“Simply world-class” Opera Magazine MUSICIANS OF THE POWERHOUSE
NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
2018-2019
Concert Season 3 MARCH 2019 3.00PM STOCKPORT TOWN HALL
Bang your own drum
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THE NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS WARD, VIOLIN
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 – 1893) WALTZ FROM THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, OP. 66A EDWARD ELGAR (1857 - 1934) Matthew Sharp, cello CELLO CONCERTO IN E MINOR, OP. 85 I Moderato II Allegro molto III Adagio IV Allegro, ma non troppo
INTERVAL FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797 - 1828) SYMPHONY NO.8 ‘UNFINISHED’ I Allegro moderato II Andante con moto
ANTONÍN DVORÁK (1841 - 1904) SLAVONIC DANCE IN E MINOR OP. 72 NO. 2 SLAVONIC DANCE IN G MINOR OP. 46 NO. 8
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 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
• Attend special events and pre-concert talks
• Attend fundraising events and outings
• Join members of the orchestra and other Friends for a complimentary drink after concerts
Call the office on 0161 247 2220 or email friends@ncorch.co.uk www.ncorch.co.uk | 0161 247 2220
MATTTHEW SHARP CELLO ESO, NCO, Manchester Camerata, Orchestra of the Swan, Orchestra X, Arensky Chamber Orchestra, and Ural Philharmonic. In opera, he has performed principal roles for Opera North, ROH, Almeida Opera and Mahogany Opera Group, amongst many others.
Matthew is internationally recognised as both a compelling classical artist and a fearless pioneer. His adventures in and through music and across disciplines are ‘unrivalled’ and ‘unprecedented’, balancing provenance and vision in a unique and potent way. He studied cello with Boris Pergamenschikow in Cologne, voice with Ulla Blom in Stockholm and English at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was taken to Jacqueline du Pré when he was 12, Galina Vishnewskaya when he was 18 and studied chamber music with the Amadeus Quartet. He performs at major venues and festivals worldwide as solo cellist, baritone, actor and director. Matthew has appeared as solo performer with the RPO, LPO, RLPO, CBSO, Orchestra of Opera North, SCO, EUCO,
In theatre, he has performed principal roles at the Young Vic and National Theatre Studio, collaborated with Kneehigh, Complicité and, most recently, with legendary illustrator and film-maker, Dave McKean. He has recorded for Sony, EMI, Decca, Naxos, Somm, NMC, Avie and Whirlwind and appeared in recital as both cellist and singer at Wigmore Hall, SBC and Salle Gaveau.
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 – 1893)
WALTZ FROM THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, OP. 66A Tchaikovsky composed The Sleeping Beauty, his second of three ballets, whilst also working on his Fifth Symphony, the overture for Hamlet, and Six French Songs (Op. 65). Upon finishing the orchestration for the ballet in August 1889 he wrote, “a whole mountain has fallen off my shoulders.” When Tchaikovsky first began composing for ballet, ballet music was considered unimaginative: the music world was astonished that such a great composer would “stoop so low.” However, he showed an unprecedented mastery of the art and went on to compose three full-length ballets that would become enduring masterworks of the genre: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. In the spring of 1888, Tchaikovsky was visited by the Director of the Imperial Theatres in St. Petersburg, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, who proposed that Tchaikovsky compose the score for a new ballet based on Charles Perrault’s children’s tale, The Sleeping Beauty. Tchaikovsky’s first ballet, Swan Lake, had been a disaster at its premiere in 1877, and the composer was wary of another such experience. But he was nevertheless attracted to Perrault’s story and set to work with enthusiasm. The premiere of The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on January 15 1890 was a huge success, and The Sleeping Beauty has been universally judged one of Tchaikovsky’s finest works ever since. Tchaikovsky first considered the idea of creating a concert suite from The Sleeping Beauty in February 1890. In the event he was unable to settle on a selection of numbers, and it was only several years after his death that such a suite of five numbers was published as “Op. 66A”. In this concert, we hear the Waltz from Act 1, with its famous sinuous melody, which found its way into Disney’s Sleeping Beauty as the song ‘Once Upon a Dream’, and later sung by Lana Del Rey in the film ‘Maleficent’.
EDWARD ELGAR (1857 – 1934)
CELLO CONCERTO IN E MINOR OP. 85 I Adagio; Moderato II Lento; Allegro molto III Adagio IV Allegro; Moderato; Allegro, ma non troppo; Poco più lento; Adagio Two concertos for the cello are performed more often than any others. One is by Antonin Dvorák, an epic work brimming with melodies and embracing a wide range of emotion. The other is Elgar’s: intimate, highly-concentrated and unlike any other ever written for the instrument. Pablo Casals, Paul Tortelier, Jacqueline du Pré and Yo-Yo Ma are among the cellists who have made landmark recordings of Elgar’s concerto, and memorable new interpretations continue to appear. The concerto may be the work of Elgar’s with the most universal appeal, but, paradoxically, it is the work of his that is most rooted in a specific moment in time. Elgar wrote the concerto in 1919, just after the Great War. Appalled and disillusioned by the suffering caused by the war, he realised that life in Europe would never be the same after such destruction. His first reaction had been to withdraw from composition, and he wrote very little music during the war’s first four years. Then, over a period of twelve months - from August of 1918 to the following August Elgar poured his feelings into four works that rank among the finest he ever composed. The first three were chamber works in which he developed a new musical voice, more concise and subdued than his previous one. The fourth work was the Cello Concerto, Elgar’s lament for a lost world. Elgar’s cello concerto is a rich and noble work. Designed as two pairs of movements, it opens boldly, with a short and volatile recitative for the solo cello. The violas then introduce an elegiac theme, long and flowing, which the cello cannot resist. The balance of the movement is broad and lyrical. The second movement is a quicksilver scherzo; the cello introduces a new theme, hesitantly at first, and then takes off, carrying the rest of the movement with it. The passionate, expansive Adagio is the heart of the piece. The orchestra is pared down, so that the solo cello can sing freely above it, and it does so in all but one measure. The finale is large and varied. It begins, like the concerto itself, with a recitative for the cello. Though much of what follows is spirited, there is still an underlying tone of sadness, and, near the end, when Elgar is tying things up, the cello recalls a single heartbreaking phrase from the Adagio that casts a long shadow over the remaining pages. Finally, the cello interjects its very first phrase, and the orchestra sweeps to a conclusion.
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797 – 1828)
SYMPHONY NO. 8 IN B MINOR ‘UNFINISHED’ I Allegro moderato II Andante con moto Many thousands of words have been devoted to the question as to why this great work was left unfinished. Attached to the two existing movements is the piano sketch of an incomplete Scherzo, which at least establishes that at the time Schubert did not intend his symphony to consist of a movement in B minor and a movement in E major. Theories range from the possibility that he eventually decided that the work was complete as it stood; that two further movements were in fact written and subsequently lost; or that, prompted by jealousy, they were destroyed by Anselm Hüttenbrenner, to whom it is known that Schubert passed the manuscript, or it might have been due to ill health. The first movement begins with a mysterious and foreboding passage on the cellos and basses which serves to introduce the first subject proper, with its restless, agitated violins and sighing woodwinds. The intensely dramatic development section first contrasts the introductory bass theme with this same syncopated motif, and later introduces a powerful march rhythm. The poignant coda is built entirely on the introductory theme. The Andante con moto in E major is the perfect foil to this mighty drama. It is concerned, basically, with the interplay of two large groups of themes and with the alternation of soft and loud passages, rather with the building up of climaxes, as was the case in the preceding movement. Both thematic groups are tripartite, with contrasting middle sections. The movement ends with a coda whose modulations are as striking and distant as any in the whole of Schubert.
ANTONÍN DVORÁK (1841-1904)
SLAVONIC DANCES I Op.72 No.2 II Op.46 No.8 “In connection with the State Scholarships, I have been receiving a lot of pleasure for several years past from the work of Anton Dvorák of Prague. This year he has sent in, among other things, some “Duets for 2 Sopranos with Pianoforte” (the Moravian Duets Op.32), which seem to me to be quite charming, and practical for publication...Dvorák has written all kinds of things, operas (Czech), symphonies, quartets, piano pieces. He is certainly a very talented fellow. And incidentally, poor! I beg you to consider that! The duets will show you what I mean and might “sell well”... Above is an excerpt from a letter written by none other than Johannes Brahms to his publisher Fritz Simrock of Berlin. Concerning Dvorák , Simrock’s business sense was as acute as was Brahms’ eyes and ears. He commissioned the first series of Slavonic Dances for Piano Four Hands (four hand piano music being a popular medium for amateur music-making in the home) with the hope that they would be as successful and lucrative as had been Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, the first volume which Simrock published in 1860. Indeed they were! Through their publication, Dvorák , then principal viola in Prague’s Provincial Theatre Orchestra, and poor, as Brahms reminded Simrock, gained international fame and fortune. The Slavonic Dances sold so well, that Simrock asked Dvorák to orchestrate them. It is in the orchestral version that the works are most well known and often performed. Some eight years later, Dvorák composed the second series; again in versions for piano four hands and orchestra. They proved to be as popular as the first set. Beyond fulfilling a commission, Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances were, for him, a political statement; an opportunity to celebrate in music the Slavic cultures of Central Europe, then under the repressive control of the Austrian Empire. In these pieces, Dvorák captured the spirit of the folk dances of his native Bohemia, as well as those of Slovakia, Moravia, Silesia, Serbia, Poland, and Ukraine; Op.72 No.2 in E minor is a sinuous Starodávný (literally ‘ancient’) while Op.46 No.8 which ends our programme is a fiery, Bohemian Furiant.
TODAY’S ORCHESTRA DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS WARD, VIOLIN
Violin I Nicholas Ward Paula Smart Sarah Whittingham Luke Coomber Shirley Richards Violin II Louise Latham Becca Thompson Rob Adlard Will Chadwick Viola Mike Dale Raymond Lester Jacq Leighton Jones Cello Peggy Nolan Barbara Grunthal Graham Morris Double Bass James Manson Flute Conrad Marshall Nicky Hunter
Oboe Rachael Clegg Jane Evans Clarinet Dan Bayley Helen Blamey Bassoon Ben Hudson Rachel Whibley Horn Naomi Atherton Jenny Cox Trumpet Andy Dallimore Graham South Trombone Tim Chatterton Dave Price Les Storey Timpani John Melbourne
26 F R I DAY
Nicholas Ward violin | Simon Gilks violin Richard Muncey viola | Cara Berridge cello
Haydn String Quartet in C Op. 20 No. 2 Prokofiev Quartet No. 1 in B minor Op. 50 Schubert ‘Death and the Maiden’
April
7.30pm • Christ Church West Didsbury, Manchester
The Northern Chamber Orchestra Soloists return to Didsbury for a concert featuring three outstanding works from the string repertoire. Haydn’s remarkable Opus 20 quartets are rightfully regarded as landmarks in the history of the string quartet, and his C major quartet is no exception, demonstrating a composer at the height of his creative maturity. One of only two quartets that Prokofiev wrote, his first is powerful and intense, with expressive, heartfelt bursts of colour and texture despite its melancholy. The concert concludes with Schubert’s reflective and somberly beautiful String Quartet in D Minor - one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire.
15 F R I DAY
Martin Roscoe piano
Gounod Petite symphonie Schumann Piano Concerto Bacewicz Concerto for Strings Mozart Symphony No. 35 ‘Haffner’
March
7.30pm • The Stoller Hall Manchester
Pianist - and our vice-president - Martin Roscoe joins us at Manchester’s Stoller Hall to play Schumann’s Piano Concerto, a mighty work which the composer himself described as ‘a compromise between a symphony, a concerto and a huge sonata’. We also feature a work from a relatively little known Polish composer, Grazyna Bacewicz, her Concerto for Strings, in the month of International Women’s Day. This piece is commonly regarded as her magnum opus, and is undoubtedly one of the finest examples of neoclassicism in Polish music.
TICKETS: WWW.NCORCH.CO.UK • 0161 247 2220
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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 Chair supported by Dr Michael Sambrook Rebecca Thompson Chair supported by Valerie Elliott Violas Richard Muncey Chair supported by Martin and Angela Losse Mike Dale
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
Cello Barbara Grunthal Chair supported by Peter Raynes
Trumpet Tracey Redfern Chair supported by John Bush
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
Timpani John Melbourne Harpsichord/keyboard Bernard Robertson
To find out more about sponsoring a player’s chair, please call the office on 0161 247 2220 or email info@ncorch.co.uk
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