NCO with Raphael Wallfisch - concert programme

“Simply world-class” Opera Magazine MUSICIANS OF THE POWERHOUSE

NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

2019-2020

Concert Season 8 NOVEMBER 2019 THE STOLLER HALL MANCHESTER 9 NOVEMBER 2019 THE HERITAGE CENTRE MACCLESFIELD

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THE NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS WARD, VIOLIN GUSTAV HOLST (1874 – 1934) ST PAUL’S SUITE OP 29 NO 2 I. II. III. IV.

Jig. Vivace Ostinato. Presto Intermezzo. Andante con moto Finale. Allegro

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 – 1893) VARIATIONS ON A ROCOCO THEME OP 33 Raphael Wallfisch, cello Moderato assai quasi Andante Thema. Moderato semplice Var. 1. Tempo della Thema Var. 2. Tempo della Thema — Cadenza Var. 3. Andante Var. 4. Allegro vivo

Var. 5. Andante grazioso Var. 6. Allegro moderato Var. 7. Andante sostenuto Var. 8. e Coda. Allegro moderato con anima

INTERVAL MIECZYSLAW WEINBERG (1919 – 1996) CELLO CONCERTINO OP 43B Raphael Wallfisch, cello I. Adagio II. Moderato espressivo III. Allegro vivace IV. Adagio

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797 – 1828) SYMPHONY NO 5 IN B FLAT MAJOR D485 I. Allegro II. Andante con moto III. Menuetto. Allegro molto – Trio IV. Allegro Vivace

The Stoller Hall programme is kindly supported by Arts Council England.

We thank Caroline Brown for her generous support of this Macclesfield concert.

THE NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Patron Stephen Barlow President Raphael Wallfisch

Vice-President 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 • Dr Michael Sambrook • Bob Scott • Helen Scott • Dieter Senn Adrienne Spilsbury • Jean Soni • David Sutton • Stephen Threlfall • Peter Thomasson Mike & Ruth Wilbey • Sue Williams General Manager Charlie Rowley Concerts Manager Jonathan Thackeray Finance and Administration Officer Chris Bryan

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.

This is the NCO’s 52nd season and between October and May we will be performing with leading soloists such as pianist Martin James Bartlett, oboist Nicholas Daniel, and violinist Anthony Marwood. Our President, cellist Raphael Wallfisch, returns to the fold

to play Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations along with the UK premiere of Weinberg’s Cello Concertino. We will also continue our education and outreach work with workshops in schools across the area and our Mind Music sessions in care homes. If you would like to financially support this vital work, please visit our website or speak to our General Manager Charlie Rowley at a concert to find out more.

The NCO 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

RAPHAEL WALLFISCH CELLO

Raphael Wallfisch is one of the most celebrated cellists performing on the international stage. He was born in London into a family of distinguished musicians, his mother the cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and his father the pianist Peter Wallfisch.

At an early age, Raphael was greatly inspired by hearing Zara Nelsova play, and, guided by a succession of fine teachers including Amaryllis Fleming, Amadeo Baldovino and Derek Simpson, it became apparent that the cello was to be his life’s work. While studying with the great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky in California, he was chosen to perform chamber music with Jascha Heifetz in the informal recitals that Piatigorsky held at his home.

At the age of twenty-four he won the Gaspar Cassadó International Cello Competition in Florence. Since then he has enjoyed a world-wide career playing with such orchestras as the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Hallé, City of Birmingham Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Berlin Symphony, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic and many others.

He is regularly invited to play at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Spoleto, Prades, Oslo and Schleswig Holstein.

Teaching is one of Raphael’s passions.

He is in demand as a teacher all over the world and holds the position of professor of cello in Switzerland at the Zürich Hochschule der Künste.

Raphael has recorded nearly every major work for his instrument. His extensive discography on EMI, Chandos, Black Box, ASV, Naxos and Nimbus explores both the mainstream concerto repertoire and countless lesser-known works by Dohnanyi, Respighi, Barber, Hindemith and Martinu, as well as Richard Strauss, Dvorak, Kabalevsky and Khachaturian.

He has recorded a wide range of British cello concertos, including works by MacMillan, Finzi, Delius, Bax, Bliss, Britten, Moeran and Kenneth Leighton.

GUSTAV HOLST (1874 – 1934)

ST PAUL’S SUITE I Jig II Ostinato III Intermezzo IV Finale

St Paul’s School in south-west London provided Gustav Holst the secure income he needed in order to compose. He wrote the Brook Green Suite for the school’s second orchestra and the St Paul’s Suite for the first. The marvellously effective writing for strings has ensured the work’s lasting popularity. The vigorous opening Jig incorporates various folk-type melodies, in alternating 6/8 and 9/8 time. In the more delicate second movement the four-note ostinato figure in the second violins provides a continuous background while the composer shifts the metre from two to three in a bar. The haunting tune of the Intermezzo comes three times punctuated by a rustic dance. A solo violin introduces the principal theme over pizzicato chords, then the solo viola joins the violin in a duet. The Finale (subtitled the Dargason) is another jig, the tune tossed around from one part to another. Some way in, an extremely well-known tune is introduced in the middle of the texture. A humorous dialogue between double bass and solo violin concludes the work.

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 – 1893)

VARIATIONS ON A ROCOCO THEME OP 33 The version in which the Rococo Variations have become famous is not the original one: German cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen completely rearranged the order of the variations, and even cut one that Tchaikovsky had written, despite the composer’s vehement protests. This evening you will hear our President, Raphael Wallfisch, perform the original version.

When approached to compose a cello concerto, as he frequently was, Tchaikovsky always replied, ‘Why don’t you play my (Rococo) Variations?’ The response was usually that the cellist found them ‘uncomfortable’. ‘They can’t play them and so they pester me,’ the composer invariably joked. Two years later he composed, as if in defiance, the Violin Concerto!

Tchaikovsky saw the music of Mozart as reflecting the perfection of a past age in comparison with which his own era was debased and vulgar. In his opera Vakula, he had already written a neo-rococo minuet for the court scene and he was to seek refuge in the same way in the fourth of his orchestral suites, Mozartiana.

Tchaikovsky’s affection for Baroque music and his adulation of Mozart both find reflection in this composition. The melody heard in the solo instrument after an orchestral preface has the grace, refinement and texture of a Mozart theme, in spite of the fact that it is also touched by Tchaikovsky’s own personality. Eight variations follow, all of them in 18th century style and each separated by an orchestral ritornello. The orchestra may be 18th century in size, but certainly not in sound. All in all, the music is full of poised elegance and order and as gracious and slight as an 18th century divertimento.

MIECZYSLAW WEINBERG (1919 – 1996)

CELLO CONCERTINO OP 43B (UK PREMIERE) I Adagio II Moderato espressivo III Allegro vivace IV Adagio

Weinberg (called Mojsze Wajnberg on official Polish documents) was born in 1919 to a Jewish family in Warsaw. His father, a musician, had moved from Kishinev, now capital of Moldova, after the pogrom; his mother was from Odessa. After graduating form Warsaw Conservatory as a pianist he managed to escape to the Soviet Union on the outbreak of war in 1939. His parents and younger sister stayed behind and died in Trawniki concentration camp.

Young Moishe was now studying composition at the Conservatory in Minsk but had to move again when Hitler invaded USSR. While living in Tashkent he met Dimitri Shostakovich and the two became lifelong friends. When Weinberg was arrested in 1953 Shostakovich interceded on his behalf - writing to the notorious Beria. Stalin died that year and Weinberg was released shortly after.

As a composer he was extremely prolific; 22 symphonies, 17 string quartets and 7 operas of which he regarded the Passenger as his most important work.

In 1948 he wrote his cello concerto, a substantial work with full symphony orchestra.

Soon after he set about making a new piece with the same material for string orchestra and reduced in length to 16 or 17 minutes. This piece was not published until 2017 and is receiving it's first British performances by Raphael Wallfisch and the Northern Chamber Orchestra.

The opening C minor Adagio is a lament with the solo cello singing over muted strings. The 2nd movement, firmly in A minor, is a slow dance with a Habanera feel folky with echoes of Mahler. The following movement in D minor is a scherzo in the manner of Shostakovich with strong tutti sections from the strings. A cadenza for solo cello links to the final Adagio which returns to the opening material and ends very quietly with the cello high above the string chord.

SCHUBERT (1797 – 1828)

SYMPHONY NO 5 IN B FLAT MAJOR D485 I Allegro II Andante con moto III Menuetto. Allegro molto – Trio IV Allegro Vivace The neglect that Schubert suffered for most of the 19th century now seems incredible. None of his symphonies was performed during his lifetime (except, perhaps, for readings at private concerts Schubert held himself) and not one was published until some fifty years after his death. In 1827, a music dictionary was published in which Schubert’s name did not even appear. Part of the problem, perhaps, was that Schubert (unlike Mozart or Beethoven) was not a virtuoso performer on any instrument, and he found no other means of promoting himself.

Schubert began his Symphony No.5 in B flat major, in September 1816. If Schubert’s symphonies are to be divided into his Classically-influenced early symphonies and his later Romantic ones, the Fifth Symphony is probably the best of his Classical works. It avoids the mechanical repetition and sequence found in Schubert’s earlier symphonies while maintaining his lyricism and wit. Possibly in direct contrast to the Fourth Symphony, the ‘Tragic’, this is an optimistic work. Schubert foregoes the trumpets and timpani, opting for Mozartian refinement. The third movement, particularly, is a not-so-subtle tribute to Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.

The witty outer movements are balanced by the serenity of the song-like slow movement and the dramatic minuet with its dreamy middle section in the style of ländler (a Viennese country dance which became the waltz), making this symphony one of the most accessible masterpieces of all time.

TONIGHT’S ORCHESTRA Violin I Nicholas Ward Louise Latham Paula Smart Robert Adlard Ann Lawes (8th only) Sam Parker (8th only) Violin II Simon Gilks Rebecca Thompson Shirley Richards Catherine Porter (8th only) Judith van Ingen (8th only)

Viola Richard Muncey Michael Dale Jacq Leighton Jones (8th only) Amy Hark (8th only) Cello Alexander Holladay Barbara Grunthal Amanda Turner (8th only) Bass James Manson Richard Waldock (8th only)

Flute Conrad Marshall Nichola Hunter Oboe William Oinn Jane Evans Clarinet Elizabeth Jordan Daniel Bayley Bassoon Ben Hudson Rachel Whibley Horn Naomi Atherton Jenny Cox

7

S AT U R DAY

Nicholas Daniel oboe

December

Handel Concerto Grosso op 6 no 12 Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto Shostakovich Chamber Symphony op 110a Mozart Adagio and Fugue Vivaldi Violin Concerto RV199 Il Sospetto

The Heritage Centre Macclesfield

We’re pleased to welcome back Nicholas Daniel, who has played many times for us in past seasons; surely among the greatest of BBC Young Musician winners. Vaughan Williams wrote his Oboe Concerto in 1944 at the age of 72 while composing his opera The Pilgrim’s Progress. It has a symphonic feel about it while at the same time virtuosic and beautifully lyrical.

Shostakovich wrote his 8th string quartet in Dresden over only 3 days in 1960. It’s an intensely personal piece, using a 4 note motif made from his name while quoting from a number of his own works. There is an incredibly bleak landscape contrasted with terrifying sounds of war. Following this we have Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor, the adagio alternately dramatic and quite beautiful, preceding a fugue he had composed earlier for two pianos. The concert begins and ends with baroque: Handel’s B minor concerto grosso contains one of his loveliest tunes – the E major Larghetto e piano, and Vivaldi’s C minor concerto is one of his finest.

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credit Linda Nylind

F R I DAY

January 7.30pm The Stoller Hall Manchester

Colin Currie percussion Grieg Praeludium from Holberg Suite op 40 (Manchester only) Stephen Barlow Nocturne for Solo Clarinet, Marimba and Strings (Manchester only) Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Macclesfield only) Kurt Schwertsik Now you hear me, now you don’t op 102 Delius Two Aquarelles Dvořák Serenade for Strings in E op 22 Our first concert of the New Year brings a programme that begins and ends with two great string pieces. The much abused term masterpiece must unquestionably be applied to Mozart’s Little Night Music, which we hear in Macclesfield, while in Manchester we hear the joyous prelude from Grieg’s Holberg Suite. Closing the programme. Dvorák’s Serenade, in five movements, contains a waltz, a scherzo and one of his loveliest slow movements. The high-spirited finale eventually returns to the benign calm of the opening section, giving an arch-like structure to the whole piece.

We welcome the marvellously talented Scottish percussionist, Colin Currie. He is playing an entertaining piece by contemporary Viennese composer Kurt Schwertsik, whose works are characterised by his particular exploration of tonality, musical irony and humour.

18 S AT U R DAY

January

7.30pm The Heritage Centre Macclesfield

“Currie made expressive use of toms and small gong in particular, with the agility of his movement around his assorted instruments making him sound like a one-man gamelan.”

Bachtrack

TICKETS: WWW.NCORCH.CO.UK • 0161 247 2220

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 Sarah Whittingham

Oboes Kenny Sturgeon Chair supported by Caroline Brown Jane Evans

Violas Richard Muncey Chair supported by Martin and Angela Losse Mike Dale

Horns Naomi Atherton Jenny Cox

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

Clarinets Elizabeth Jordan Daniel Bayley Chair supported anonymously Bassoons Llinos Owen Rachel Whibley Chair Supported by John Whibley Holidays

Trumpet Tracey Redfern Chair supported by John Bush Peter Mainwaring Timpani John Melbourne Harpsichord/keyboard Bernard Robertson

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