Schubert Symphony No 5
19-21 June 2025
Schubert Symphony No 5
Kindly supported by Eriadne & George Mackintosh, Claire & Anthony Tait and The Jones Family Charitable Trust
The Kingussie and Golspie concerts are in association with
Thursday 19 June, 7.30pm Badenoch Centre, Kingussie
Friday 20 June, 7.30pm Golspie High School
Saturday 21 June, 7.30pm Universal Hall, Findhorn
RAVEL Le Tombeau de Couperin
IBERT Flute Concerto
Interval of 20 minutes
SCHUBERT Symphony No 5
Adam Hickox Conductor
André Cebrián Flute
The Findhorn concert is in association with
4 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh EH7 5AB
+44 (0)131 557 6800 | info@sco.org.uk | sco.org.uk
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is a charity registered in Scotland No. SC015039. Company registration No. SC075079.
André Cebrián
Adam Hickox
© Benjamin Ealovega
THANK YOU
PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR'S CIRCLE
Our Principal Conductor’s Circle are a special part of our musical family. Their commitment and generosity benefit us all – musicians, audiences and creative learning participants alike.
Annual Fund
James and Patricia Cook
Visiting Artists Fund
Colin and Sue Buchan
Harry and Carol Nimmo
Anne and Matthew Richards
International Touring Fund
Gavin and Kate Gemmell
Creative Learning Fund
Sabine and Brian Thomson
CHAIR SPONSORS
Conductor Emeritus Joseph Swensen
Donald and Louise MacDonald
Chorus Director Gregory Batsleer
Anne McFarlane
Principal Second Violin
Marcus Barcham Stevens
Jo and Alison Elliot
Second Violin Rachel Smith
J Douglas Home
Principal Viola Max Mandel
Ken Barker and Martha Vail Barker
Viola Brian Schiele
Christine Lessels
Viola Steve King
Sir Ewan and Lady Brown
Principal Cello Philip Higham
The Thomas Family
Sub-Principal Cello Su-a Lee
Ronald and Stella Bowie
American Development Fund
Erik Lars Hansen and Vanessa C L Chang
Productions Fund
Anne, Tom and Natalie Usher
Bill and Celia Carman
Anny and Bobby White
Scottish Touring Fund
Eriadne and George Mackintosh
Claire and Anthony Tait
Cello Donald Gillan
Professor Sue Lightman
Cello Eric de Wit
Jasmine Macquaker Charitable Fund
Principal Double Bass
Caroline Hahn and Richard Neville-Towle
Principal Flute André Cebrián
Claire and Mark Urquhart
Principal Oboe
The Hedley Gordon Wright Charitable Trust
Sub-Principal Oboe Katherine Bryer
Ulrike and Mark Wilson
Principal Clarinet Maximiliano Martín
Stuart and Alison Paul
Principal Bassoon Cerys Ambrose-Evans
Claire and Anthony Tait
Principal Timpani Louise Lewis Goodwin
Geoff and Mary Ball
THANK YOU FUNDING PARTNERS
“A crack musical team at the top of its game.”
HM The King
Patron
Donald MacDonald CBE
Life President
Joanna Baker CBE
Chair
Gavin Reid LVO
Chief Executive
Maxim Emelyanychev
Principal Conductor
Andrew Manze
Principal Guest Conductor
Joseph Swensen
Conductor Emeritus
Gregory Batsleer
Chorus Director
Jay Capperauld
Associate Composer
Our Musicians
YOUR ORCHESTRA TONIGHT
Information correct at the time of going to print
First Violin
Afonso Fesch
Eva Thorarinsdottir
Ellie Fagg
Kana Kawashima
Aisling O’Dea
Fiona Alexander
Ruth Crouch
Catherine James
Second Violin
Anna Blackmur
Michelle Dierx
Sarah Bevan Baker
Stewart Webster
Kirsty Main
Josie Robertson
Viola
Jessica Beeston
Francesca Gilbert
Steve King
Liam Brolly
Cello
Philip Higham
Su-a Lee
Donald Gillan
Eric de Wit
Bass
Jamie Kenny
Ben Havinden-Williams
Flute
André Cebrián
Marta Gómez
Carolina Patricio
Piccolo
Marta Gómez
Oboe
Sasha Calin
Katherine Bryer
Cor Anglais
Katherine Bryer
Clarinet
Maximiliano Martín
William Stafford
Aisling O’Dea
First Violin
Bassoon
Cerys Ambrose-Evans
Alison Green
Horn
Steve Stirling
Jamie Shield
Trumpet
Peter Franks
Timpani
Louise Lewis Goodwin
Harp
Eleanor Hudson
WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR
RAVEL (1875-1937)
Le Tombeau de Couperin, M 68 (1914–17)
Fugue (Allegro moderato)
Forlane (Allegretto)
Rigaudon (Assez vif)
Menuet (Allegro moderato)
IBERT (1890–1962)
Flute Concerto (1932-33)
Allegro
Andante
Allegro scherzando
SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Symphony No 5 in B major D 485 (1816)
Allegro
Andante con moto
Menuetto (Allegro molto)
Allegro vivace
Wit, elegance, bubbling optimism: the three pieces in tonight’s programme might come from two different countries and two different centuries, but they’re united by a sense of sparkle, even joy.
Which is somewhat ironic in the case of the concert’s opening piece, since Maurice Ravel intended Le tombeau de Couperin as a kind of double memorial, first to earlier French composers, and second to friends and colleagues lost in World War One. He first wrote the piece between 1914 and 1917 as a six-movement piano suite, consciously evoking French Baroque dances and character pieces from two centuries earlier. Its somewhat morbid title – which does indeed translate literally as ‘Couperin’s Tomb’ – in fact follows a well-established French tradition of music intended to memorialise a cherished earlier figure. In Ravel’s case, that was the great French Baroque composer François Couperin, although Ravel was at pains to stress the piece should be seen as a homage to 18th-century French music in general, rather than a tribute to Couperin in particular. (Couperin himself, incidentally, composed something similar in his Le tombeau de Monsieur Blancrocher, a tribute to deceased lutenist Charles Fleury, and the tradition has continued right up to the present day: British composer Jonathan Harvey wrote his Le tombeau de Messiaen in tribute to the great French colourist and birdsong collector as recently as 1994.)
Ravel conceived Le tombeau de Couperin and began work on its Couperin-like ‘Forlane’ before the War began. The conflict, however, would have a profound effect on the composer. Considered unsuitable for combat duty because of his small stature and somewhat frail health, Ravel instead served as an ambulance driver and nurse, cheerfully
naming his ambulance Adélaïde, and signing off letters to friends as ‘Chauffeur Ravel’. That apparent cheerfulness may have been more like gallows humour, however: he was discharged from his wartime duties in 1917 following a significant decline in his health, exacerbated by the death of his beloved mother that year. Friends reported that he emerged from his wartime experiences more serious and troubled, less carefree than previously.
Hence, perhaps, his decision to dedicate each of Le tombeau de Couperin’s movements to a friend and colleague who had been lost in action. Ravel encountered criticism, however, for the music’s somewhat light, buoyant tone: was this really appropriate for a work that apparently set out to honour the deceased? Ravel’s reply was straightforward: ‘the dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence.’ More philosophically, there’s an undeniable
Ravel conceived Le tombeau deCouperin and began work on its Couperin-like ‘Forlane’ before the War began. The conflict, however, would have a profound effect on the composer.
sense that Ravel was aiming to counter the darkness and violence of conflict with music that epitomised the (very French) values that were so dear to him in peacetime: beauty, elegance, sophistication, emotional restraint.
The six-movement piano Le tombeau de Couperin received its premiere in Paris’ Salle Gaveau on 11 April 1919 from eminent pianist Marguerite Long, who had lost her husband Joseph de Marliave in the war (in fact, Ravel had dedicated the suite’s concluding Toccata to him). When Ravel came to create the orchestral version we hear this evening, however, he chose just four of the original piece’s six movements – perhaps simply because the Fugue and Toccata were too idiomatically pianistic to translate into orchestral music.
The opening Prélude – dedicated to Lieutenant Jacques Charlot – dashes by almost without a pause, the oboe playing
Maurice Ravel
its gently decorated opening theme. Clarinet, trumpet and cor anglais have their moments in the spotlight in the movement’s central section, before the luminosity of the opening sinks steadily towards a more wistful conclusion in the minor.
The spiky, clipped main theme of the Forlane – dedicated to Lieutenant Gabriel Deluc – seems full of ‘wrong’ notes, though a more rustic-sounding central section retains the opening’s distinctive rhythms. The third movement Menuet – dedicated to Jean Dreyfus, stepson of one of Ravel’s friends – contains some of the suite’s most luscious harmonies, and it’s here that Le tombeau de Couperin’s disarming mix of elegance and tender melancholy is most evident. Ravel closes, however, with a dashing Rigaudon – dedicated to brothers Pierre and Pascal Gaudin, both killed on their first day of service in 1914 – whose fanfare-like opening figure returns again and again to propel the music towards its sunny conclusion.
While Ravel and his compatriot, colleague and (to some extent) friend Claude Debussy were conjuring subtle, elegant, sometimes pastel-hued musical evocations, another group of French composers were creating music that was far louder and wittier, sometimes even downright scandalous. Most famous among them were the loose collective dubbed Les Six – Poulenc, Tailleferre, Auric, Durey, Honegger and Milhaud – but orbiting that group’s fame and notoriety were other figures who shared some of its passion for provocation and fun.
Among those orbiting figures was tonight’s next composer, Jacques Ibert. A prolific composer of [everything up to ‘stage plays’], he was also a big player in the French musical establishment, as director of the Académie
de France at the Villa Medici in Rome, and later as director of the Paris Opéra and Opéra-Comique. He embraced a huge variety of styles and approaches across his vast output, refusing to pigeonhole himself within any particular musical movement or school.
It’s ironic, then, that Ibert is now known for just a handful of pieces: the downright funny and outrageous Divertissement (taken from his incidental music to the play The Italian Straw Hat), the far more serious, sensuous Escales, and tonight’s Flute Concerto, which you could legitimately argue straddles both voluptuousness and mischievous fun.
Ibert wrote the Concerto in 1934 for the celebrated French flautist Marcel Moyse, and the composer clearly set out to exploit Moyse’s impeccable technique: the piece is generally considered one of the most challenging works in the flute repertoire. Despite its warmhearted fun, however, it’s far from superficial: in fact, it’s an intricately constructed, delicately balanced construction that serves to showcase many facets of the flute’s idiosyncratic character, from flamboyant fireworks to more sultry sensuality.
The first movement bursts into life as though the music has already long been underway, its opening dissonances quickly giving way to a scampering, breathless main theme from the soloist, which is later replaced by a far slower, lusher second main melody that makes great play of the flute’s rich lower register.
Flute and orchestra at first seem to be in different keys in the slower, song-like second movement, though they slowly merge across its tender, heartfelt opening music. There’s an unmistakable flavour of jazz and blues to
some of the movement’s later music, though when the poignant opening melody returns, it’s on a solo violin, with the flute soloist providing filigree melodic decoration.
Loud orchestral stabs and syncopated rhythms kick off the outspoken finale before the soloist launches their whirling melodic line, pausing for a couple of unaccompanied cadenzas before the Concerto speeds towards its exuberant conclusion.
Franz Schubert turned 19 in January 1816. By the end of that year, he’d completed around 200 new works – including both his Fourth and Fifth symphonies, written within just a few months of each other. (It wasn’t an unusual year, either: over the previous 12 months, he’d written about 150 songs, many of which remain classics of the repertoire today.)
Schubert’s Fourth Symphony, which he himself titled ‘Tragic’, shows the young composer
Jacques Ibert embraced a huge variety of styles and approaches across his vast output, refusing to pigeonhole himself within any particular musical movement or school.
grappling with the revolutionary symphonic innovations forged by Beethoven. In his Fifth, however, Schubert shrinks his orchestra to an almost miniature size and mines all the joy and wonder that he’d omitted from that earlier Symphony, creating instead an overt homage to another towering figure of recent years in Vienna.
Though Mozart had been dead for a quarter of a century by the time Schubert was writing his Fifth Symphony, the earlier composer’s music was more highly regarded than ever – and more popular, certainly, than that of Beethoven, who at that point was eight symphonies into his nine-strong cycle, and seen as dangerously, unpredictably innovative. Schubert was fascinated by Beethoven, but devoted to Mozart. In October 1816, the same month he completed his Fifth Symphony, he gushed in his diary: ‘As though from afar, the magic notes of Mozart’s music still gently haunt me.
Jacques Ibert
So these fair impressions, which neither time nor circumstance can efface, linger in the soul and lighten our existence. They show us in the darkness of this life a light, clear and lovely, for which we may constantly hope. O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how endlessly many such beneficent intimations of a better life have you imprinted on our souls.’
Schubert’s Fifth Symphony would no doubt have received its first performances from the amateur orchestra that met in the apartment of Vienna violinist Otto Hatwig, in which the young composer played viola. But it had to wait until 13 years after Schubert’s death for its public premiere, in 1841 at Vienna’s Josefstadt Theatre.
And if the Symphony is sometimes dismissed as ‘light’ music when compared with the darker, more ambitious Fourth – well, that can only be a compliment. Light it certainly
In his Fifth, however, Schubert shrinks his orchestra to an almost miniature size and mines all the joy and wonder that he’d omitted from that earlier Symphony, creating instead an overt homage to another towering figure of recent years in Vienna.
is, in its apparently effortless invention, its endless charm and grace, and its delicate, translucent scoring. Schubert opens his first movement with a miniature ‘curtainraiser’ for the woodwind, which the first violins can’t help but interrupt with their jaunty main theme. There’s an undoubted Mozartian feeling to the movement’s clarity and balance, but also a harmonic richness that makes it distinctively Schubertian. Light and shadow seem constantly to shift in the gently tripping second movement, officially the slow movement but not terribly slow at all. The third movement, a minor-key minuet, provides the Symphony’s stormiest, most dramatic music, despite its lighter, more bucolic central trio in the contrasting major. And Schubert offers plenty of mischievous harmonic surprises in his bouncy, scampering fourth movement, a masterclass in transparent orchestration.
© David Kettle
Franz Peter Schubert
Conductor ADAM HICKOX
British conductor Adam Hickox is praised repeatedly for his expressive and masterful interpretations and is in increasing demand across the world. Following a highly successful run of performances of L’elisir d’amore, he was appointed Principal Conductor of The Glyndebourne Sinfonia in December 2023, following a long line of distinguished predecessors. In November 2024, just a few months after making his debut with the orchestra, Hickox was announced as the new Chief Conductor of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, starting in 2025/26.
Equally at home in the opera and symphonic fields, his 2024/25 season includes debuts with Staatsoper Hamburg (Hänsel und Gretel), Dresdner Philharmonie, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie, London Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Bournemouth Symphony, Orchestre National de Lille, Trondheim Symphony, a tour of Holland with Phion and his Asian debut with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. He will also return to the Royal Philharmonic and the BBC Philharmonic, at the Glyndebourne autumn season 2024 he will conduct La Traviata and concert performances of Tippett A Child of our Time
In previous seasons, he has conducted orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin, Philharmonia Orchestra and BBC Symphony, and acclaimed opera productions with Norwegian National Opera (Candide) and Opera North (Tosca).
Hickox studied music and composition with Robin Holloway at Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, and conducting with Sian Edwards at the Royal Academy of Music. He was Assistant Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic from 2019-2022 working closely with Lahav Shani, and in 2021 he was invited to Tanglewood as one of the Festival's two Conducting Fellows.
© Benjamin
Ealovega
ANDRÉ CEBRIÁN
Spanish flautist André Cebrián is in demand as an orchestral and chamber musician throughout Scotland and abroad. He was appointed Principal Flute of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 2020 and appears regularly as Guest Principal Flute with orchestras around the world (Sinfónica de Castilla-León, Liceu Opera, Filármonica de Gran Canaria, Sinfónica de Barcelona, RSNO, BBCSSO, Philharmonia Zürich, Malaysian Philharmonic and Spira Mirabilis).
As a chamber musician, André has played in hundreds of chamber music festivals around Europe, performing with the Azahar Ensemble, the Natalia Ensemble or with one of his duo projects with guitarist Pedro Mateo González, pianist Irene Alfageme, or harpist Bleuenn Le Friec.
He also enjoys a busy solo career and has appeared as soloist with orchestras including Sinfónica de Galicia, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, Dresden Staatskapelle, Georgian Sinfonietta and Filharmonia Zabrzańska as well as the SCO.
A dedicated teacher, André loves to share his passion for music with his students at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Barenboim-Said Academy and the youth orchestras that he coaches each season.
André studied in his hometown Santiago de Compostela with Luis Soto and Laurent Blaiteau. He then went on to study in Paris, Salamanca, Madrid, Detmold and Geneva with teachers Pablo Sagredo, János Bálint and Jacques Zoon.
André's Chair is kindly supported by Claire and Mark Urquhart
SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) is one of Scotland’s five National Performing Companies and has been a galvanizing force in Scotland’s music scene since its inception in 1974. The SCO believes that access to world-class music is not a luxury but something that everyone should have the opportunity to participate in, helping individuals and communities everywhere to thrive. Funded by the Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council and a community of philanthropic supporters, the SCO has an international reputation for exceptional, idiomatic performances: from mainstream classical music to newly commissioned works, each year its wide-ranging programme of work is presented across the length and breadth of Scotland, overseas and increasingly online.
Equally at home on and off the concert stage, each one of the SCO’s highly talented and creative musicians and staff is passionate about transforming and enhancing lives through the power of music. The SCO’s Creative Learning programme engages people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse range of projects, concerts, participatory workshops and resources. The SCO’s current five-year Residency in Edinburgh’s Craigmillar builds on the area’s extraordinary history of Community Arts, connecting the local community with a national cultural resource.
An exciting new chapter for the SCO began in September 2019 with the arrival of dynamic young conductor Maxim Emelyanychev as the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor. His tenure has recently been extended until 2028. The SCO and Emelyanychev released their first album together (Linn Records) in 2019 to widespread critical acclaim. Their second recording together, of Mendelssohn symphonies, was released in 2023, with Schubert Symphonies Nos 5 and 8 following in 2024.
The SCO also has long-standing associations with many eminent guest conductors and directors including Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Manze, Pekka Kuusisto, François Leleux, Nicola Benedetti, Isabelle van Keulen, Anthony Marwood, Richard Egarr, Mark Wigglesworth, Lorenza Borrani and Conductor Emeritus Joseph Swensen.
The Orchestra’s current Associate Composer is Jay Capperauld. The SCO enjoys close relationships with numerous leading composers and has commissioned around 200 new works, including pieces by Sir James MacMillan, Anna Clyne, Sally Beamish, Martin Suckling, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Karin Rehnqvist, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Nico Muhly and the late Peter Maxwell Davies.
SUPPORT THE SUMMER TOUR
This summer, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is bringing live music to 20 towns and villages across Scotland - from Golspie to Castle Douglas, Brechin to Kilmelford. Our Scottish Summer Tour celebrates the rich diversity of our musical heritage, featuring everything from timeless classics to a thrilling world premiere.
Your donation will help deepen our connections with local communities, showcase our exceptional musicians, and bring world-class performances to audiences who rarely have the opportunity to experience live orchestral music in their area.
For more information on how you can become a regular donor, please get in touch with Hannah on 0131 478 8364 or hannah.wilkinson@sco.org.uk
Su-a at the Kelpies in 2021