RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra - Celebrating Beethoven 250

WATCH rte.ie/culture NCH YouTube and Facebook

Celebrating Beethoven 250 in partnership with the National Concert Hall

B EETH OV EN The Creatures of Prometheus Overture ‘Ah! perfido’ – ‘Per pietà, non dirmi addio’ Symphony No. 1 in C David Brophy conductor Sinéad Campbell-Wallace soprano

FRIDAY 11 DECEMBER 2020, 7pm NATIONAL CONCERT HALL 1

Ludwig Van Beethoven 1770-1827

The Creatures of Prometheus Overture, Op. 43 Salvatore Vignano was one of the leading dancers of the late-18th and early-19th centuries. Born in Naples, he appeared in many cities, settling with his wife in Vienna in 1793 for two years and then setting off on his travels again. He returned there in 1799 and greatly impressed the Emperor’s second wife, Maria Theresa.

The ballet The Creatures of Prometheus was staged in her honour and the first performance was a benefit for the prima ballerina, Casentini. The story is based on Greek legend, which tells of the Titan, Prometheus, who when Zeus denies the gift of fire to the human race, steals it and thus saves 2

humanity. The work had its premiere on 28 March 1801 and seems to have been a success, with 14 performances that year and a further nine in 1802.

The score was never published in Beethoven’s lifetime and the manuscript is lost, though a piano arrangement of the 16 numbers appeared in 1801 and the full orchestral score of the overture was published in 1804.

The music of the ballet is best remembered today for the tune in the final contredanse, which Beethoven later recycled as the main theme in the finale of the ‘Eroica’ Symphony. The overture is a lively creation scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, plus timpani and strings. A weighty Adagio starts the music, followed by a bustling string melody, Allegro molto con brio, not unlike a theme Mozart might have used in his Italian operas; there is a third, gently syncopated theme for flutes and oboes. Beethoven treats his ideas to a fine contrapuntal display with sudden fortissimi, perhaps suggesting the powerful story to follow. A brilliant coda completes the music.

Note by Ian Fox © RTÉ

3

‘Ah! perfido’ – ‘Per pietà, non dirmi addio’, Op. 65

In symphony concerts we are more accustomed to hear the later, and major, works by Beethoven – for example the symphonies from number five onwards to the enormous ninth. This relatively early concert aria dates from Beethoven's twenty-sixth year, when he was in Prague with his patron, Prince Karl Lichnowsky. Lichnowsky, who had previously been a supporter of Mozart, had heard Josefa Duschek singing the Mozart aria “Bella mia fiamma” in Prague, and as a result Beethoven was introduced to her and wrote this aria for her. To be the dedicatee of arias by both Mozart and Beethoven – quite an achievement!

The background to the composition is the opera Achille in Sciro (Achilles in Skyros), an episode in Achilles’ adventures which became the subject of several operas in the early eighteenth century. One, by Antonio Caldara (1736) had a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, which Beethoven used for this concert aria. Handel made a complete opera of it (Deidamia was performed in London in 1741).

In the mythological story, Achilles, a supposed hero, abandons his lover, Deidamia. Deidamia is the daughter of the king of Skyros, an island in the Greek Aegean (best known in the English-speaking world as the burial place of the poet Rupert Brooke).

The opening denunciation of Achilles by his lover is standard melodramatic fare, with the betrayed woman heaping calumny on the faithless absconder, who she hopes will be destroyed by the gods to satisfy her vengeful broken heart. This is in the form of a recitative, and is the formal introduction to the piece.

4

But suddenly, as the aria itself begins, she changes direction, recalling her love for him and wishing, instead of his destruction, her own. “Spare his heart, strike mine!” We can hear this “change of heart” in the dramatic fluctuating emotions of the orchestra (“agitato”).

She pleads with him not to abandon her, alternating wistfully between her deep hurt at his betrayal and begging him to return to her, leaving her still pleading (“Have you no pity on me?”) for a tender reconciliation.

The operatic atmosphere is heightened by the fact that the opening denunciation of Achilles turns into the pathos of her asking “Dite voi, se in tanto affanno non son degna di pietà?” - Am I not worth your pity? The word pietà is one of the most poignant in the entire Italian vocabulary. This cry for tenderness by a wronged woman who, despite her fury and shame, continues to crave, if not the love, the pietà of her lover, is the heart of operatic drama, transposed onto the concert platform in a stand-alone piece requiring consummate vocal and emotional skills by the singer.

‘Ah! perfido’ was first performed in Leipzig in 1796, by Josefa Duschek. It had a later, more noticeable, performance in 1808 in Vienna, when it featured on a massive programme with Beethoven’s fifth and sixth symphonies, his fourth piano concerto and the (today seldom heard) “Concert fantasy”.

Note and translation by Richard Pine © RTÉ

5

Ah! perfido, spergiuro, barbaro traditor, tu parti? e son questi gl'ultimi tuoi congedi? ove s'intese tirannia più crudel?

Va, scelerato! va, pur fuggi da me, l'ira de' Numi non fuggirai!

Se v'è giustizia in Ciel, se v'è pietà, congiureranno a gara tutti a punirti!

Ombra seguace! presente, ovunque vai, vedrò le mie vendette; io già le godo immaginando; i fulmini ti veggo già balenar d'intorno.

Ah no! ah no! fermate, vindici Dei! risparmiate quel cor, ferite il mio! s'ei non è più qual era son'io qual fui, per lui vivea, voglio morir per lui!

Ah! You faithless man, you perjurer!

Vile traitor, are you leaving me?

And are these your last goodbyes?

Who ever suffered such cruel tyranny?

Go, you wicked fellow! Run away!

You won't escape the wrath of the Gods!

If there is justice in Heaven, if there is mercy, They will join together to punish you!

I will be your shadow, in pursuit wherever you go, I shall get my revenge; I am already enjoying it in my mind; Already I can see lightning flashing around you.

Oh no, oh no, stop, avenging Gods!

Spare his heart, strike mine!

Though he has changed, I am what I was, I lived through him and I would die for him!

Per pietà, non dirmi addio, di te priva che farò? tu lo sai, bell'idol mio! io d'affanno morirò.

For pity's sake, don't say goodbye, What shall I do without you?

You know, my fair beloved, I shall die in distress.

Ah crudel! tu vuoi ch'io mora! tu non hai pietà di me? perchè rendi a chi t'adora così barbara mercè?

Dite voi, se in tanto affanno non son degna di pietà?

Oh, you cruel man, do you want me to die?

Have you no pity on me?

Why do you pay back my love so cruelly?

In my distress Am I not worth your pity?

Translation by Richard Pine © RTÉ

6

Symphony No. 1 in C major i Adagio molto - Allegro con brio ii Andante cantabile con moto iii Menuetto: allegro molto e vivace iv Finale: Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace

It’s well-known that Brahms delayed writing a symphony for many years because he was conscious of the problem of emulating Beethoven. But we seldom appreciate that Beethoven himself lived in the shadow of two of the eighteenth century's greatest musical personalities: Mozart and Haydn – the latter of whom had been Beethoven’s mentor. As his patron, Count Waldstein remarked: “He received Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands”. In 1800, when this first symphony saw the light of day, Beethoven was thirty years old and had lived more than half his life. But Mozart was only nine years dead and Haydn had nine years still to live.

Beethoven, like Brahms, had delayed the writing of symphonies, and instead had produced an impressive volume of piano music. But within the next thirteen years he would write eight symphonies and establish himself as the dominant symphonic personality of the nineteenth century.

The first symphony appeared in a cluster of works, including his Septet Op. 20 and his second piano concerto, Op. 19. He sold the lot to his publisher for the equivalent today of less than nine thousand euros, the symphony alone fetching €2,500. The works are thematically related, due to the fact that Beethoven had been working on them throughout the past five years.

They were all performed at one of those typical eighteenth-century jumbo concerts which also included a Mozart symphony and excerpts from Haydn’s Creation, in Vienna on 2 April 1800.

7

It’s often said that this symphony is “conservative”, in the sense that it fits into the “Classical” tradition of Haydn. But it also shows us very clearly the iconoclastic and driven nature of Beethoven's later work. The opening itself would have surprised the audience, since it isn't in the “home key” of C major at all. As period specialist Roger Norrington points out: “the first movement starts in the wrong key. It was meant to startle people”. This, as we know with hindsight, was what Beethoven would continue resolutely to do for the rest of his life, with the trenchant and urgent method in which he pursued his themes. This is noticeable not only in the allegro sections but also in the slow movement (andante) which is truly a singing (cantabile) matter.

Tempo would always be a matter of intense discussion for Beethoven interpreters. Did Beethoven use a metronome? Yes, he did have one of these early aids to tempo, but, as Roger Norrington says, “We used to be taught (on absolutely no evidence) that his metronome was faulty”, yet he also insists that to understand Beethoven’s tempo markings is an art in itself.

Another innovation that took the audience by surprise was the predominance of wind instruments, especially the clarinet which had not been a regular feature of symphonic music up to that point. So much so that one critic complained “It sounds more like a wind band than an orchestra”. Strangely, no local Viennese critics seem to have attended, but the Leipzig-based Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung regarded it as “a novelty and a work of ideas”.

C major is very much a classical key, associated with “trumpets and drums”, so it may have been with tongue in cheek that Beethoven introduced a “toy soldier” motif into the finale: was he bowing to Haydn, whose trademark that was, or was he mockingly saying farewell to the traditions of an era that was coming to an end?

Note by Richard Pine © RTÉ

8

David Brophy conductor

David Brophy was born in Dublin and is a graduate of the Technological University Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. Following further studies in Ireland, England and Holland, he was appointed Apprentice Conductor with Chamber Choir Ireland and subsequently became the first appointee to take the position of Assistant Conductor with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. A former Principal Conductor of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, David now enjoys a close relationship with both RTÉ orchestras in addition to regular appearances as guest conductor with the Ulster Orchestra. His career has seen him conduct throughout Europe, Africa, the United States, Canada and China.

David has collaborated with many internationally acclaimed soloists, among them Tasmin Little, Julian Bliss, Barry Douglas, Sir Willard White, Martin Fröst, Lesley Garret, Sir James Galway, Lang Lang, Danielle de Niese, Nicola Benedetti, Kim Criswell, Daniel Hope, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Chloë Hanslip and Carolin Widmann. He has conducted across Europe with recent engagements taking him to Spain (Orquesta Nacional Clásica de Andorra and Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia) and Finland (Oulu Symphony Orchestra), while other appearances overseas have included performances at New York’s Lincoln Center with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and at London’s Barbican Centre as part of their Silent Film & Live Music series, alongside his début with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia in the Fabulous Beast Stravinsky double-bill (The Rite of Spring and Petrushka) at Sadler’s Wells. Most recent overseas engagements have seen him début with some of America’s finest orchestras including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington D.C. 9

His work with specialist new music ensembles, among them Vox 21 and Crash Ensemble, has led to numerous first performances including the Irish premiere of Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians, alongside recent world premieres of arrangements by Nico Muhly for traditional Irish singer, Iarla Ó Lionáird. David’s operatic work has led to wide acclaim, partnering Lyric Opera Productions, Opera Theatre Company, Opera Ireland, Glasthule Opera and Northern Ireland Opera, notably in their acclaimed partnership with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, directing Handel’s Radamisto. His recent debut at Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires) – conducting the South American premiere of Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire – has also garnered widespread critical acclaim. Beyond the realm of strictly musical performances, David has regularly collaborated in concert with numerous actors, including Brendan Gleeson, Fiona Shaw, Stephen Rae, Patrick Bergin and Adrian Dunbar and has worked on films directed by Neil Jordan and Stephen Frears.

David has worked closely with numerous singer/songwriters, among them Eleanor McEvoy, Paul Brady, Brian Kennedy and Declan O’Rourke, composers including Shaun Davey, Neil Martin, Bill Whelan, Arvo Pärt, David Fennessy, Nico Muhly, Donnacha Dennehy and Gavin Bryars and traditional musicians, including Altan, Liam O’Flynn, Sharon Corr, Máirtín O’Connor, Lúnasa, The Chieftains, Clannad, Rita Connolly, Carlos Núñez, Sharon Shannon and Martin Hayes. His all-embracing musical tastes have also witnessed collaborations with U2, Sinéad O’Connor, Jon Lord (Deep Purple), Duke Special, Celtic Thunder, Nathan Carter, Daniel O’Donnell, Imelda May, Jack L, Phil Coulter, The Coronas, Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy), Father John Misty, Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction), Marti Pellow (Wet Wet Wet) and Midge Ure (Ultravox, Band Aid). He has appeared at all major festivals in Ireland, most notably with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra at the Electric Picnic, and has conducted at the Proms in the Park with the Ulster Orchestra as part of the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms.

10

Sinéad Campbell-Wallace soprano

Having started her career as a light-lyric soprano, through recent seasons Sinéad has moved into fuller dramatic repertoire, to roles including Leonore Fidelio, Ariadne, Agathe Der Freischütz, Helmwige Die Walküre and Kaiserin Die Frau ohne Schatten.

In 2020 Sinéad made her Salzburg Festival debut as Vierte Magd Elektra conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, a role she was due to reprise in the 2020/2021 season in Madrid and London with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen but which was sadly cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. Other highlights of the current season include Helmwige Die Walküre at the Coliseum for English National Opera and her role debut in the Italianate repertoire as the title role Suor Angelica, and Giorgetta Il Tabarro for Scottish Opera. Next season she will sing Mimi La bohème for ENO and make her role debuts as Tatiana Eugene Onegin for Irish National Opera and and in the title role Madama Butterfly for Scottish Opera.

Sinéad was a member of the ensemble of the Theater Regensburg for the 2018/19 season, where her roles included Isabella Una Cosa Rara, Agathe Der Freischütz and Mary Lloyd Die Herzogin von Chicago. She returned to Theater Regensburg as a guest in the 2019/2020 season in the title role of Tosca. Other engagements that season included Leonore for the Lyric Opera Dublin, Zelika The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan for the Wexford Festival, and Tosca for Scottish Opera.

11

Earlier in her career, Sinéad worked extensively with Christian Curnyn and the Classical Opera Company, in roles including Oriana Amadigi, Galatea Acis and Galatea, Angelica Orlando, Drusilla Poppea, Alcina, Flavia Eliogaballo and Hypsipyle Giasone. She has also collaborated with Vladimir Jurowski, Martyn Brabbins, David Parry, John Fulljames, Ian Page, Jonathan Cohen, David Fielding, Annilese Miskimmon, Olivia Fuchs, Netia Jones, Neil Bartlett, Paulo Arrivabene and David Agler among others.

Other opera appearances have included Garsington Opera as Anne Truelove The Rake’s Progress, Grange Park as Giulietta I capuleti e I montecchi and Flavia Eliogabalo, the Aldeburgh Festival as Anne Truelove and Wexford Festival as Inez Die drei Pintos, Monica The Medium, Princess Transformations and Antonia Le Contes d’Hoffmann. She has also sung numerous roles in Dublin, including La Contessa, Donna Elvira, Alcina, Mimi, Musetta, Micaela and Violetta.

On the concert platform, Sinéad has joined the RTÉ Concert Orchestra for Rossini Stabat Mater and for excerpts from La Forza del Destino and Otello in a Verdi Prom, performed works by R. Strauss, Beethoven and a live radio broadcast of Puccini arias with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, and has appeared in recital at Wigmore Hall.

Sinéad Campbell-Wallace is a graduate of the Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama, the National Opera Studio and the Britten-Pears young artist programme.

12

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Patron: Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland Chief Conductor: Jaime Martín

The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra has been at the centre of Ireland’s cultural life since 1948 when the Raidió Éireann Symphony Orchestra, as it was originally called, was founded.

Today it is a formidable creative force, its presence felt throughout the country in live, year-round performances that celebrate the traditional orchestral, vocal and operatic repertoire and champions the commissioning of new music alongside crossover projects that embrace the best of stage and screen, popular music and traditional music.

In October 2019 it entered an exciting new era when Jaime Martín made his debut in concert as the orchestra’s new Chief Conductor.

In recent years, the RTÉ NSO has reached new audiences through its live screenings in concert of cinema blockbusters such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, Ghostbusters and Casino Royale and with its lavish concert tributes to Hollywood icons Gene Kelly, John Williams and Elliot Goldenthal, songwriter extraordinaire Cole Porter and the genius of Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin.

13

With a long-established international reputation, the RTÉ NSO has worked with successive generations of world-famous composers from Igor Stravinsky and Karlheinz Stockhausen to Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt.

Among the legendary conductors, soloists and singers with whom it has performed are Wilhelm Kempff, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Josef Szigeti, Martha Argerich, Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Mstislav Rostropovich and our own Bernadette Greevy.

More recent luminaries include Kiri Te Kanawa, Bryn Terfel, Angela Gheorghiu, Angela Hewitt, Nikolai Demidenko, Maxim Vengerov, Daniel Hope, Tasmin Little and Leonard Slatkin.

Reading like a Who’s Who of Irish music, its collaborations with Irish artists include, among so many others, Sir James Galway, Mary Black, Lisa Hannigan, Liam O’Flynn, The Riptide Movement, Barry Douglas, John O’Conor, Patricia Bardon, Tara Erraught, Celine Byrne and Ailish Tynan.

Countless world premieres by Irish composers have included Elaine Agnew, Gerald Barry, Ed Bennett, Linda Buckley, Ann Cleare, Rhona Clarke, Siobhán Cleary, Shaun Davey, David Fennessy, Marian Ingoldsby, Brian Irvine, Karen Power, Jennifer Walshe, James Wilson and Bill Whelan.

The RTÉ NSO’s acclaimed catalogue of recordings – on the RTÉ lyric fm, Naxos, BIS, Toccata Classics labels and others – include the complete symphonies of Malcolm Arnold, Rachmaninov, Mendelssohn and Nielsen, and Composers of Ireland, a landmark series co-funded by RTÉ and The Arts Council. To date, it has recorded works by established names – Gerald Barry, Seóirse Bodley, Raymond Deane, Aloys Fleischmann, John Kinsella, Seán Ó Riada – and a new generation of remarkable voices, including Donnacha Dennehy, Deirdre Gribbin, Kevin Volans and Ian Wilson.

Other major recordings include Robert O’Dwyer’s Irish language opera Eithne (in partnership with Irish National Opera), José Serebrier’s Symphonic BACH Variations and Mary Black Orchestrated. Film and television scores include composer-conductor Michael Giacchino’s Lost in Concert and directors John Boorman’s Queen and Country and Lenny Abrahamson’s The Little Stranger.

14

The RTÉ NSO’s work in the world of opera includes the world premiere of Gerald Barry’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (co-commissioned by RTÉ and English National Opera) and collaborations with Wide Open Opera: the Irish premieres of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and John Adams’ Nixon in China, and a concert presentation of Raymond Deane’s The Alma Fetish in association with the National Concert Hall.

The orchestra’s extensive educational work includes its Music in the Classroom programme for primary and second level students, and a young musicians’ mentoring scheme.

Broadcasting regularly on RTÉ, it reaches vast international audiences through the European Broadcasting Union.

In 2017, the RTÉ NSO performed, by invitation, in China’s prestigious National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing with conductor José Serebrier. In 2018, with then Principal Guest Conductor Nathalie Stutzmann and violinist Ray Chen, it gave the closing concert of the International Festival of Radio Orchestras in Bucharest.

Find out more at www.rte.ie/nso

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra 1st Violin Fionnuala Hunt (Leader) Elaine Clark (Co-Leader) Sebastian Liebig † Brona Fitzgerald Sylvia Roberts Claudie Driesen David McElroy Molly O’Shea

Cello Polly Ballard ‡ Violetta-Valérie Muth ° Niall O’Loughlin Ailbhe McDonagh

2nd Violin Anita Vedres Larissa O’Grady ° Mary Wheatley Magda Kowalska Evelyn McGrory Elena Quinn

Flute Catriona Ryan • Ríona Ó Duinnín ‡

Viola Andreea Banciu Francis Harte ° Neil Martin Áine O’Neill

Clarinet Matthew Billing † Fintan Sutton †

Double Bass Mark O’Leary Jenni Meade

Oboe Matthew Manning • Deborah Clifford †

Bassoon Sinéad Frost Hilary Sheil † Horn Bethan Watkeys † David Atcheler ◊ Peter Ryan ◊ Trumpet Graham Hastings • Colm Byrne † Timpani Noel Eccles

• * † ‡ ° ◊

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra General Manager, RTÉ NSO & RTÉ Philharmonic Choir: Anthony Long anthony.long@rte.ie Marketing & Communications Manager: Assumpta Lawless Orchestra Manager: Debbra Walters Librarian: Aedín Donnelly Concerts & Planning Co-ordinator: Cathy Stokes Orchestra Administration Assistant: Olive Kelly Senior Orchestra Assistant: Ari Nekrasius Orchestral Assistant: Andy Dunne Management Assistant: Eimear Reilly For full contact information see rte.ie/nso 16

Section Leader Section Principal Principal Associate Principal String Sub-Principal Sub-Principal