“Simply world-class” Opera Magazine MUSICIANS OF THE POWERHOUSE
NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
2018-2019
Concert Season MACCLESFIELD CONCERT SERIES 12 JANUARY 2019 7.30PM THE HERITAGE CENTRE
Friends Northern Chamber Orchestra With kind thanks to the Friends of the NCO for generously supporting this concert
Bang your own drum
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THE NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS WARD, VIOLIN
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685 - 1759) CONCERTO GROSSO OP 6 NO 5 I Overture. Larghetto II Allegro III Presto IV Largo V Allegro VI Menuet. Un poco larghetto
ANTONÍN DVORÁK (1841 - 1904) TWO WALTZES FOR STRING QUARTET OP 54 I Moderato IV Allegro Vivace
STEPHEN GOSS (1964 - ) MATTHEW WADSWORTH, THEORBO THEORBO CONCERTO I Prelude II Interlude 1 III Scherzo IV Interlude 2 V Passacaglia VI Interlude 3 VII Finale
INTERVAL
BÉLA BARTÓK (1881 – 1945) DIVERTIMENTO FOR STRING ORCHESTRA I Allegro non troppo II Molto adagioIII Allegro assai
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685 - 1750) BRANDENBURG CONCERTO NO 3 IN G MAJOR, BWV 1048 I Allegro moderato II Adagio III Allegro
THE NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Patron Stephen Barlow President Raphael Wallfisch
Vice-Presidents Brian Leighton, Martin Roscoe
Board Members Malcolm Allcard • Morris Saleh Malcolm Brown • John Bush Conrad Marshall • Peter Thomasson Stephen Threlfall • Mike Wilbey Ronald Graham • Naomi Atherton
Season Sponsor CDL
Artistic Director Nicholas Ward
Corporate Patrons Capstone Financial – ForViva – Porthaven Care Homes Honorary Patrons The Lord Stunell OBE The Baroness Bakewell DBE
Patrons Professor Alison Adam & Dr Craig Adam • Malcolm & Alison Allcard Anonymous Donor 1 • Anonymous Donor 2 • Anonymous Donor 3 Anonymous Donor 4 • Anonymous Donor 5 • Richard Baker Bevan & Dr Barbara Broadbent • Caroline Brown • Michael & Judith Biggin Roger & Hilary Brice • Nicola Bright • Liz Chalmers • Ian Edgar • David Ellis Heather Griffiths • Betty Hill • Geoff & Jennie Holman • David Kingsley • Brian Leighton Eleanor & Allan Lewington • Martin & Angela Losse • Drs Chris & Mary Loughran Vernon Matthews • Joan Matthews • Mary Miller • Peter Raynes • Bob Scott Helen Scott • Dieter Senn • Adrienne Spilsbury • Jean Soni • David Sutton Stephen Threlfall • Peter Thomasson • Mike & Ruth Wilbey • Sue Williams General Manager Tom Elliott Concerts Manager Jonathan Thackeray Office Administrator Karen Taylor
Associate Organisations Buxton International Festival Chetham’s School of Music Manchester Metropolitan University Northern Powerhouse The Stoller Hall
Marketing Manager Siobhan Parker MMU, Brooks Building, 53 Bonsall Street, Manchester M15 6GX info@ncorch.co.uk • www.ncorch.co.uk • 0161 247 2220 Twitter: @nco01 / Facebook: www.facebook.com/NorthernChamberOrchestra Company No: 1430784 Charity No: 278912
THE NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ABOUT US Formed in the late 1960s and based in Manchester, the NCO is now one of the country’s top, professional chamber orchestras, with its concerts and recordings warmly received by critics. In a ground-breaking move in 1986, under their young leader, Nicholas Ward, the NCO became one of the first orchestras in the country to work regularly without a conductor. During this, our 51st season, the NCO will be performing with leading soloists such as Freddy Kempf, Julian Bliss, Martin Roscoe, Nicholas Mulroy and Matthew Wadsworth. Our newest Artist in Association – cellist, baritone, actor and ‘Renaissance Man’
Matthew Sharp – joins us to display his virtuosic skills by both playing and singing in a concert of Schubert works. He will also work with the Education team on a variety of schools projects. The season comes to a close with our other Artist in Association, violinist Chloë Hanslip, who directs the orchestra in Manchester (where we are Orchestra in Association at The Stoller Hall), Macclesfield and Buxton in a concert of stunning strings. As well as being Orchestra in Residence at Buxton International Festival, the NCO also has over thirty critically acclaimed recordings to its name including a series of Mozart and Haydn symphonies on the Naxos label. For more information visit www.ncorch.co.uk
We are proud of the ongoing relationship between NCO and Chetham’s School of Music, and look forward to continuing our collaboration at The Stoller Hall – Manchester’s newest space for performance.
Become a Friend of the NCO: • Annual fee only £25 single membership / £40 joint membership
• £1 off all Macclesfield concert tickets and all NCO recordings
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Call the office on 0161 247 2220 or email friends@ncorch.co.uk www.ncorch.co.uk | 0161 247 2220
MATTHEW WADSWORTH THEORBO Christopher Ainslie, tenor James Gilchrist and baritone Peter Harvey.
Matthew Wadsworth studied lute at London’s Royal Academy of Music with Nigel North, after which he spent a year at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. Working in the UK, Europe and North America as a soloist and chamber musician, Wadsworth has appeared at most major concert halls and festivals, and can often be heard on radio, both in live performance and recordings. His 8 CD recordings for Channel Classics, Linn Records, Deux-Elles and Wigmore Live have all received international critical acclaim, and have been featured as Gramophone Editors Choice on 3 occasions. Matthew’s Colaborations with singers include Sopranos Carolyn Sampson, Julia Doyle and Emma Kirkby, counter-tenor
Matthew has given concerts at the Bruges festival, the Klara festival, the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, The Sam Wanamaker Theatre at Shakespeares Globe, the Georgian Concert Society (Edinburgh), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and the Lufthansa, York, Beverley, Warwick, Spitalfields, Holt, North York Moores, Budapest, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal Baroque, Mitte-Europa and Innsbruck festivals. He has also worked with The Academy of Ancient Music, English Touring Opera, Birmingham Opera Company, Independent Opera, The Netherlands Bach Society, I Fagiolini, The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, The
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685 – 1759)
CONCERTO GROSSO IN D MAJOR OP.6 NO.5 I Overture. Larghetto II Allegro III Presto IV Largo V Allegro VI Menuet: Un poco larghetto Handel composed the twelve concerti grossi which comprise his Opus 6 in the space of just over one month (an average of two movements per day) in the Autumn of 1739. They are his final and greatest instrumental works and are often ranked with Bach’s Brandenburg set as one of the twin peaks of the Baroque concerto. The fifth concerto grosso blends elements of diverse Continental styles in an effort to suit the cosmopolitan tastes of the London public. The Overture is grounded in the French operatic tradition, with its stately rhythms and ornamental flourishes, while the second and fourth movements both show a particularly German preoccupation with counterpoint – although the lightness is more Italian in character. It incorporates in its first, second and sixth movements reworked versions of the three-movement overture to Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, composed in 1739 immediately prior to the Op. 6 concerti grossi.
ANTONÍN DVORÁK
TWO WALTZES OP.54 I Moderato IV Allegro vivace The idea for these waltzes came from a commission for dance music for a ball in Prague, organised by the Národní Beseda, a patriotic organisation in Prague. Dvorák and other leading composers, including Smetana and Fibich, were each asked to provide a series of linked waltzes. Dvorák composed a set of waltzes, but soon realised that they were suited more to concert performance than for dancing, so wrote an entirely new set of waltzes (the Prague Waltzes) and reworked his original music into eight waltzes for piano. He later chose two to score for string players; the original Nos. 1 and 4. Later an optional double bass part was added. The first waltz begins with a gentle lilting, contrasting a more vibrant middle section. The second waltz (op.54 no.4) is a complete contrast and is fast, energetic and reminiscent of
STEPHEN GOSS (1964 - )
THEORBO CONCERTO I Prelude II Interlude 1 III Scherzo IV Interlude 2 V Passacaglia VI Interlude 3 VII Finale The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. As with the lute, the player plucks or strums the strings with one hand while pressing down on the strings with the other hand; pressing the strings in different places on the neck produces different pitches, enabling the performer to play chords, basslines and melodies. The theorbo was developed during the late sixteenth century in Italy, inspired by the demand for extended bass range instruments for use in opera, when they were used to play basso continuo parts, as well as being used as a solo Modern audiences now have the opportunity to hear this Baroque instrument in Stephen Goss’s Theorbo Concerto, written on commission by lutenist Matthew Wadsworth in 2018. This is the first concerto ever written for the theorbo, and the idea for the composition arose from the success of Matthew’s performances of Goss’s The Miller’s Tale. Like Vaughan Williams in his Symphony no. 8, Goss has written a series of variations ‘in search of a theme’ which comes at the end for a bright, loud conclusion. The six variations (in reverse order) are woven into a fourmovement structure (Prelude, Scherzo, Passacaglia, Finale) with three interludes featuring solo violin, cello and viola in turn, with theorbo and bass.
BÉLA BARTÓK (1881 - 1945)
DIVERTIMENTO FOR STRING ORCHESTRA I Allegro non troppo II Molto adagio III Allegro assai The Divertimento was composed during August 1939 in a Swiss Chalet owned by Bartók’s friend Paul Sacher, who had commissioned the work for performance by the Basle Chamber Orchestra. Unlike some of Bartók’s music, the Divertimento offers comparatively few barriers to comprehension. The mood of the music is generally spirited and joyful, with the slow second movement serving as the only dark reminder of the turmoil raging across Europe at the time. For the medium of the Divertimento, Bartók looked back to the 18th century concerto grosso form, with its concertino of solo instruments and ripieno, but using his own structural ideas in a very individual way. The opening of the sonata form first movement is announced by a single melody on the violins over a driving pulse of accented chords. The F major tonality progressively becomes less certain, and the development section is preceded by a persistent B flat clashing with successive sharp key harmonies. Little use is made of the solo quartet in the sombre adagio, where the slow chromatic climb upwards has much in common with the composer’s earlier Miraculous Mandarin. The joyous finale has a double fugato as its central section, from which the solo cello briefly emerges as the tempo becomes progressively slower. Near the end of the movement there is a good example of Bartók’s violent humour, when part of the first theme is re-worked as an elegant polka. This is abruptly terminated by thirteen bars of
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685 – 1750)
BRANDENBURG CONCERTO NO.3 IN G MAJOR I Allegro moderato II Adagio III Allegro Johann Sebastian Bach’s years as court musician at Cöthen gave him opportunity and incentive to perfect the art of instrumental music, particularly the Italian concerto form. Although the six so-called Brandenburg Concertos were dedicated to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg in Berlin, 1721, the set seems to have been compiled of works composed earlier in the composer’s tenure at the court of Cöthen. The instrumentation required fits precisely that of the Court Orchestra. By 1721, Bach was looking around for a new position, and, remembering an earlier request made by the Margrave for pieces for his orchestra, Bach sent him these concertos. This not only fulfilled the Margrave’s earlier request, but may also have served as an exploration of the possibility of a position in Berlin. Bach did not receive an offer of employment in Berlin, but the Brandenburg Concertos arguably have become his most loved orchestral works. Technical brilliance is certainly an important element of Bach’s concerti, but the emphasis is weighted toward conversation between soloist(s) and orchestra rather than sheer virtuosic display. The six Brandenburg Concertos are not solo concerti, but of two distinct types of ensemble concerto. While Nos. 2, 4, and 5 are more typical concerti grossi (works for a small group of soloists in dialogue with full orchestra), No.3, belongs to the group that follows the structure of evenly balanced instrumental choirs in conversation. Concerto No.3 is scored for three each of violins, violas, cellos, plus basso continuo (bass and harpsichord). The first movement begins with a three-note motive introduced by the whole ensemble. Then the solo groups play the idea in succession. The rhythmic and harmonic energy of this motive permeates the entire first movement as solo and orchestral sections alternate. The second movement is unusual in that Bach only provides two chords of the type he ordinarily uses to end a second movement. Performers have worked with this situation in a variety of ways, including playing only the two chords, improvising a cadenza around these chords by either a solo string instrument or the harpsichord, or substituting another of Bach’s slow works (a not uncommon practice of his time). The bubbling last movement is also unusual; a binary dance form whose second section is three times as long as the first.
TONIGHT’S ORCHESTRA DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS WARD, VIOLIN Violin Nicholas Ward Sarah Whittingham Luke Coomber Shirley Richards Susannah Simmons William Chadwick Rebecca Thompson Judith van Ingen Ann Lawes Viola Richard Muncey Aimee Johnson Jacq Leighton Jones Amy Hark
Cello Cara Berridge Barbara Grunthal Mandy Turner Bass James Manson Harpsichord Christopher Stokes Instrument Alex Temple
16
NCO MACCLESFIELD CONCERT SERIES 2018-2019
S AT U R DAY
March Martin Roscoe piano
7.30pm At The Heritage Centre Macclesfield
Gounod Petite symphonie Schumann Piano concerto Bacewicz Concerto for strings Mozart Symphony no 35 Haffner As we emerge from the grips of winter, we bring a programme full of variety and the concert opens with a chance to hear our wind players on stage alone. The sparkling Petite symphonie of Gounod for 9 wind players will delight everyone, not least the string players who get a rare piece off! Martin Roscoe, our vicePresident, is coming back to Macclesfield to play the Schumann piano concerto, a mighty work which the composer himself described as ‘a compromise between a symphony, a concerto and a huge sonata’. The second half begins with a work from a relatively little known Polish composer, Grazyna Bacewicz, the masterpiece of neo-classicism, her Concerto for Strings. To close the concert we are delighted to be playing a work which at around 19 minutes, may be one of Mozart’s shortest symphonies, but the ‘Haffner’ is so brim-full of tunes, wit and energy that no one could possibly feel shortchanged.
“exuberant and expressive…brilliant technical precision” BBC Music Magazine, 5 stars.
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THE NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA PLAYING MEMBERS Violins Nicholas Ward Chair supported by Ken & Pam McKinlay Simon Gilks Chair supported by Anne Thompson Louise Latham Chair supported by Eleanor Lewington David Routledge Paula Smart Rebecca Thompson Chair supported by Valerie Elliott Violas Richard Muncey Chair supported by Martin and Angela Losse Mike Dale Cello Barbara Grunthal Chair supported by Peter Raynes Bass James Manson Chair supported by Ken & Pam McKinlay Flutes Conrad Marshall Chair supported by Dieter Senn Nichola Hunter Chair supported by Jane & Wyn Davies
Oboes Kenny Sturgeon Chair supported by Caroline Brown Jane Evans Clarinets Elizabeth Jordan Daniel Bayley Chair supported anonymously Bassoons Llinos Owen Rachel Whibley Chair Supported by John Whibley Holidays Horns Naomi Atherton Jenny Cox Trumpet Tracey Redfern Chair supported by John Bush Timpani John Melbourne Harpsichord/keyboard Bernard Robertson
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