, calms proceedings temporarily. The four-note descending figure heard previously returns, helping to build tension before a restoration of the opening mood and tempo; but tidy though Ravel undoubtedly was, this

figure is far too cleverly allusive to be merely a form of tight structural binding. Gaston Carraud at the first performance (on 16 March 1908) dismissed Rapsodie espagnole as ‘slender, inconsistent and fugitive’, but it is the combination of effervescent, sharply defined Spanish rhythms and some of the subtlest orchestration in the repertoire which contributes to the charm of this work. Gordon Kalton Williams © Symphony Australia The MSO first performed this work on 23 August 1952 under conductor Juan José Castro, and most recently in November 2010 with Charles Dutoit.

JOAQUÍN RODRIGO

(1901–1999)

Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra Allegro con spirito Adagio Allegro gentile Slava Grigoryan guitar The cliché is that the best Spanish music was written by French composers, but in 1939 a Spanish composer living in Paris wrote the most instantly recognisable Spanish work of the 20th century – and its single most popular concerto. Blinded by diphtheria at the age of three, Joaquín Rodrigo showed an early and impressive talent for music as pianist and composer. After study at the Conservatory in Valencia he travelled to Paris where he studied with Paul Dukas from 1927, and remained an expatriate until the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The Concierto de Aranjuez had its first performance in Barcelona in 1940, and it made Rodrigo’s name. The piece takes its title from the summer palace of Spain’s Bourbon Kings, built in the 16th century, but given a Baroque makeover in the 18th. For Rodrigo it

The first movement quickly establishes Rodrigo’s essentially conservative but lively musical language and his mastery of orchestral colour and balance. The guitar’s strumming sets up the simple rhythmic engine of alternating 3/4 and 6/8 patterns derived from the fandango. Rodrigo is careful never to let the delicate timbre of the guitar become submerged in orchestral sounds. The central Adagio has taken on a life of its own in a great many incarnations. The deep melancholy of the beautiful melody led to a legend that it represented Rodrigo’s response to the destruction of Guernica as immortalised in Picasso’s painting, but his wife Victoria Kamhi maintained that its origins were in the death of their first child. In any event it is based on an Andalusian lament sung during processions in Holy Week; it is sometimes used to set the Mourner’s Kaddish in some Sephardic synagogues. Contrasting dance rhythms return the third movement to the genial world of the first, though with a rather more aristocratic edge in the heraldic writing for brass. The composer liked to describe his work generally as faithful to a tradition; on his 90th birthday he was ennobled as Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez. Gordon Kerry © 2010 The MSO’s first performance of this work took place on 27 February 1971 in a Proms concert conducted by John Hopkins. The soloist was Alirior Díaz. The Orchestra’s most recent performances took place in October 2014 with Benjamin Northey and Xuefei Yang.

MAURICE RAVEL Boléro Poor Ravel. He was joking when he described Boléro as a ‘masterpiece without any music in it’, so was very annoyed when the piece became one of his best-known works. In fact it came about when he was asked by the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein in 1928 to orchestrate parts of Albéniz’s Iberia for a ballet with a ‘Spanish’ character.

BOLÉRO! | 7 June

became a mental image of an idealised Spain, evoking ‘the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds and the gushing of fountains’, which as Barbara Heninger notes, are ‘beauties that a blind man such as he could appreciate’. The work is neo-Baroque in form, suffused with a handful of Spanish folk dance-songs.

As it turned out, the rights to Albéniz’s music were not available, so Ravel composed his Boléro, based on an 18th century Spanish dance-form which is characterised by a moderate tempo and three beats to a bar. It has ‘no music’ in that a simple theme is reiterated over and over again, embodied in different orchestral colours each time, including that marvellous moment where it appears in three keys simultaneously. The work has been used and abused in various films but it remains a masterpiece after all, its inexorable tread building massive tension which is released explosively in the final bars. The music’s erotic charge of constraint and release mirrors the scenario for Rubinstein’s ballet, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska (Nijinsky’s sister). Ravel had, by no means idly, suggested Boléro could accompany a story where passion is contrasted by the mechanised environment of a factory. Nijinska, however, had the dancer in an empty café, dancing alone on a table as the room gradually fills with men overcome, as Michael J. Puri notes, ‘by their lust for her’ which they express through ever more frenetic dance. Gordon Kerry © 2007/12 The MSO first performed Ravel’s Boléro in September 1946 under conductor Sir Bernard Heinze, and most recently on 10 February 2018 with Antony Hermus.

Mozart’s Requiem 20 June 2019 | 7.30pm 22 June 2019 | 2pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Jaime Martín conductor Jacqueline Porter soprano Fiona Campbell contralto Andrew Goodwin tenor James Clayton bass Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus master RAVEL Ma mère l’Oye

[28'] — INTERVAL —

MOZART Requiem [55']

Running time: approximately two hours including a 20 minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. Pre-concert talk: 20 June at 6.15pm & 22 June at 12.45pm, Hamer Hall. Learn more about the performance at a pre-concert presentation with MSO Chorus Coordinator, Lucien Fischer.

Jacqueline Porter

In late 2019 Jaime Martín becomes Chief Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland) and Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He is Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Gävle Symphony, as well as Chief Conductor of the Orquestra de Cadaqués and Director of the Santander International Festival. Prior to conducting, he was Principal Flute of the London Philharmonic and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, among others.

Jacqueline Porter appears regularly with Australia’s major symphony orchestras, opera companies and choral societies. Recent performances with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra include Grieg Solveig’s Song, Rachmaninov Vocalise and The Bells, Mozart Exsultate Jubilate and Requiem, Handel Messiah, Beethoven Symphony No.9 and Mass in C, Fauré Requiem, and Mahler Symphony No.4.

conductor

Jaime Martín has conducted orchestras such as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. His operatic appearances include The Barber of Seville and Marriage of Figaro at English National Opera. 2018 saw debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and Colorado Symphony. In January 2019 he completed a nineconcert tour of Europe with the London Philharmonic. Recordings include a new release of the Brahms-Schoenberg Piano Quintet in G minor and Parry’s Elegy for Brahms.

MOZART’S REQUIEM | 20–22 June

Jaime Mart�n

soprano

Her concert repertoire also features Haydn Nelson Mass, Berlioz Les Nuits d’été, Britten Les Illuminations, Grieg Peer Gynt, Brahms Requiem and Prokofiev The Ugly Duckling, (Vladimir Ashkenazy and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, available on CD). Jacqueline’s roles with Victorian Opera include Susanna in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Despina in Così fan tutte and the Princess in Respighi’s The Sleeping Beauty, and with State Opera South Australia, Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. This year, Jacqueline will also feature this year with Sydney Symphony (Peter Grimes); Canberra Symphony, Australian Classical and Romantic Orchestra; Melbourne Bach Choir (St Matthew Passion) and in recital.

MOZART’S REQUIEM | 20–22 June

Fiona Campbell

Andrew Goodwin

Fiona Campbell is one of Australia’s most versatile and beloved classical singers - a producer and guest ABC presenter, accomplished international performer, recitalist and recording artist. Winner of the national Limelight Award for Best Solo Performance 2011, Fiona has consistently received wide critical acclaim for her powerful performances and exquisite musicianship.

Andrew Goodwin has appeared with opera companies in Europe, the UK, Asia and Australia, including the Bolshoi Opera, Gran Theatre Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, La Scala Milan, Opera Australia, Pinchgut Opera and Sydney Chamber Opera.

contralto

Fiona sings regularly as a principal artist with the major ensembles and orchestras in Australia and with Opera Australia, Opera Queensland and Pinchgut Opera. Her international collaborators have included the Brodsky Quartet, Tokyo Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Grange Park Opera and Opera North. Career highlights include several concerts with the legendary tenor José Carreras in Japan and Korea and as his special guest artist in Australia. Fiona has also been a touring favourite with Barbara Bonney, making her debut at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Cadogan Hall in London with the renowned international soprano.

tenor

He has performed with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, Moscow and Melbourne Chamber Orchestras, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and in recitals with pianist Daniel de Borah at Wigmore Hall, the Oxford Lieder, Port Fairy and Canberra International Music Festivals. This year, Andrew’s engagements include return invitations to the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra to record the orchestral works of FS Kelly, Melbourne Bach Choir (Evangelist, St Matthew Passion), Canberra International Music Festival (Evangelist, St John Passion), Huntington Festival as vocal soloist and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs (Dvořák Requiem). He will also continue his song recital partnership with Daniel de Borah.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus

In 2018, James Clayton sang Marcello (La bohème), Escamillo (Carmen), Leporello (Don Giovanni) and The Forrester (The Cunning Little Vixen) for West Australian Opera; he appeared in concert with the Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras and Orchestra Wellington. In 2019, he sings Germont (La traviata), Judge Turpin (Sweeney Todd) and the title role in Macbeth in Perth, The Forrester in Adelaide and Peter (Hansel and Gretel) in Melbourne.

For more than 50 years the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus has been the unstinting voice of the Orchestra’s choral repertoire. The MSO Chorus sings with the finest conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, Mark Wigglesworth, Bernard Labadie, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Manfred Honeck, and is committed to developing and performing new Australian and international choral repertoire.

bass

James made his Opera Australia debut as Baron Douphol in La traviata (in Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour) and his Japanese debut as Don Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte for Biwako Hall. 2016/2017 appearances included Tonio (Pagliacci) for Victorian Opera, Scully (The Riders) for West Australian Opera, Escamillo and the title role in The Mikado for New Zealand Opera.

MOZART’S REQUIEM | 20–22 June

James Clayton

Commissions include Brett Dean’s Katz und Spatz, Ross Edwards’ Mountain Chant, and Paul Stanhope’s Exile Lamentations. Recordings by the MSO Chorus have received critical acclaim. It has performed across Brazil and at the Cultura Inglese Festival in Sao Paolo, with The Australian Ballet, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, at the AFL Grand Final and at Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies.

Concert engagements have included Messiah and Le damnation du Faust (NZSO), Mass in Time of War and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria (TSO), Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 and Verdi’s Requiem (West Australian Symphony Orchestra).

MOZART’S REQUIEM | 20–22 June

Program Notes MAURICE RAVEL

(1875–1937)

Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) – Suite I. Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty II. Tom Thumb III. Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas

Warren Trevelyan-Jones MSO Chorus Master

Warren Trevelyan-Jones is the Head of Music at St James’, King Street in Sydney and is regarded as one of the leading choral conductors and choir trainers in Australia. Warren has had an extensive singing career as a soloist and ensemble singer in Europe, including nine years in the Choir of Westminster Abbey, and regular work with the Gabrieli Consort, Collegium Vocale (Ghent), the Taverner Consort, The Kings Consort, Dunedin Consort, The Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars. Warren is also Director of the Parsons Affayre, Founder and Co-Director of The Consort of Melbourne and, in 2001 with Dr Michael Noone, founded the Gramophone award-winning group Ensemble Plus Ultra. Warren is also a qualified music therapist.

IV. Conversations of Beauty and the Beast V. The Fairy Garden Ravel’s closeness to his family and his friendships with children belied the reputation he acquired among his contemporaries. The critic M.D. Calvocoressi, who became Ravel’s close friend, wrote of him: When one came into contact with him, the first impression was almost sure to be that of dryness and aloofness… He was endowed with a great capacity for indifference and also contempt, but – as one found out quite soon – as great a capacity for admiration; and I was to realise, a little later, that behind the cutting manner, the irony and the aloofness, there lurked an even greater capacity for affection. The Mother Goose Suite (Ma mère l’Oye, a set of five piano pieces for four hands, subtitled 5 pièces enfantines or ‘5 children’s pieces’) expressed Ravel’s affection for the two young children of his friends the Godebskis, to whom he dedicated the music: ‘…my young friends Mimi and Jean Godebski. My intention of evoking the poetry of childhood in these pieces naturally led me to simplify my style and thin out my writing.’ Geneviève Durony and Jeanne Leleu, aged six and seven respectively, gave the first public performance of the piano duet version at the Salle Gaveau in 1910.

Mademoiselle, When you are a great virtuoso and I an old fogy, covered with honours or else completely forgotten, you will perhaps have pleasant memories of having given an artist the rare satisfaction of hearing a work of his, of a rather unusual nature, interpreted exactly as it should be. Thank you a thousand times for your child-like and sensitive performance of Ma mère l’Oye. The music of the suite has the concentrated dimension of a child’s view. Ravel creates the illusion of reading or hearing vivid and gripping stories, lingering on every line, yet eager for the next event. In 1911 Ravel orchestrated the suite, and later turned the music into a ballet, adding a prelude, a new opening scene, and interludes connecting the individual numbers; this was performed in 1912. In either of these later forms, Ravel’s orchestration brings an even greater sophistication to the music, and in places a certain opulence. The title Mother Goose, and most of the stories, were taken by Ravel from Charles Perrault’s Contes de ma mère l’Oye (Tales of Mother Goose), published in 1697. Ravel included some quotations from the stories at the relevant points in the music. Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty is only 20 bars long, and bears no quotation. We can easily imagine the sleeping princess in the woods, and perhaps the sorrow of the courtiers as they contemplate her. Ravel had already composed a pavane for another princess, and this courtly dance of a slow, stately character, with its modal music, suggests the ‘once-upon-a time’ character of the stories.

Tom Thumb is prefaced with this quotation from Perrault’s tale: He believed that he would easily find his path by means of his breadcrumbs which he had scattered wherever he passed, but he was very surprised when he could not find a single crumb – the birds had come and eaten everything up. The changes in direction of the accompaniment, joined by solo oboe, depict Tom Thumb’s lost wandering, and the chirruping of the birds is suggested not only by the woodwind, but by a solo violin playing harmonics – a similarity of sound likely to trick the listener who is not watching the players. (Ravel loved this kind of deception.)

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Afterwards Ravel wrote to Leleu (a pupil of Marguerite Long and later a professor at the Paris Conservatoire):

The story Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas is from a collection by the Comtesse d’Aulnoy, contemporary and imitator of Perrault. A former princess has been made ugly by a wicked witch – hence her name, which means ‘Ugly Little Girl’. With a Green Serpent who had once been a handsome prince, she has sailed to the land of the Pagodas, tiny peoplelike articulated figurines, with bodies made of jewels and porcelain. Here the two travellers are restored to their former appearance and married. The scene described is the Empress’ bath: She undressed and stepped into the bath. Immediately the Pagodas and Pagodines began to sing and play their instruments: some had theorbos made of walnut shells, others had viols made of almond shells, for the instruments had to be made to their measure. The music, with its oriental features (use of the pentatonic scale and the gong) brilliantly evokes the exotic scene. The slithering Green Serpent is there, too. In Conversations of Beauty and the Beast, the voice of Beauty is represented by the clarinet and that of the beast by the contrabassoon. The conversations

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inscribed in the score are taken from the story by Marie Leprince de Beaumont: ‘ When I think how good-natured you are, you do not seem so ugly.’ ‘ Yes, I have indeed a kind heart, but I am a monster.’ ‘ There are many men more monstrous than you.’ ‘ If I had wit, I would invent a fine compliment to thank you, but I am only a beast.’ ‘Beauty, will you be my wife?’ ‘No, Beast!’ ‘ I die content since I have had the pleasure of seeing you one more time.’ ‘ No, my dearest Beast, you shall not die; you shall live to be my husband.’ The Beast had disappeared and she saw at her feet a Prince more handsome than the God of Love, thanking her for having ended his enchantment. The slow waltz music which forms the setting of this conversation is a tribute by Ravel to Erik Satie, composer of the Gymnopédies. In the scenario of the ballet, the final movement forms an apotheosis: Prince Charming finds the Princess asleep in The Fairy Garden. As the sun rises, she awakens; there is a joyous fanfare as the other characters gather around her and the Good Fairy blesses them all. The final movement of the suite, where only the title tells us that this is the fairy’s magical garden, is remarkable for the way Ravel rises so quickly and tellingly to a resplendent climax, in which his orchestration realises the fanfare imitations of the original piano version. © Symphony Australia The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite on 3 May 1954 under conductor Sir Bernard Heinze, and most recently in May 2014 with Nicholas Carter.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

(1756–1791)

Requiem in D minor, K626 [Completed by Franz Süssmayr] Movements, text and translation available on page 26. Joseph Haydn said that Mozart’s fame would be secure if he had written nothing but the Requiem, but it is a problematical work, which Mozart did not live to complete and whose origins are surrounded by mystery. Mozart, mortally ill and in a state of great excitement while composing it, chose the key of D minor: one associated with tragic drama in some of his greatest works, as in Don Giovanni; and with tenderness and pathos as well, as in the Piano Concerto in D minor. The terrifying drive of the Dies irae of this Requiem; the powerful rhythmic bite of the Rex tremendae, with its contrasting tender interjection ‘Salva me’; the furious Confutatis – all these are painted with the dramatic intensity of a composer who had become convinced that he was writing his own Requiem. The messenger in grey who had delivered a commission from an anonymous patron had become in Mozart’s mind an emissary of death. We now know that he was a servant of Count Walsegg zu Stuppach, an aristocratic amateur who liked to pass off music by professional composers as his own. Welcoming death as a friend, as in his letter of April 1787, is closer to Mozart’s Masonic outlook than to Catholic teaching. Masonic ritual and belief marked this Requiem in more ways than one. Yet it turns out that these words come from a book by the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and Mozart perhaps chose them as appropriate when writing to a father he knew to be fatally ill. In his letter of September 1791, the tone of resignation

Mozart’s Requiem contains, besides powerful drama and intensity, much music of great tenderness, and of a consoling pity. This music seems to express Mozart’s acceptance of the transcendent, the world beyond life and death. We find it also in the opera The Magic Flute, and in the Masonic music Mozart was composing at the same time as the Requiem. Mozart’s instrumentation reflects the two facets of the music: fierce, with trumpets and drums in the sterner sections, but coloured elsewhere by the mild and liquid tones of basset horns. Flutes, oboes and horns are banished (though whether this was Mozart’s intention for the whole work is uncertain). Mozart’s Requiem is a kind of summation of its models and counterparts in the music of his contemporaries and predecessors. Haydn’s admiration for the work was surely a tribute to the compact unity into which it succeeds in reconciling different styles and forms. Haydn himself followed this example when he wrote his last six masses in the 1790s. Like Mozart’s unfinished Great Mass in C minor K427, his Requiem is a cantata mass in the sense that the Sequence (Dies irae) is divided up into separate choral and solo ensemble movements. In the earlier Mass, each movement was developed on a massive scale, whether in enormous fugues or in Italianate chamber music arias – so much so that Mozart may have abandoned it precisely because he felt the result

lacked stylistic unity. In the Requiem, on the other hand, choral and solo movements are brought into balance with each other, and the solo writing has lost all traces of virtuosity for its own sake. In many respects the Requiem is backward looking, with Baroque elements, signs of the tremendous impact on Mozart of his study of the music of Bach and Handel, and also of his familiarity with works by less celebrated Austrian musicians. The Kyrie fugue, with the leap of a diminished seventh in its subject, reminds one of ‘And with his stripes’ from Messiah. The Rex tremendae has the dotted rhythms of a French overture, and its choral entries may have been suggested by the crashing chords of the opening chorus of Bach’s St John Passion. The use of Gregorian melodies, as at the words ‘Te decet hymnus’, was common in Austrian masses, and occurs in a strikingly similar way in a Requiem by Michael Haydn, brother of Joseph and a colleague of Mozart’s in Salzburg. This Requiem, which Mozart certainly heard 20 years before, came back to his mind, whether consciously or not, as he wrote his own setting. Michael Haydn’s is a remarkable and stern work, with resemblances to Mozart’s in content and in scoring: like Mozart, the younger Haydn banishes flutes, oboes and horns, and uses the three trombones characteristic of Salzburg, but not of Viennese church music. So the musical experience of Mozart’s youth and maturity fused, in the urgency of death’s imminence, into a testament of church music, a composition, writes Karl Geiringer, ‘as transcendental as it is human, as out of terror and guilt it leads us gently towards peace and salvation’. Mozart’s Requiem, then, is a treasure of artistic heritage, but it is a flawed masterpiece. Its unsatisfactory features stem from Mozart’s failure to complete it. More has been written about this

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with mild protest is probably closer to Mozart’s real feelings. Actually the Requiem itself is the best evidence – Mozart always reveals more of himself in music than in words. So great was his emotional involvement with the music of the Requiem that his anxious doctor had to take the manuscript from his hands. Hence the power and directness of those sections which are undoubtedly from his pen.

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problem, perhaps, than about any other aspect of Mozart’s work, and the details of the controversy are out of place in a program note. Nevertheless, a summary of the circumstances may help listeners to understand any disquiet they may experience. The manuscript shows that Mozart had completed the Introitus and Kyrie in full score. Some other sections are in a half-finished state, the vocal parts written in full, the instrumental parts sometimes complete, sometimes only sketched. These are: the Dies irae as far as the Lacrimosa, which breaks off in the eighth bar; the Domine Jesu Christe and Hostias. There is nothing of Mozart’s writing in the ending of the Lacrimosa, the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. Mozart’s widow was naturally anxious to collect the composition fee, and after other musicians had declined the task of completion she gave it to Franz Xavier Süssmayr, a pupil of Mozart’s who had assisted him with the Requiem and other late works. We do not know what sketches of Mozart’s he may have had to work from, partly because Constanze Mozart was keen to conceal the role of other hands in the finished Requiem. It seems unlikely, on the basis of Süssmayr’s original compositions, that he could have composed such a movement as the Benedictus unaided by any sketches by Mozart. It is not known whether the repetition of the Kyrie fugue for the ‘Cum sanctis tuis’ was his idea or Mozart’s.

The chief criticisms of Süssmayr’s completion concern the instrumentation and the filling out of inner parts. Some of the part-writing and distribution is inept and un-Mozartian; above all, the scoring of the entire work for the same instrumental palette is monotonous and often heavy. The trombones are used in inappropriate places and with a lack of restraint, but the tenor trombone solo in the Tuba mirum is undoubtedly Mozart’s

even though it gives the impression, as Alfred Einstein says, that the player is showing off his own skill rather than announcing the Last Judgment. The extent of Süssmayr’s contribution has always been a matter of controversy, and scholars incline to the view that it was less than used to be thought. For better or for worse, Mozart’s Requiem is with us in a form partly determined by Süssmayr, and in that form it has remained, ever since the early 19th century, one of his most admired and loved works. One of the wisest and most knowledgeable students of music of the Classical era, H.C. Robbins Landon, has illuminatingly compared the Requiem to a great building which we know was not completed as its designer intended, but which to change would destroy a view dear and close to us. © David Garrett The MSO first performed Mozart’s Requiem on 6 March 1956 with conductor Sir Bernard Heinze and soloists Glenda Raymond (soprano), Anne Levin (mezzo-soprano), Max Worthley (tenor), Robert Payne (bass), and the Melbourne University Choral Society. Richard Egarr conducted the Orchestra’s most recent performance on 21 July 2017; the soloists were Sara Macliver, Fiona Campbell, Andrew Goodwin and Christopher Richardson, with the MSO Chorus.

REPETITEUR Dobbs Franks SOPRANO Philippa Allen Julie Arblaster Aviva Barazani Anne-Marie Brownhill Eva Butcher Aliz Cole Ella Dann-Limon Samantha Davies Michele de Courcy Maureen Doris Laura Fahey Rita Fitzgerald Catherine Folley Susan Fone Camilla Gorman Georgie Grech Aurora Harmathy Juliana Hassett Penny Huggett Gwen Kennelly Anna Kidman Maya Kraj-Krajewski Natasha Lambie Maggie Liang Judy Longbottom Ann Ng Susie Novella Karin Otto Jodie Paxton Tanja Redl Natalie Reid Beth Richardson Janelle Richardson Mhairi Riddet Jo Robin Jodi Samartgis Jillian Samuels Lydia Sherren Jemima Sim Shu Xian Freja Soininen Chiara Stebbing Emily Swanson Elizabeth Tindall

Fabienne Vandenburie Ivy Weng Tara Zamin

ALTO Satu Aho Ruth Anderson Emma Anvari Catherine Bickell Cecilia Björkegren Kate Bramley Jane Brodie Elize Brozgul Alexandra Cameron Serena Carmel Alexandra Chubaty Nicola Eveleigh Lisa Faulks Jill Giese Natasha Godfrey Jillian Graham Debbie Griffiths Emma Hamley Ros Harbison Sue Hawley Jennifer Henry Kristine Hensel Joy Lukman Aude Mallet Christina McCowan Rosemary McKelvie Charlotte Midson Stephanie Mitchell Penelope Monger Sandy Nagy Catriona NguyenRobertson Nicole Paterson Natasha Pracejus Alison Ralph Mair Roberts Maya Tanja Rodingen Helen Rommelaar Lisa Savige Julienne Seal Helen Staindl Libby Timcke Emma Warburton

TENOR James Allen Kent Borchard Steve Burnett Peter Campbell Matthew Castle Peter Clay John Cleghorn Keaton Cloherty Geoffrey Collins James Dipnall David Floyd Simon Gaites David Henley Lyndon Horsburgh Julian Jones Wayne Kinrade Jessop Maticevski Shumack Michael Mobach Jean-Francois Ravat Colin Schultz Nathan Guan Kiat Teo Tim Wright

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MSO Symphony Orchestra Chorus | Mozart’s Requiem

BASS Maurice Amor Alexandras Bartaska Richard Bolitho Ted Davies Peter Deane Andrew Hibbard Joseph Hie Jordan Janssen Gary Levy Douglas McQueenThomson Steven Murie Vern O’Hara Alexander Owens Stephen Pyk Nick Sharman Liam Straughan Tom Turnbull Foon Wong Ned Wright-Smith Maciek Zielinski

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Text and Translation I. INTROIT

CHORUS AND SOPRANO SOLO

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

and may light perpetual shine upon them.

Te decet hymnus Deus in Sion,

To you, O God, praise is given in Zion,

et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.

and prayer shall go up to you in Jerusalem.

Exaudi orationem meam,

Give ear to my supplication,

ad te omnis caro veniet.

to you shall all flesh come.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

and may light perpetual shine upon them.

II. KYRIE CHORUS

Kyrie eleison.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christe eleison.

Christ, have mercy upon us.

Kyrie eleison.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

III. SEQUENTIA – DIES IRAE Dies irae CHORUS

Dies irae, dies illa,

The Day of Wrath, that day

Solvet saeclum in favilla,

shall dissolve the world in ashes,

Teste David cum Sibylla,

as David and the Sibyl testify.

Quantus tremor est futurus,

What trembling shall there be

Quando judex est venturus,

when the Judge shall come

Cuncta stricte discussurus!

who shall thresh out all thoroughly!

Tuba mirum SOLO QUARTET

Tuba mirum spargens sonum

The trumpet, scattering a wondrous

Per sepulcra regionum,

sound through the tombs of all lands,

Coget omnes ante thronum.

shall drive all unto the throne.

Mors stupebit et natura

Death and nature shall be astounded

Cum resurget creatura

when all creation shall rise again

Judicanti responsura.

to answer the judge.

Liber scriptus proferetur

A written book shall be brought forth

In quo totum continetur

in which shall be contained all

Unde mundus judicetur.

for which the world shall be judged.

And therefore when the Judge shall sit,

Quidquid latet apparebit:

whatsoever is hidden shall be manifest:

Nil inultum remanebit.

and nothing shall remain unavenged.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,

What shall I say in my misery?

Quem patronum rogaturus,

Whom shall I ask to be my advocate,

Cum vix justus sit securus?

When scarcely the righteous may be without fear?

Rex tremendae CHORUS

Rex tremendae majestatis,

King of awful majesty,

Qui salvandos salvas gratis;

you who freely save the redeemed;

Salva me, fons pietatis.

save me, O Fount of Pity.

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Judex ergo cum sedebit

Recordare SOLO QUARTET

Recordare, Jesu pie,

Remember, merciful Jesus,

Quod sum causa tuae viae

that I am the reason for your journey,

Ne me perdas illa die.

let me not be lost on that day.

Quaerens me sedisti lassus

Seeking me, you sat weary.

Redemisti crucem passus;

You redeemed me, suffering the Cross:

Tantus labor non sit cassus.

let not such labour have been in vain.

Juste judex ultionis,

O just Judge of Vengeance,

Donum fac remissionis

give the gift of redemption

Ante diem rationis.

before the day of reckoning.

Ingemisco tamquam reus:

I groan as one guilty;

Culpa rubet vultus meus.

my face blushes at my sin.

Supplicanti parce, Deus.

Spare the supplicant, O God.

Qui Mariam absolvisti

You who absolved Mary

Et latronem exaudisti,

and heard the prayer of the thief,

Mihi quoque spem dedisti.

you have also given hope to me.

Preces meae non sunt dignae,

My prayers are not worthy,

Sed tu, bonus, fac benigne,

but you, O good one, show mercy,

Ne perenni cremer igne.

lest I burn in everlasting fire.

Inter oves locum praesta

Give me a place among the sheep,

Et ab haedis me sequestra,

and separate me from the goats,

Statuens in parte dextra.

setting me on the right hand.

Please turn pages quietly

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Confutatis CHORUS

Confutatis maledictis,

When the damned are confounded

Flammis acribus addictis,

and consigned to sharp flames,

voca me cum benedictis.

call me with the blessed.

Oro supplex et acclinis,

I pray, kneeling in supplication,

Cor contritum quasi cinis,

a heart as contrite as ashes,

Gere curam mei finis.

take my ending into your care.

Lacrimosa CHORUS

Lacrimosa dies illa

That day is one of weeping

Qua resurget ex favilla

on which shall rise again from the ashes

Judicandus homo reus.

guilty humankind, to be judged.

Huic ergo parce, Deus.

Therefore spare this one, O God.

Pie Jesu Domine:

Merciful Lord Jesus:

Dona eis requiem. Amen.

Grant them rest. Amen.

IV. OFFERTORIUM

Domine Jesu Christe CHORUS AND SOLO QUARTET

Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae,

O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,

libera animas omnium fidelium

deliver the souls of all the departed faithful

defunctorum de poenis inferni,

from the torments of Hell,

et de profundo lacu;

and from the deep pit;

libera eas de ore leonis,

deliver them from the mouth of the lion;

ne absorbeat eas Tartarus,

that Hell may not swallow them up,

ne cadant in obscurum.

and that they may not fall into darkness.

Sed signifer sanctus Michael

But may the holy standard-bearer Michael

repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam.

bring them into the holy light;

Quam olim Abrahae promisisti,

which thou didst promise of old to Abraham

et semini ejus.

and his seed.

Hostias CHORUS

Hostias et preces tibi, Domine,

We offer unto you, O Lord,

laudis offerimus.

sacrifices and prayers of praise.

Tu suscipe pro animabus illis,

Receive them on behalf of those souls

quarum hodie memoriam facimus.

whom we commemorate today.

Fac eas, Domine,

Make them, O Lord,

de morte transire ad vitam.

to cross over from death to life,

Quam olim Abrahae promisisti,

as once you promised to Abraham

et semini ejus.

and his seed.

CHORUS

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus,

Holy, holy, holy,

Dominus Deus Sabaoth.

Lord God of Hosts.

Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in excelsis.

Hosanna in the highest.

VI. BENEDICTUS

SOLO QUARTET AND CHORUS

Benedictus qui venit

Blessed is the one who comes

in nomine Domini.

in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in excelsis.

Hosanna in the highest.

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V. SANCTUS

VII. AGNUS DEI CHORUS

Agnus Dei

Lamb of God,

qui tollis peccata mundi;

you who take away the sins of the world,

dona eis requiem sempiternam.

give them eternal rest.

VIII. COMMUNIO

SOPRANO SOLO AND CHORUS

Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine,

Let everlasting light shine on them,

cum sanctis tuis in aeternum

O Lord, with your saints for ever:

quia pius es.

for you are good.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

and let light perpetual shine upon them,

Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum:

with your saints forever;

quia pius es.

for you are good.

The Pizzicato Effect by Sylvia Hosking, Program Manager, The Pizzicato Effect MSO’s flagship community program The Pizzicato Effect opens up the world of music to children living in the City of Hume. Now in its 10th year, The Pizzicato Effect provides tuition and instruments to eligible students twice weekly after school. In 2019, 72 students attend Meadows Primary School (our wonderfully supportive host school) from 28 different schools across the area, and we have a waiting list of eager would-be students. These children come from 14 different cultural backgrounds, and speak 11 different languages – a rich cultural environment for all!

At the beginning of 2019 I stepped into the role of Program Manager, a very different world from my life in the Orchestra as Assistant Principal Double Bass for the last 20 years. Since a back injury made professional playing impossible, my desire to provide for others what I was privileged to enjoy has been paramount. What an opportunity to use the skills, knowledge and love

of my craft with young people! I am absolutely committed to providing Pizzi students with the most professional and nurturing music education experience, as well as exceptional performance opportunities. Future plans include student workshops with MSO musicians, and bringing the students’ music into their community, including a performance in July at the Baptcare Aged Care Residence in Westmeadows. Music education develops many skills, including goal setting, focus, selfmanagement, discipline – and most importantly to us at the MSO – a deep connection with music. There is such a wonderful network in Melbourne and we are well-placed to support our enthusiastic students in their pursuits. Thanks to Melbourne Youth Orchestras’ generous commitment, we are able to send 10 students fully-funded to the weekly Saturday music program, and others to the intensive week-long Summer School program in January.

We are so proud to say that we make a difference in the lives of children who simply would not have received a musical education without The Pizzicato Effect. Last year we received a generous donation of a violin and a clarinet from Chris Long, as well as a large donation of instruments from Mr Yang Xiao. The cost of hiring instruments is well over $10,000 – one of the major costs for our program. We hope to focus more on ensuring our students have opportunities to attend MSO concerts in the heart of Melbourne. We are also excited to become more self-sufficient, enabling us to engage in the inspiring work of creating a musical community where there was none, and to support our young musicians and families to add more meaning and value to their lives through music. One such musician is Esra Cinar, the current recipient of a beautiful donated violin known as the Baxter instrument, which is named after its donor. This instrument is loaned to a promising young violinist to use for 12 months during their time in a more advanced group in the program. This opens the young musician’s ears to a quality instrument, and encourages them to seek out their own instrument where possible, to see them through their journey after they have left us. Esra reflects on her experience at The Pizzicato Effect:

‘ Playing the violin calms me down from

the stress I face from school – I don’t think about my problems. I usually feel quite calm and at peace whilst playing my instrument, though sometimes I do feel stressed when I know that if I don’t perfect a specific piece of music I’m playing, it might mess up a whole piece! The Pizzicato Effect has made positive changes to my life, and I am very happy to have made new friends in the program. I have definitely been happier to do something other

Above: Esra Cinar before her concert with Melbourne Youth Orchestra at Hamer Hall Opposite: Cello students and siblings Tom and Elsa Hawes concentrating during a cello tutorial. Photo credit: Laura Manariti

than homework and spend time on technological devices! Playing the violin is a great way to end my day. I am so glad to have been introduced to more musical genres such as classical music and jazz, which I spend a lot of time listening to. Without The Pizzicato Effect I would not have been able to learn the violin; I feel very lucky and privileged to have been given the beautiful Baxter violin for two semesters, and hope to continue to enjoy music as a hobby in the future.’ The Pizzicato Effect Teaching Artists and staff are continually inspired by their work and the development of the children in the program. The musical and personal maturity that develops is the greatest reward for our dedicated team. Upcoming performances include our Mid-Year Concert on 26 June at our home, Meadows Primary School. Please be in touch if you would like further information. https://www.mso.com.au/education/ the-pizzicato-effect

If you would like to support The Pizzicato Effect program, please visit mso.com.au/support

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto 28 June 2019 | 7.30pm 29 June 2019 | 7.30pm 1 July 2019 | 6.30pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Jakub Hrůša conductor Vadim Gluzman violin DVOŘÁK The Wood Dove [19'] TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto

[33']

— INTERVAL — MUSSORGSKY (orch. Ravel) Pictures at an Exhibition [30']

Running time: approximately two hours including a 20 minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. Pre-concert talk: 28 & 29 June at 6.15pm, Hamer Hall Learn more about the performance at a pre-concert presentation with writer and founder of Rehearsal magazine, Megan Steller. Post-concert conversation: 1 July following performance, Hamer Hall Stalls Foyer Join composer and ABC Classic producer, Andrew Aronowicz, for a conversation about the performance.

Vadim Gluzman

Jakub Hrůša is Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. He has close relationships with orchestras such as Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony.

Vadim Gluzman appears regularly with major orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Orchestre de Paris. Recent appearances include the US premiere of Auerbach’s The Infant Minstrel and His Peculiar Menagerie. Latest recordings include a Brahms disc featuring the violin concerto with James Gaffigan and the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and Prokofiev violin concertos with Neeme Järvi and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. He is Distinguished Artist in Residence at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute.

conductor

The 2018–19 season saw debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony and NHK Orchestra, Tokyo. In opera he has conducted such works as The Makropolos Case at Vienna State Opera and Puccini’s Il trittico at Frankfurt Opera. He has appeared regularly at Glyndebourne. Jakub Hrůša’s recordings include Smetana’s Má vlast with the Bamberg Symphony and Concertos for Orchestra by Bartók and Kodály with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Originally from Brno, Jakub Hrůša studied conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

violin

TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONERTO | 28 June – 1 July

Jakub Hrůša

Born in the former USSR, Vadim Gluzman began violin at age 7. Before moving to Israel in 1990, where he was a student of Yair Kless, he studied with Roman Sne in Latvia and Zakhar Bron in Russia. In the US his teachers were Arkady Fomin and, at the Juilliard School, Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki. He plays the 1690 ‘ex-Leopold Auer’ Stradivari, on extended loan to him through the generosity of the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONERTO | 28 June – 1 July

Program Notes ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

(1841–1904)

The Wood Dove, B.198 (Op.110) Dvořák’s music was always informed by his Bohemian heritage, but his mature orchestral work was ‘absolute music’ in the classical sense. Only in the 1890s did he compose programmatic symphonic poems based on Czech legend, using four ballads from a collection by Karel Jaromír Erben, published in 1853, as his source: The Water Goblin, The Noon Witch, The Golden Spinning-Wheel and The Wood (or Wild) Dove. As is the way with ballads, things almost never end well. (The exception is The Golden Spinning-Wheel wherein the protagonists live happily ever after.) The Noon Witch and The Water Goblin both depict stories which result in the untimely death of a child, and The Wood Dove tells of marital betrayal and murder. The piece is divided into five sections. The first, marked Andante, Marcia funebre, depicts a crying young widow following a coffin. Lugubrious horn calls and drum taps develop into a stately march with a folk-infused melody, interrupted by dark hymnal chords. As it goes on, falling chromatic figures may represent grieving outbursts from the widow.

Distant fanfares introduce the second section, marked Allegro – Andante, in which, Dvořák notes, ‘a jovial, handsome young man meets her; he comforts her, persuading her to forget her grief and take him as her husband’. The initial reminiscences of the grief music become fewer, indicating that the widow’s heart has been won; and in a third section, Molto vivace – which gives way to an Allegretto grazioso, ‘the young widow soon stops mourning and celebrates a gay wedding with the

young man’. This dancing and merrymaking, drawing on Dvořák’s deep love of folk music, is depicted in ecstatic orchestration. A brief passage of calm happiness follows, but dark rumblings set the scene for the fourth section, marked Andante: ‘From the branches of a fresh green oak that overshadows the grave of her first husband, whom she has poisoned, the mournful cooing of the wood dove is heard. The melancholy sounds pierce to the heart of the treacherous woman, who, tormented by pangs of conscience, becomes insane and drowns herself in the waves.’ The Wood Dove itself is rendered in flute, oboe and harp curlicues against this brief, impressionist texture which recalls to the woman, in music derived from the opening, the time of her marriage. The woman’s suicide comes speedily and violently, and the piece concludes with a longish Andante, in the opening tempo. This Epilogue acts as a symphonic recapitulation, while underlining the pathos of the tale with plaintive cor anglais solos, wind chorales and the dove’s cooing in the distance. The Wood Dove was premiered in Brno in 1898, conducted by the composer Leoš Janáček. Gordon Kerry © 2019 This is the first performance of The Wood Dove by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

(1840–1893)

Violin Concerto in D, Op.35 Allegro moderato – Moderato assai Canzonetta (Andante) Finale (Allegro vivacissimo) Vadim Gluzman violin In the winter of 1877 Tchaikovsky was in love. He wrote to his brother Modest about the ‘unimaginable force’ of the passion that had developed; its object

Within three weeks of discovering Kotek’s new relationship, Tchaikovsky made his fateful proposal to Antonina Milyukova, a former Conservatorium student who had fallen in love with him. They married two months later, and as the depth of their cultural and personal differences became clear, Tchaikovsky left his wife two months after that. Milyukova, incidentally, was not the deranged harpy that histories (or myth) have made of her. Her mental health degenerated only many years after Tchaikovsky’s death (and a subsequent happy relationship which produced children) and she never spoke ill of Tchaikovsky during his life or after his death. He realised that he had treated her abominably, and saw to it that she was financially secure for the rest of her life. Kotek and Tchaikovsky remained friends, however, and the Violin Concerto seems to have grown out of a promise that the composer made to write a piece for one of Kotek’s upcoming concerts. ‘We spoke,’ Tchaikovsky told his brother, ‘of the piece he ordered me to write…He repeated over and over that he would get angry if I didn’t write this piece.’ While Kotek was not, ultimately, the dedicatee or first performer of the work, he was of enormous help to Tchaikovsky in playing through sections of the piece as the composer finished them.

After leaving his wife, Tchaikovsky travelled extensively in western Europe. Tchaikovsky worked on the Violin Concerto in Switzerland in early 1878, not long after completing the Fourth Symphony and the opera Eugene Onegin. Commentators are generally agreed that both of those works reflect Tchaikovsky’s emotional reactions to the traumatic events of his marriage, though the composer himself was careful, in a letter to Mme von Meck, to point out that one could only depict such states in retrospect. In any event, it seems likely that, apart from honouring a promise to Kotek, Tchaikovsky found the conventions of the violin concerto offered a way of writing a large-scale work without the personal investment of the opera and symphony.

TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONERTO | 28 June – 1 July

was a young violinist and student at the Moscow Conservatorium, Josef Kotek. Tchaikovsky had known ‘this wonderful youth’ for about six years. In 1876 Kotek had also acted as a go-between for Tchaikovsky and his new patron, Nadezhda von Meck, who eschewed any face-to-face contact with the composer. Kotek was a devoted but platonic friend to Tchaikovsky, but predictably enough, soon became besotted with a fellow (female) student.

Like the great concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, Tchaikovsky’s is in D major and in three substantial movements. The first develops two characteristic themes within a tracery of brilliant virtuoso writing for the violin, and like Mendelssohn in his concerto, Tchaikovsky places the solo cadenza before the recapitulation of the opening material. As in the slow movement of the Fourth Symphony, the central Canzonetta works its magic by the deceptively simple repetition of its material. The work concludes with a ‘Slavic’ Finale which is interrupted only by a motif for solo oboe. The work was initially dedicated to the virtuoso Leopold Auer, who thought it far too difficult and refused to play it. In 1881 Adolf Brodsky gave the premiere in Vienna, where that city’s most feared critic, Eduard Hanslick, tore the piece to shreds: The violin is no longer played; it is pulled, torn, drubbed…We see plainly the savage vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell vodka…Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.

TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONERTO | 28 June – 1 July

Hanslick, like many a music critic, made a bad call; Tchaikovsky had written one of the best loved works of the concerto repertoire. Gordon Kerry © 2003 The MSO first performed this concerto on 21 May 1938 with conductor George Szell and soloist Lionel Lawson, and most recently on 22 and 23 June 2018 with Sir Andrew Davis and Anne-Sophie Mutter.

MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839–1881) (orch. Maurice Ravel)

Pictures at an Exhibition Promenade Gnome Promenade The Old Castle Promenade Tuileries – Children quarrelling at play Bydlo Promenade Ballet of the Unhatched Chickens ‘Samuel’ Goldenburg and ‘Schmuÿle’ Limoges Market Catacombs – Roman sepulchres With the dead in a dead language The Hut on Hen’s Legs – Baba-Yaga The Great Gate of Kiev Modest Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition as a set of piano pieces. They were his memorial to a friend, the 39-year-old artist Victor Hartmann, who had died of a heart attack in 1873. Mussorgsky had met Hartmann in 1870, when the artist had been brought into Mussorgsky’s circle by the critic Vladimir Stasov. ‘Grief, grief!’ cried Mussorgsky, at news of Hartmann’s death: …this talentless fool of a death mows on, without considering whether there is any necessity for his accursed

visit…I would understand if talents sprouted like mushrooms…What might Hartmann not have done!… Poor, orphaned Russian art. The following year, 1874, Stasov mounted an exhibition of about 400 of Hartmann’s works – paintings, drawings, designs and jewellery. He suggested that Mussorgsky assuage his grief in some sort of memorial, and it was this exhibition which inspired Mussorgsky to produce what became the piano work Pictures at an Exhibition, a set of ‘tone-portraits’ based on a selection of Hartmann’s works. It was completed on 26 June 1874. There have been various orchestrations of Pictures over the years: RimskyKorsakov, Stokowski, and Vladimir Ashkenazy are among those who have tried their hands. It is said that ‘the large number of arrangements … indicates the essentially orchestral nature of Mussorgsky’s [pianism].’ The most famous orchestration, however, is that by Maurice Ravel. For Ravel, the act of orchestrating was an important occupation, and this may explain why he is one of the great orchestral colourists. He also had an affinity with Mussorgsky’s music and with Russian music in general. By the time he came to orchestrate Pictures in 1922, he and Stravinsky had already completed Mussorgsky’s unfinished opera Khovanshchina for the impresario Sergei Diaghilev. But Ravel also orchestrated the music of others – Debussy, Schumann and Chabrier. He pursued this type of engagement with the music of others with a strong inner conviction. H.H. Stuckenschmidt likened it to the ‘kind of aesthetic association that otherwise only the art of the actor or the singer enjoys’. Some say that Ravel’s orchestration presents a travel-brochure Russia. His orchestration is spicy, lurid, exotic. ‘His’

Pictures at an Exhibition begins with the Promenade, an introduction in a varying 5/4 and 6/4 metre, meant to represent the composer himself wandering around looking at the paintings. What begins as a single line followed by chords in the piano original is presented as a solo trumpet followed by tutti brass and, later, massed strings and winds, providing altered perspectives. Gnome is inspired by Hartmann’s design for a small gnome-shaped nutcracker. The Old Castle is based on a watercolour of a troubadour singing before a medieval castle. In an inspired piece of orchestration, Ravel gives the principal melody to alto saxophone. Ravel opts predominantly for winds to depict children quarrelling at play in Tuileries, based on Hartmann’s watercolour of one corner of the famous French garden. Bydlo, Polish for ‘cattle’, refers to a drawing of two oxen pulling a heavy cart. Listening to the piano original with its heavy bass chords and opening fortissimo, one is reminded of the realist Mussorgsky’s attempts at pantomimic accuracy. Ravel, however, aims for a different effect. His Bydlo begins as a distant forlorn tuba solo which builds with the addition of other instruments before returning to solo tuba – as if the cart has passed on its way. Ballet of the Unhatched Chickens is based on costume designs for the ballet Trilby. The dancers’ legs stick out from

the shells. Ravel’s clacking winds conjure the image of farmyard activity. ‘Samuel’ Goldenburg and ‘Schmuÿle’ is often presented with Stasov’s sanitised title: Two Jews – One Rich, the other Poor, but, according to Richard Taruskin, Mussorgsky’s intention was definitely unflattering, which is backed up by the fact that no Hartmann picture by that name exists. The stuttering muted trumpet solo here is often used as an orchestral audition piece. Ravel removed a Promenade which originally occurred between ‘Samuel’ Goldenberg and ‘Schmuÿle’ and Limoges Market. In Catacombs Hartmann painted himself, the architect Kenel and a guide with a lantern exploring the Paris catacombs. The orchestration is almost brutally simple. Catacombs moves into With the Dead in a Dead Language. We hear a variation of the Promenade theme, with oboes playing against sepulchral-sounding high string tremolos. Mussorgsky wrote on the piano score: ‘Hartmann’s creative spirit leads me to the place of skulls and calls to them – the skulls begin to glow faintly from within.’

TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONERTO | 28 June – 1 July

Gnome, for example, (brittle xylophone, tart trumpet, eerie string glissandos) is prettier than Mussorgsky’s original. Yet, so assured is Ravel’s orchestration, that one almost believes Pictures at an Exhibition to be his conception to begin with. We listen to Mussorgsky’s piano version and ask, what better choices could an orchestrator have made?

The Hut on Hen’s Legs refers to a Hartmann design for a clock face in the form of Baba-Yaga, the witch in Russian folk tales, who lives in a hut mounted on the legs of a giant fowl. The Great Gate of Kiev, Hartmann’s architectural design for a structure to commemorate Alexander II’s escape from assassination, provides the inspiration for a massive blazing finale. G.K. Williams Symphony Australia © 1999/2001 The MSO first performed Pictures at an Exhibition in July 1938 under conductor Percy Code, and most recently in September 2015 with Benjamin Northey.

Rachmaninov 3 3 July 2019 | 11am Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Kirill Karabits conductor MOZART The Marriage of Figaro: Overture RACHMANINOV Symphony No.3

[4'] [38']

Running time: approximately one hour with no interval. Timings listed are approximate. MSO Mornings is supported by Ryman Healthcare.

RACHMANINOV 3 | 3 July

Kirill Karabits conductor

Kirill Karabits is Chief Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, with whom he has been recording an award-winning Prokofiev cycle. He is also General Music Director and Principal Conductor of the German National Theatre and Staatskapelle Weimar. His first production with them as Music Director was The Mastersingers of Nuremberg in November 2016. He has worked with leading orchestras such as the San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Orchestra Filarmonica del Teatro La Fenice and Russian National Orchestra. Recent appearances have included the world premiere of Ludger Vollmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opera The Circle in Weimar and Boris Godunov with the Deutsche Opera, Berlin. Working with the next generation of bright musicians is of great importance to Karabits. He is Artistic Director of the I, CULTURE Orchestra. He was named Conductor of the Year at the 2013 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards.

RACHMANINOV 3 | 3 July

Program Notes WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

(1756–1791)

The Marriage of Figaro: Overture In The Barber of Seville, Figaro the resourceful barber eventually assisted Count Almaviva to marry the lovely Rosina. The Marriage of Figaro (or, One Mad Day) is Beaumarchais’ sequel: the Count is beginning to stray, in this case towards his wife’s maid (and Figaro’s fiancée) Susanna. This opera begins on Figaro and Susanna’s wedding day… but it’s a long way to the altar! The libretto is a study in classic characters – the perky soubrette Susanna, the lecherous Count, the languishing Countess, Cherubino (the type of boy who these days would be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder), manipulative and manipulated Figaro, grasping Bartolo and Marcellina…

Mozart’s overtures served to attract the audience’s attention away from each other’s latest fashions and intrigues. A notable overture was a chance to set the mood for enjoyment, a little like today’s warm-up act for a comedy show. During the time Mozart was writing, it was not the common practice to use themes from the opera in the overture, as if to offer a musical sample-bag of what’s to come. That sort of overture was more likely to appear in the mid-19th century. With the overture to The Marriage of Figaro, however, it’s impossible not to suspect that the eloquently drawn operatic characters were influencing the composer in subtler ways. It opens with strings in a conspiratorial sort of motif, doubled by bassoon (an instrument frequently associated with elderly male comic entities such as Dr Bartolo). This is answered by an urbane phrase from the winds, such as might represent the

Count’s self-confidence. Or, perhaps, the scene is being set for the Upstairs/ Downstairs story that so shocked its early audiences. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose in a fortissimo orchestral tutti that calls to mind the fast-paced farcical concealment and escape scene that ends Act II. Equally suddenly, the conspiratorial theme returns, this time with a countermelody in the high winds that hints at the Countess’ sorrow. Each of these ideas is developed, modified, restated and interwoven, just as the plot entwines an eventual total of 11 characters! For the final section of the overture, Mozart seizes on the relatively unimportant motif of a descending scale and extends it, driving the energy onwards and up to the rising curtain. Katherine Kemp © Symphony Australia The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed the overture from The Marriage of Figaro on 24 September 1938 under Sir Malcolm Sargent, and most recently on 1 April 2017 with Benjamin Northey.

SERGEI RACHMANINOV

(1873–1943)

Symphony No.3 Lento – Allegro moderato Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro vivace – Adagio Allegro The Romantic melancholy that is supposed to pervade Rachmaninov’s music is not at all the over-riding emotion of his Third Symphony. Rather this, his first symphonic essay since 1908, is rhythmically taut, melodically suave and, harmonically, relatively astringent. It may be enough to say, in other words, that it does not inhabit the same lush world as that of, say, the Second Piano Concerto. But that is to short-

The Op.39 Etudes tableaux of 1917, his last major work for solo piano before leaving Russia, point the way towards a newer style – inimitably rhapsodic, yes, but much broader in its emotional implications, particularly in fleet-footed musical settings, than in many of his earlier works. A considerable span of years would elapse before he would follow this new direction more fully. Now 44 years old, his decision to settle in the West – specifically, at least for the time being, the United States – meant a flight from his homeland with his family, the loss of his estates and Russian income and a seismic career shift from composer / pianist / conductor to concert pianist. The massive effort involved in the creation of a new life for himself was not conducive to the creation of new music. Through a combination of the new discipline required to maintain his performing career, a frenetic performance schedule and the effort involved in acclimatising to a new culture while lamenting the one he left behind, he also made it known that he was incapable of composition. ‘How can I compose without melody?’ he told his friend, fellow composer Nicholas Medtner. To a correspondent he wrote: ‘To begin something new seems unattainably difficult.’ Yet beneath this façade of despair he never gave up on the idea of composing, and in the 1925/26 concert season gave himself a sabbatical. Always paranoically insecure about his own music, Rachmaninov began work on his Fourth Piano Concerto in secret during this self-imposed exile from the concert platform. But the failure of this work with public and critics led

to another long period of silence, broken five years later with the Variations on a theme of Corelli, his first solo piano work composed in the West. These too failed to find an audience. He finally created a piece of great public and critical appeal in 1934, with his Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, and, on a rare compositional ‘high’, began work on the Third Symphony in June 1935.

RACHMANINOV 3 | 3 July

change both works. Any composer’s musical development is complex to trace: Rachmaninov’s was waylaid and irrevocably altered by personal upheaval and a major shift in his musical career.

Rachmaninov was described by Stravinsky as a ‘very old’ composer. In the 1930s he was what might be called a progressive conservative. Had he repeated himself – created replicas of his old pre-revolutionary ‘hits’ such as the Second and Third Concertos and the Second Symphony – his American audiences would probably have been delighted. But he re-thought his musical language in a manner that alienated both audiences and critics. The supple, gently pulsating melody which opens this symphony’s first movement, for example, is a case study of the subtleties in the work that puzzled its first audiences and annoyed critics. (Rachmaninov was a fine conductor, too, and, in his recording of this work, he brings to this theme a uniquely ‘breathing’ rubato.) The twin gods of contemporary music, Stravinsky and Schoenberg, had made the critical fraternity impatient with a composer who used a highly chromatic tonal idiom to convey emotional expression, no matter how subtly. The passage that leads to the next major melodic idea suggests that we are going to be treated to a full-blown Romantic ‘love theme’. But the gently lyrical, artfully shaped theme we hear confounds these expectations. The development section likewise, with the thematic fragments darting hither and thither with great rhythmic freedom between the bassoons, the percussion, muted trumpets and the quick march for the strings, is hardly the Rachmaninov

RACHMANINOV 3 | 3 July

of old. Still, nobody was listening. The piece received reviews ranging from the hostile to the polite in the USA; then, after its London premiere, the critic Richard Capell referred to Rachmaninov building palaces that nobody wanted to live in. Of course Rachmaninov was not interested in being ‘up to date’, and in fact expressed a general disdain for new music, but the Third Symphony illustrates that he had his own internal impulses that made it impossible for him to stagnate. The first movement is constructed in a highly conventional sonata form – there is even an exposition repeat (not always observed). The innovations here lie in the newer, subtler quality of his harmonic ideas, a much greater freedom in his writing for the woodwind, brass and percussion instruments independently, and the interplay he creates between them. The second movement is a different matter. Here Rachmaninov telescopes the idea of slow movement and scherzo together with great beauty and vividness, beginning with a rhapsodic succession of short lyrical ideas – a Bardic transformation of the first movement’s main theme for solo horn with harp accompaniment, then the ‘slow’ movement’s main theme for solo violin, which is in turn given to the flute, to be worked out passionately by the strings. It might appear at first hearing that he divides the movement neatly in half, as a scurrying passage on the strings introduces a figure of martial demeanour (that actually alternates between duple and triple metre). But the lyrical music returns by way of a brilliant tremolo passage. There is tremendous passion here but scored with great clarity and precision. This transparency of sound, which now seems so captivating in Rachmaninov’s later music, seemed only to bewilder the

work’s first audiences. After all, he was not really a ‘modern’ composer, was he? The finale of the Second Symphony found Rachmaninov in unbuttoned mood and the Third Symphony’s finale opens in the same spirit. But the succession of ideas is rapid and restless, now epically Romantic (a gorgeous lyrical theme for strings divisi), now gently comic (a characterful bassoon solo), now propulsive (a dashing fugue). It soon becomes clear that rhythmic drive and orchestral virtuosity are Rachmaninov’s greatest interests here. In fact you might leave this concert remembering how much swiftly moving music this symphony contains relative to its length. Certainly, the third movement’s final pages, rhythmically scintillating and scored with enormous skill, are a superb demonstration of how vital a composer Rachmaninov was in his 60s. It was his tragedy to be writing this piece at so unresponsive a historical moment – four years would pass before he could summon the courage to bring another major work, his Symphonic Dances, before the public. Phillip Sametz © 2003 The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony on 7 October 1989 under conductor Vernon Handley, and most recently in March 2011 with Mark Wigglesworth.

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Lady Southey AC Geoff and Judy Steinicke Dr Peter Strickland Pamela Swansson Stephanie Tanuwidjaja Ann and Larry Turner David Valentine Mary Valentine AO The Hon. Rosemary Varty Leon and Sandra Velik Sue Walker AM Elaine Walters OAM and Gregory Walters Edward and Paddy White Nic and Ann Willcock Marian and Terry Wills Cooke OAM Lorraine Woolley Jeffrey and Shirley Zajac Anonymous (20)

Supporters

Penelope Hughes Basil and Rita Jenkins Christian and Jinah Johnston Dorothy Karpin Dr Anne Kennedy Julie and Simon Kessel KCL Law Kerry Landman Diedrie Lazarus Dr Anne Lierse Gaelle Lindrea Dr Susan Linton Andrew Lockwood Elizabeth H Loftus Chris and Anna Long The Hon Ian Macphee AO and Mrs Julie Macphee Eleanor & Phillip Mancini Annette Maluish In memory of Leigh Masel Wayne McDonald Ruth Maxwell Don and Anne Meadows new U Mildura Wayne and Penny Morgan Anne Neil Patricia Nilsson Sir Gustav Nossal AC CBE and Lady Nossal Laurence O’Keefe and Christopher James Kerryn Pratchett Peter Priest Treena Quarin Eli Raskin Raspin Family Trust Cathy and Peter Rogers Andrew and Judy Rogers Peter Rose and Christopher Menz Liliane Rusek Elisabeth and Doug Scott Martin and Susan Shirley Penny Shore John E Smith Dr Sam Smorgon AO and Mrs Minnie Smorgon Dr Norman and Dr Sue Sonenberg

MSO PATRON COMMISSIONS Clarinet Concerto Paul Dean Commissioned by Andrew Johnston Snare Drum Award test piece 2019 Commissioned by Tim and Lyn Edward

CONDUCTOR’S CIRCLE Current Conductor’s Circle Members Jenny Anderson David Angelovich G C Bawden and L de Kievit Lesley Bawden Joyce Bown Mrs Jenny Brukner and the late Mr John Brukner Ken Bullen Peter A Caldwell Luci and Ron Chambers Beryl Dean Sandra Dent Lyn Edward Alan Egan JP Gunta Eglite Mr Derek Grantham Marguerite Garnon-Williams

Supporters 48

Drs Clem Gruen and Rhyl Wade Louis Hamon OAM Carol Hay Rod Home Tony Howe Laurence O’Keefe and Christopher James Audrey M Jenkins John Jones George and Grace Kass Mrs Sylvia Lavelle Pauline and David Lawton Cameron Mowat David Orr Matthew O’Sullivan Rosia Pasteur Elizabeth Proust AO Penny Rawlins Joan P Robinson Neil Roussac Anne Roussac-Hoyne Suzette Sherazee Michael Ryan and Wendy Mead Anne Kieni-Serpell and Andrew Serpell Jennifer Shepherd Profs. Gabriela and George Stephenson Pamela Swansson Lillian Tarry Dr Cherilyn Tillman Mr and Mrs R P Trebilcock Michael Ullmer AO The Hon. Rosemary Varty Mr Tam Vu Marian and Terry Wills Cooke OAM Mark Young Anonymous (27) The MSO gratefully acknowledges the support of the following Estates: Angela Beagley Neilma Gantner The Hon Dr Alan Goldberg AO QC Gwen Hunt Audrey Jenkins Joan Jones Pauline Marie Johnston C P Kemp

Peter Forbes MacLaren Joan Winsome Maslen Lorraine Maxine Meldrum Prof Andrew McCredie Miss Sheila Scotter AM MBE Marion A I H M Spence Molly Stephens Jennifer May Teague Albert Henry Ullin Jean Tweedie Herta and Fred B Vogel Dorothy Wood

EAST MEETS WEST PROGRAM PARTNERS Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China Li Family Trust Fitzroys Pty Ltd Noah Holdings Australia Pty Ltd Executive Wealth Circle Pty Ltd Arts@Collins International Gallery Pty Ltd Ocean King ViPlus Dairy Pty Ltd Long River Landream Mr Chu Wanghua and Dr Shirley Chu Associate Professor Douglas Gin and Susan Gin Wexchange LRR Family Trust Hengyi Chin Communications AusFocus

MSO BOARD

Life Members Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO John Gandel AC and Pauline Gandel AC Sir Elton John CBE Harold Mitchell AC Lady Potter AC CMRI Mrs Jeanne Pratt AC

Chairman Michael Ullmer AO

Artistic Ambassador Tan Dun Artistic Ambassador Geoffrey Rush AC The MSO honours the memory of John Brockman OAM Life Member The Honourable Alan Goldberg AO QC Life Member Roger Riordan AM Life Member Ila Vanrenen Life Member

Supporters

HONORARY APPOINTMENTS

Deputy Chairman David Li Managing Director Sophie Galaise Board Directors Andrew Dudgeon AM Danny Gorog Lorraine Hook Margaret Jackson AC Di Jameson David Krasnostein Hyon-Ju Newman Glenn Sedgwick Helen Silver AO Company Secretary Oliver Carton

The MSO relies on your ongoing philanthropic support to sustain our artists, and support access, education, community engagement and more. We invite our suporters to get close to the MSO through a range of special events. The MSO welcomes your support at any level. Donations of $2 and over are tax deductible, and supporters are recognised as follows: $1,000+ (Player)

$20,000+ (Impresario)

$2,500+ (Associate)

$50,000+ (Virtuoso)

$5,000+ (Principal)

$100,000+ (Platinum)

$10,000+ (Maestro) The MSO Conductorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Circle is our bequest program for members who have notified of a planned gift in their Will. Enquiries P (03) 8646 1551 | E philanthropy@mso.com.au 49

CALENDAR

OF EVENTS

FI NA L TI CK E T S

4 July

13 July

Mid-Season Gala: Lang Lang

Last Night of the Proms The Rite of Spring

Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

18 & 20 July Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

FI NA L TI CK E T S

30 July

2 – 5 August

8 – 10 August

Ears Wide Open: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Elgar’s Cello Concerto

The Film Music of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

Melbourne Recital Centre

Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

Tickets at mso.com.au

Thank you to our Partners Principal Partner

Government Partners

Premier Partners

Major Partners

Venue Partner

Education Partners

Supporting Partners

Quest Southbank

The CEO Institute

Ernst & Young

Bows for Strings

The Observership Program

Trusts and Foundations

Gall Family Foundation, The Archie & Hilda Graham Foundation, The Gross Foundation, Ern Hartley Foundation, The A.L. Lane Foundation, Gwen & Edna Jones Foundation, Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund, MS Newman Family Foundation, The Thomas Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Toole Foundation, The Ray & Joyce Uebergang Foundation, The Ullmer Family Foundation

Media and Broadcast Partners

BEST SEAT in the house

As Principal Partner of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, we know the importance of delighting an audience. That’s why when you’re in Emirates First, you’ll enjoy the ultimate flying experience with fine dining at any time in your own private suite.

*Emirates First Class Private Suite pictured. For more information visit emirates.com/au, call 1300 303 777, or contact your local travel agent.