St David s Hall, Cardiff Friday 21 October 2011, 7.30pm

Conductor François-Xavier Roth Oboe François Leleux Viola Lawrence Power Cello Tim Hugh Presenter Catrin Finch Benjamin Britten Sinfonia da Requiem (...
1 downloads 2 Views 707KB Size
Conductor François-Xavier Roth Oboe François Leleux Viola Lawrence Power Cello Tim Hugh Presenter Catrin Finch

Benjamin Britten Sinfonia da Requiem (20’) Richard Strauss Oboe Concerto (24’) Interval (20’)

Richard Strauss Don Quixote (38’)

This evening’s concert is presented by Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and is being recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast on Sunday 30 October at 2pm.

Our programme notes are also available to download at bbc.co.uk/now Family notes on tonight’s concert are available from the Orchestra Information Desk.

St David’s Hall, Cardiff Friday 21 October 2011, 7.30pm

Leader Lesley Hatfield

BBC National Orchestra of Wales Forthcoming concerts St David’s Hall, Cardiff

BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Bay

Friday 25 November 2011, 7.30pm

Wednesday 26 October 2011, 7.00pm

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 21 BRUCKNER Symphony No. 7

COMPOSER PORTRAIT: HOLLAND PANORAMA

Conductor Kazushi Ono Piano François-Frédéric Guy

ROBIN DE RAAFF Der Einsame im Herbst WILLEM JETHS Violin Concerto No. 2 KLAS TORSTENSSON Fastlandet

Friday 9 December 2011, 7.30pm

Conductor Jac van Steen Violin Tasmin Little

BERLIOZ L’enfance du Christ Conductor Thierry Fischer Mezzo-soprano Anna Stephany Tenor Barry Banks Bass Vincent Le Texier Bass Henry Waddington BBC National Chorus of Wales RWCMD Chorus

Thursday 15 December 2011, 7.30pm CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS TCHAIKOVSKY Swan Lake – excerpts HANDEL Messiah – For unto us a child is born JOHN RUTTER Christmas Lullaby EDMUND WALTERS Little Camel Boy MATHIAS Bell Carol PROKOFIEV Lieutenant Kijé – Troika LEROY ANDERSON Sleigh Ride GARETH GLYN Christmas Medley Plus other seasonal favourites

Conductor Grant Llewellyn BBC National Chorus of Wales and guest choirs

Friday 20 January 2012, 7.30pm RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 TCHAIKOVSKY ‘Manfred’ symphony Conductor Tadaaki Otaka Piano Stephen Hough

2

bbc.co.uk/now

Friday 2 December 2011, 7.00pm COMPOSER PORTRAIT: ANDRÉ JOLIVET DEBUSSY Nocturnes ANDRÉ JOLIVET Cello Concerto No. 2 ANDRÉ JOLIVET Bassoon Concerto ANDRÉ JOLIVET Symphony No. 3 Conductor Pascal Rophé Cello Marc Coppey Bassoon Jarosław Augustyniak RWCMD Chamber Choir In collaboration with Cardiff University

SYMPHONY Live on BBC Radio 3 Tuesday 15 November 2011, 3.30pm BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 Conductor Michael Francis

Tuesday 22 November 2011, 2.00pm DVORˇÁK Symphony No. 8 Conductor Clemens Schuldt

Tuesday 29 November 2011, 2.00pm SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 9 SIBELIUS Valse triste SIBELIUS Symphony No. 7 Conductor Pascal Rophé Tickets FREE, booking now open.

Introduction

Tonight’s programme A warm welcome to this evening’s concert, which contrasts works from either end of Richard Strauss’s career with a piece by the young Britten originally commissioned by the Japanese government to mark the extraordinary longevity of the Mikado dynasty. The Sinfonia da Requiem was rejected for its perceived Christian overtones. It’s a work that abounds in energy and clashing tensions of mood and it demonstrates an extraordinarily confident handling of symphonic structure. In 1945, five years after the Sinfonia da Requiem, an elderly Strauss wrote his Oboe Concerto, inspired by his conversations with an American soldier, John de Lancie, whose day job was principal oboe of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Scored for chamber-like forces, it combines gentleness with wit and offers the soloist countless beguiling melodies. Tonight’s soloist, François Leleux, is no stranger to the work, having recently recorded it. To end, one of Strauss’s most brilliantly characterised tone-poems. He casts a solo cello as Don Quixote, aided and abetted by his servant Sancho Panza in the form of a solo viola. Tonight those roles are taken by Tim Hugh and Lawrence Power, both popular soloists with BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

 lease turn off all mobile phones and digital watches during the performance. P Try to stifle unavoidable coughs until the normal breaks in the performance. Photography and recording is not permitted.

bbc.co.uk/now

3

Programme notes

Benjamin Britten (1913–76) Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20 (1939–40) 1 2 3

Lacrymosa (Andante ben misurato) – Dies irae (Allegro con fuoco) – Requiem aeternam (Andante molto tranquillo)

Britten never committed himself to a ‘symphony’ pure and simple and this has often led to the misleading assertion that his compositional outlook was not truly symphonic. Definitions of the symphonic process are in any case notoriously difficult to pinpoint – but, whether we take the rigorously organic view of Sibelius or the all-embracing sweep of Mahler, Britten’s works in so many genres richly repay consideration in symphonic terms. The large-scale structural and tonal organisation of the operas, for instance, reveals a grasp of symphonic control rare in the 20th century, while their detailed construction is intricate and seemingly evolving. When it comes to the orchestral and instrumental music, Britten revealed at a very early stage an innate understanding of Austro-German sonata-form – as in the Sinfonietta, Phantasy Quartet and the ‘symphonic cycle’ Our Hunting Fathers. The lack of a conventional symphony is nevertheless compensated for by several ‘symphonies in disguise’ – the Spring Symphony, Cello Symphony, Simple Symphony and Sinfonia da Requiem – which, in their distinctive ways, create and resolve varying degrees of symphonic tension. The three movements of the Sinfonia da Requiem are conflated to form an unbroken 20-minute span. The opening section is cast in a measured tempo (‘a slow marching lament’) and suggests a

4

bbc.co.uk/now

broadly evolving sonata-like argument, with contrasted thematic ideas drawn from the same melodic source. As the music moves inexorably through a short and anguished development towards the moment of recapitulation, this itself is rendered all the more powerful by combining the two main melodic and harmonic strands, thus allowing a drastic and dramatic telescoping of its continuation – possible precisely because a quick scherzo is soon to emerge, as if imperceptibly. This momentarily diffuses the tension, but it soon develops into a ferocious form of the ‘Dance of Death’, whose energy eventually spills over and creates its own moment of self-destruction. These extraordinarily splintered pages are unique in mid-20th-century British orchestral music for their raw, visceral power. The sense of daring is again made possible, in context, because the emotional storm thus unleashed is at length calmed by a consoling slow movement which emerges, bruised, in the aftermath. This forms both dramatic and organic culmination and resolution – all thematic fragments are now unfolded in fully lyrical extension, and tonal and structural conflicts find release in a serene apotheosis. Having outlined the abstract content of the Sinfonia da Requiem, there is of course much more to say about the piece. The title itself is quite specific in colouring an integral dimension of the score. The circumstances of the original commission now seem bizarre – a request from the Japanese government in 1939 for a work to celebrate the extraordinary longevity of the Mikado dynasty. Britten had left England for North America four months before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 but,

Programme notes

although it was originally to be a shortish stay, he remained there (with Peter Pears) until April 1942. Three extramusical elements came together immediately in his mind in response to the commission. The work was to be ‘a short Symphony – or Symphonic poem. Called Sinfonia da Requiem (rather topical, but not of course mentioning dates or places!) which sounds rather what they would like’; it was additionally to be dedicated ‘to the memory of my parents, and since it is a kind of requiem, I’m quoting from the Dies irae of the Requiem Mass’; and its content – more specifically topical – was to give expression to ‘my own anti-war conviction … I’m making it just as anti-war as possible’. He was not therefore trying deliberately to write a work which would affront the Japanese – but in the event the score was rejected as ‘purely a religious music of Christian nature’ which didn’t ‘express felicitations for the 2,600th anniversary of our country’. Strauss’s and Ibert’s respective offerings, on the other hand – the former’s splendid Festmusik and the latter’s insipid Ouverture de fête – were deemed acceptable. Britten was undaunted and found ‘the publicity of having work rejected by the Japanese Consulate for being a Christian a wow’. The premiere was given in New York’s Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic conducted by John Barbirolli in March 1941. Britten’s own assessment of the work to a friend is revealing: ‘Personally, I think it is the best so far, although to me it is so personal & intimate a piece, that it is rather like those awful dreams where one parades about the place naked – slightly embarrassing!’ With the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that the Sinfonia da Requiem was a seminal work in

Britten’s output – the exact extent of the shadow it cast can be heard graphically and naturally in the War Requiem of 1962 as well as in countless works besides. Programme note © Geraint Lewis Geraint Lewis is a composer, lecturer and writer on music. He contributes to ‘Gramophone’ and other periodicals, and is currently working on a life-andworks study of William Mathias.

About the composer Benjamin Britten was born on St Cecilia’s Day (22 November) 1913 in Lowestoft. His mother was an amateur singer and he heard plenty of music-making at home, where he started to play the piano and to compose at a precociously early age. In his teens he started to have private lessons with Frank Bridge, who laid the foundations of a rapier-sharp technique and an iron self-discipline. As a result he found the teaching of John Ireland and others at the Royal College of Music (1930–33) insipid and unchallenging. Public performances of Britten’s works during his student years were scarce, and a desire to study in Vienna with Alban Berg was thwarted by the RCM authorities on the pretext that Berg would not be a good influence! Somewhat adrift in London in 1935, Britten found the creative catalyst for the next phase of his development in the poet and dramatist W. H. Auden, who encouraged his younger contemporary to explore his hitherto repressed homosexuality and to espouse pacifist, left-wing political views. The upshot was that in 1939 Britten followed Auden to America, where they worked together on the operetta Paul Bunyan in 1941.

bbc.co.uk/now

5

Programme notes

Accompanying Britten to America was the young tenor Peter Pears, who was to become his lifelong partner. They returned to England in 1942, settling at Snape in Suffolk, where Britten began work on his first opera, Peter Grimes, based on George Crabbe’s poem ‘The Borough’. At its Sadler’s Wells premiere in June 1945 it was clear that a new chapter in British music had begun and Britten’s reputation as the leading composer of his generation was conclusively established. He formed the English Opera Group in 1946 to tour his next operas – The Rape of Lucretia (1946) and Albert Herring (1947) – and in 1947 he and Pears moved to the seaside town of Aldeburgh, where they remained for the rest of their lives, establishing an annual festival in 1948. From here onwards Britten divided his time between composition, conducting and playing the piano – notably as accompanist to Pears. A series of major operas followed, of which Billy Budd (1951), The Turn of the Screw (1954) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960) are the most frequently staged. A high-water mark came in 1962 with the War Requiem in Coventry Cathedral. Curlew River (1964) broke new theatrical ground as a ‘parable for church performance’; Owen Wingrave (1971) was commissioned by the BBC specifically as an opera for television. But while writing his last opera – Death in Venice (1973) – Britten’s health deteriorated and a heart operation in 1973 left him partially paralysed. He died on 4 December 1976, shortly after being created Lord Britten of Aldeburgh. Profile © Geraint Lewis

6

bbc.co.uk/now

Find out more

English Chamber Orchestra/ Benjamin Britten (Decca 425 100-2)



Benjamin Britten: A Biography Humphrey Carpenter (Faber) www.brittenpears.org

Programme notes

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) Oboe Concerto in D major (1945, rev. 1948) 1 Allegro moderato – 2 Andante – 3 Rondo: Vivace François Leleux oboe During 1942, with the Second World War raging around him, Strauss relaxed after completion of his last opera, Capriccio, by returning to smallscale orchestral composition and in November, at the age of 78, completed his Second Horn Concerto. This and the five subsequent instrumental works which have come to represent his Indian summer were written as deliberate homage to the great German and Austrian composers Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Wagner, because Strauss believed that the true German culture was being destroyed. At the end of the war he was still living in his house in Garmisch, which came within the American occupation zone. Among those who visited him was an American soldier, John de Lancie, who in civilian life was principal oboist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. With French as their mutual language the two men talked for hours. De Lancie recalled later that he was ‘overcome by shyness and a feeling of great awe in the presence of this man and I remember thinking at the time that I would have nothing to contribute to the conversation that could possibly be of interest to the composer. Once, though, I summoned up all my courage and began to talk about the beautiful oboe melodies one comes across in so many of his works.’ This led him to ask

Strauss if he had ever considered writing a work for oboe. The answer was no, but a seed had been sown and within a few months a concerto was sketched. On 6 July Strauss wrote to his friend and biographer Willi Schuh: ‘In the studio of my old age, a concerto for oboe and small orchestra is being “concocted”!’ The Oboe Concerto was completed in short score in September 1945. The following month Strauss, who was being investigated by the authorities for alleged collaboration with the Nazi regime, left with his wife Pauline to stay in Switzerland. There, at Baden, he orchestrated the concerto, completing it on 25 October, and in the first three months of 1946 three Strauss world premieres were given: Metamorphosen and the concerto in Zurich in January and February, and the Second Wind Sonatina in Winterthur in March. The soloist in the concerto was Marcel Saillet, principal oboist of the Tonhalle Orchestra, which was conducted by Volkmar Andreae. Strauss had invited De Lancie to attend but he was unable to leave America. It was a sign of Switzerland’s coolness towards Strauss at this juncture in his life that he was allocated a seat at the back of the hall. As the orchestra assembled, a woman in the front row noticed the composer, went up to him and led him to her seat. Not surprisingly, the concerto was soon seized upon by oboists everywhere as a masterly addition to the relatively small number – even smaller then – of concertos for their instrument. It is wholly characteristic of late Strauss in its wistfully autumnal colouring and its use of harmonic side-slips, but it also has a blitheness and melodic grace that recall Mozart and Schubert. It is scored for two flutes, two clarinets, cor anglais, two bassoons, two horns and strings.

bbc.co.uk/now

7

Programme notes

The three movements are played without a break and share thematic material. An ostinato (repeated pattern) in the cellos introduces the soloist’s first entry, a 56-bar exposition during which most of the movement’s material is presented. Melody succeeds melody in a flow that reminds us that Strauss’s inventiveness was as prolific as ever. The ostinato figure leads into the lyrical and flowing Andante, where it assumes greater lightness. This movement’s cantabile melody is like the Don Juan oboe theme of over 50 years earlier but with all passion spent. A cadenza to pizzicato accompaniment is the link with the Rondo finale, which makes a joyous climax to the work. After the first performance, Strauss revised and extended (by 11 bars) the coda of the finale. Discovery of further sketches of the second and third movements reveal whole completed sections not placed in their final order but jumbled like a mosaic. Programme note © Michael Kennedy Michael Kennedy was for many years music critic of the ‘Sunday Telegraph’. He is a regular contributor to ‘Opera’ magazine. He is the author of the ‘Oxford Dictionary of Music’ and has written biographies of Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Walton, Mahler and Richard Strauss.

8

bbc.co.uk/now

About the composer Born in Munich the year before the premiere of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and dying the year after the composition of Boulez’s Second Piano Sonata, Richard Strauss had a varied career that bridged seven turbulent decades. As with Wagner and Boulez, the young firebrand would eventually become part of the Establishment he had seemed keen to overthrow – a rapprochement more problematical to us today than his earlier antagonism. Strauss’s early tone-poems cast aside the conservative models favoured by his hornplayer father Franz, their programmatic aspirations coloured with a bold and vivid orchestral palette. By 1900 this remarkable sequence of pieces included Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel, Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote and Ein Heldenleben. The new century saw Strauss’s energies directed primarily towards opera, the lurid, nightmarish worlds of Salome and Elektra serving further to enhance a wellcultivated notoriety. Der Rosenkavalier (1909–10) represented a marked change of tack for Strauss and his collaborator, Hugo von Hofmannsthal: in place of some mythic tale of bloodlust and parricide, here was a farce-cum-lyrical comedy consciously modelled on Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Critical opinion has been fairly harsh towards much of his later output, at least until the onset of an extraordinary Indian summer. While Metamorphosen (1945) and the Four Last Songs (1948) are acknowledged as poignant, valedictory masterpieces, his intervening works can seem well-wrought rather than consistently inspired, content to mine a depleted (and increasingly anachronistic) seam.

Programme notes

On a personal level, too, Strauss has been attacked for his egotism and insensitivity – certainly, his association with the Nazi regime seems ill-judged. But Strauss is best seen as a product of Imperial Germany for whom the Weimar Republic was an ineffectual interlude, and neither his casual anti-Semitic remarks nor his hostility to democracy makes him a war criminal. As Otto Klemperer remarked, his reasons for staying may have been primarily financial – ‘because in Germany there were 56 opera houses, and in America only two’. Yet, having incurred the wrath of Goebbels for insisting on the rights of Stefan Zweig, the Jewish librettist of his Die schweigsame Frau (1933–4), Strauss wrote a famously abject letter to Hitler, praising him as ‘the great architect of German social life’.

Find out more

François Leleux; Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding (Sony Classical 7748692)



Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma Michael Kennedy (CUP) www.richardstrauss.at

Interval: 20 minutes

If Strauss the man seldom seemed overburdened by considerations of good taste, sensitivity and insight constantly invade his work, not least his 200-odd songs. In his more tender moments the bluff, bourgeois exterior is left behind. It says something for him that his exhibitionistically shrewish wife Pauline pined away and died soon after their 54-year marriage ended with his death. Characteristically, Strauss himself once issued his own testimonial in the most brusque of terms, telling an orchestra, ‘I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate one.’ Profile by David Gutman © BBC David Gutman is the author of books on subjects ranging from Prokofiev to John Lennon and is a regular contributor to ‘Gramophone’. He has written the Proms Further Listening and Reading notes since 1996.

bbc.co.uk/now

9

Programme notes

Richard Strauss Don Quixote – fantastic variations on a theme of knightly character, Op. 35 (1897) Tim Hugh cello Lawrence Power viola The greatest of all Spanish literary characters, Don Quixote de la Mancha has been represented in music many times: in operas by, among others, Paisiello and Massenet, in ballets by Minkus and Roberto Gerhard, in the musical by Mitch Leigh, in songs by Ravel, even in an orchestral suite by Telemann. But by common consent his most perfect musical incarnation is that given him by Richard Strauss, in the sixth of the great series of tone-poems that dominated the first phase of the composer’s mature career. It was written during 1897, while Strauss was working as chief conductor of the Munich Opera, and first performed in March 1898 in Cologne, under the composer’s early champion Franz Wüllner. What attracted Strauss to the subject was not so much the Spanish setting (though there are a few touches of local colour) as the literary qualities of Cervantes’s novel: the scenes of action satirising the heroics of the chivalrous romances of the time, and the deeply sympathetic portrait of Don Quixote de la Mancha himself, his wits so turned by his reading of those romances that he imagines himself a participant in them. Quixote is portrayed almost throughout by a solo cello – a part which now occupies a prominent place in

10

bbc.co.uk/now

the cello repertoire. Quixote’s servant Sancho Panza is similarly represented by solo viola, supported from within the orchestra by bass clarinet and tenor tuba. The adventures of the pair, selected by Strauss from various episodes of the novel, are cast in the form of an Introduction, Theme and (free) Variations and Finale. The large orchestral forces are used with extraordinary virtuosity and lucidity in some of the most graphic programme music ever written – and some of the funniest. But there are also some very touching episodes, in which Strauss takes his hero every bit as seriously as Quixote does himself. The work begins with a long prologue, comprising introduction and theme, or rather themes. The opening portrays Don Quixote’s dreaming of ideas of chivalry and courtesy, his wrong-headedness – depicted in a clarinet arpeggio figure leading to cadences that take unpredictable turnings – and his vision, in an entrancing oboe solo, of his ideal lady, Dulcinea. Then, as his absorption in books of romance grows deeper, his mind becomes unhinged, and the textures and harmonies become more and more confused, until they reach a dissonant climax. At this point, the solo cello enters to assume the part of the ‘knight of the woeful countenance’; and his upwardstriving theme is followed by the group of ideas associated with Sancho Panza, who is bluff, practical, good-natured, and given to conversing in platitude and cliché. In Variation 1, the two adventurers set out on their chivalrous journey, Quixote musing on Dulcinea. The knight mistakes a group of windmills for a gang of giants, charges them, and is thrown from his horse by one of the sails.

Programme notes

Variation 2 depicts an even more ferocious attack on an army of heathen soldiers, in reality a flock of sheep – and Strauss’s tone-painting of them, with flutter-tongued brass and clarinets counterpointed by a shepherd’s pipe tune, does come astonishingly close to reality. Variation 3 is an extended dialogue between the knight and his squire, in which Sancho Panza’s common sense is gradually worn down by Quixote’s lofty vision of chivalry. Variation 4 begins with Quixote girding his loins for action again; the target is a band of rogues abducting a maiden, or, in reality, a procession of chanting penitents carrying an image of the Virgin. After rescuing Quixote, a worn-out Sancho Panza falls asleep, snoring. In Variation 5, the knight keeps the traditional vigil over his armour, meditating on his beloved.

But still Quixote is ready for action, in Variation 9 falling upon a pair of magicians who are in reality monks riding mules. In Variation 10 Quixote is challenged to combat by the shrill fanfares of the Knight of the White Moon – in fact a friend who has decided it is time to bring the dreamer to his senses. Losing the battle, Quixote is ordered to return home; he thinks briefly of becoming a shepherd (as the return of the pastoral piping from Variation 2 suggests), but eventually, at Sancho’s urging, complies. The epilogue shows him restored at last to sanity, but feverish after his adventures and with a faltering heart. With a final thought of the ideals that launched him on his quest, he dies; and the little clarinet figure is lucidly resolved at last. Programme note © Anthony Burton Anthony Burton is a former BBC Radio 3 music producer and presenter, now a freelance writer. He

Variation 6 depicts the episode of the False Dulcinea, the country wench whom Sancho Panza attempts to pass off as Quixote’s true love. The Dulcinea theme is transformed into a rustic dance. In Variation 7, Quixote is mounted on an old rocking horse, which he believes to be a magic steed that can fly through the air – though, for all the airy sounds of whirling woodwind and even a wind-machine, the timpani and double basses make it clear that he never gets off the ground.

edited the Associated Board’s Performer’s Guides, reviews CDs regularly for ‘BBC Music Magazine’, and has written programme notes on thousands of works of all periods.

Find out more Pierre Fournier; Norbert Hauptmann; Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/ Herbert von Karajan (DG 457 725-2)

Then, in Variation 8, Quixote takes to the water in what he thinks is a magic boat; but it ends up capsizing in the mill-race, leaving both men drying out in pizzicato drips, and Sancho offering up a prayer for deliverance.

bbc.co.uk/now

11

Biographies

François Leleux

conductor

oboe

François-Xavier Roth is Associate Guest Conductor of BBC National Orchestra of Wales and has special relationships with the London Symphony Orchestra and Ensemble Intercontemporain. He has just become Principal Conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden and Freiburg. His repertoire ranges from 17th-century to contemporary music and encompasses symphonic, operatic and chamber music. In 2003 he founded the innovative orchestra Les Siècles, which performs contrasting programmes on modern and original instruments as appropriate, often within the same concert. With the ensemble he has given concerts in France, Italy, Germany, England and Japan, and they were awarded a Diapason Découverte for their CD of Bizet and Chabrier. They devised their own television series, Presto, which attracted a weekly average audience of 4 million during its three-year run.

Recognised as one of the finest oboists of today, François Leleux enjoys an international career, appearing with major orchestras and at important venues and festivals performing repertoire from the Baroque to newly commissioned works. He has worked with many prominent conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Myung-Whun Chung, Thomas Dausgaard, Sir Colin Davis, Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding and Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Recent and forthcoming highlights include concerts with the Rotterdam and Bergen Philharmonic orchestras, Munich Chamber Orchestra and Gulbenkian Orchestra, a tour of Japan with the SWR SO and concerts with Les Siècles across Europe. Equally committed to opera, François-Xavier Roth’s performances of Ambroise Thomas’s Mignon and Offenbach’s Les Brigands at the Opéra Comique, Paris, have received critical acclaim. Future seasons include productions of Mozart’s Idomeneo and Delibes’s Lakmé.

Uwe Arens

François-Xavier Roth

He was appointed principal oboe of the Opéra de Paris aged just 18, following it with similar positions at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He now divides his time between orchestral playing, solo appearances, chamber music and directing. He is also a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. Committed to expanding the oboe’s repertoire, he has had many new works written for him, by composers such as Nicolas Bacri, Thierry Pécou, Gilles Silvestrini, Eric Tanguy, Thierry Escaich, Giya Kancheli, Michael Jarrell and, most recently, Albert Schnelzer. He is a dedicated chamber musician, performing regularly all over the world with the octet Ensemble Paris-Bastille and sextet Les Vents Français. Regular recital partners include harpist Isabelle Moretti and his wife, violinist Lisa Batiashvili. He has an exclusive recording contract and his latest release of works by Richard Strauss includes the concerto he plays this evening. His next disc, The Charm of the Oboe, will be released in the spring.

12

bbc.co.uk/now

Jack Liebeck

Biographies

Lawrence Power

Tim Hugh

viola

cello

One of the leading viola players of today, Lawrence Power frequently performs with leading orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio, Boston and Chicago Symphony orchestras, Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Bergen, Royal Stockholm and Warsaw Philharmonic orchestras.

Following his success at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Tim Hugh has worked and recorded with many leading conductors, including Valery Gergiev, André Previn, Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yehudi Menuhin, Daniel Harding, François-Xavier Roth, Myung-Whun Chung and Yan Pascal Tortelier.

Recent engagements have included Berlioz’s Harold in Italy with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra; Bartók’s concerto with the Real Filharmonia de Galicia, Bergen Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Markus Stenz; Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante with the Philharmonia, Bavarian Radio and Boston Symphony orchestras and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic; York Bowen’s concerto with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester in Mainz; Takemitsu’s A String around Autumn with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife; and Rózsa’s concerto with BBC Scottish Symphony and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras. His award-winning discography includes concertos by Bartók, York Bowen, Cecil Forsyth, Hindemith, Rózsa, Rubbra and Walton and chamber music by Brahms and Bowen. Highlights this season include becoming Artist-inResidence with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Mark-Anthony Turnage’s On opened ground with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, his orchestral debut in Australia and a return to the Verbier Festival. Lawrence Power plays an Antonio Brensi viola dating from around 1610.

Following studies at Yale and Cambridge, he worked with William Pleeth and Jacqueline du Pré. A developing interest in contemporary music led to performances of Boulez’s Messagesquisse, Dutilleux’s … tout un monde lointain …, Britten’s Cello Symphony and Hugh Wood’s Cello Concerto. His award-winning discography includes works by J. S. and C. P. E. Bach, Beethoven, Britten, Bliss, Boccherini, Brahms, Finzi, Hoffman, Holst, Saygun, Richard Strauss, Tabakov and Walton. His latest album, Hands on Heart, features a live performance of the Kodály Sonata. As chamber musician he plays regularly with the Nash Ensemble and has recorded a large swathe of the piano trio repertoire as a member of the Solomon Trio. He has also given recitals with André Previn, Hélène Grimaud, Nikolaj Znaider and Andrew Marriner. As solo cellist with the London Symphony Orchestra he has also performed the concertos of Dvo∑ák, Elgar, Haydn, Shostakovich, Tischenko (of which he gave the UK premiere) and Walton, as well as Strauss’s Don Quixote. Tim Hugh plays a cello by Giacomo Zanoli.

bbc.co.uk/now

13

Player profile

Player profile Sybil Olive first violin

Orchestra Merchandise We have a variety of merchandise available to purchase today from the Orchestra Information Desk. These include: BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales – A History Peter Reynolds £9.99 Limited edition framed photo art by Chris Stock £50/£65

What is your favourite piece of classical music, and why? It’s impossible to choose one but Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Mahler’s Second Symphony never fail to move me. What do you enjoy about being a professional musician? Doing something I love, but also bringing pleasure to so many people. What has been the most memorable moment of your career with the Orchestra? Having been in the Orchestra for 35 years there have been many memorable moments, but performing Britten’s War Requiem in Dresden in 1980 with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and Leipzig Radio Choir was incredibly moving. How do you like to spend your free time? As a job-sharer, I have more time than full-time members to participate in my many hobbies – tennis, cycling, swimming, jogging, gardening, walking in the mountains, going to the theatre and cinema and walking my golden retriever.

14

bbc.co.uk/now

Child T-Shirt Black/Burgundy Ages 7–8 & 9–11 £8 Adult T-Shirt Black/Burgundy S, M, L & XL £10 Mug £6 Souvenir Pin Badge £2 Souvenir Pen £1.50 We also have a selection of recordings by BBC National Orchestra of Wales available. Prices vary: please ask at the Orchestra Information Desk for further details.

Biographies

BBC National Orchestra of Wales BBC National Orchestra of Wales occupies a special role as both a national and broadcasting orchestra, acclaimed not only for the quality of its performances but also for its importance within its own community. The work of BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales is supported by the Arts Council of Wales. The Orchestra has won critical and audience acclaim over recent years, under its formidable conducting team of Principal Conductor Thierry Fischer, Principal Guest Conductor Jac van Steen, Associate Guest Conductor François-Xavier Roth and Conductor Laureate Tadaaki Otaka. In September next year Thomas Søndergård will succeed Thierry Fischer as Principal Conductor. As well as an outstanding ability to refresh core repertoire, the Orchestra is proud of its adventurous programming and continuously demonstrates artistic excellence in new or rarely performed works. This June Mark Bowden took up the role of Resident Composer, alongside Composer-inAssociation Simon Holt, consolidating the ensemble’s commitment to contemporary music. It is Orchestra-in-Residence at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, and also presents a concert series at the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea. As well as international touring, it is in demand at major UK festivals and performs every year at the BBC Proms and biennially at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. Education and Community Outreach is also integral to its musical life and the department has been challenging conventions for nearly 15 years, taking the Orchestra’s work into schools, workplaces and communities. The Orchestra is based at its state-of-the-art recording and rehearsal base, BBC Hoddinott Hall at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff. It has recorded many soundtracks, while its recent CD releases include David Matthews’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6, which won a BBC Music Magazine Award.

bbc.co.uk/now

15

Orchestra list

BBC National Orchestra of Wales Patron HRH The Prince of Wales kg kt pc gcb Principal Conductor Thierry Fischer Principal Guest Conductor Jac van Steen Associate Guest Conductor François-Xavier Roth Conductor Laureate Tadaaki Otaka cbe Principal Conductor Designate Thomas Søndergård Composer-in-Association Simon Holt Resident Composer Mark Bowden First Violins Lesley Hatfield Leader Nick Whiting Associate Leader Carl Darby # Gwenllian Haf Richards Terry Porteus Suzanne Casey Carmel Barber Gary George-Veale Robert Bird Richard Newington Hilary Minto Paul Mann Emilie Godden Sybil Olive Anna Cleworth Second Violins Naomi Thomas * Jane Sinclair # Katie Littlemore Ros Butler Katherine Miller Michael Topping Beverley Wescott Joseph Williams Debbie Frost Vickie Ringguth Nicolas White Roussanka Karatchivieva Kerry Gordon-Smith

Violas Alex Thorndike # Martin Schaefer Peter Taylor David McKelvay Sarah Chapman James Drummond Ania Leadbeater Robert Gibbons Catherine Palmer Laura Sinnerton Charlie Cross Cellos John Senter * Keith Hewitt # Jessica Feaver Sandy Bartai Margaret Downie Carolyn Hewitt Kathryn Harris David Haime Richard May Double Basses Tony Alcock * Albert Dennis Christopher Wescott William Graham-White Richard Gibbons Tim Older Claire Whitson Flutes Cormac Henry ‡ Elizabeth May Eva Stewart

Alto Flute

Eva Stewart Piccolos Eva Stewart † Elizabeth May Oboes David Cowley * Amy McKean Cor anglais Sarah-Jayne Porsmoguer † Clarinets Yann Ghiro ‡ John Cooper Lenny Sayers E flat Clarinet John Cooper † Bass Clarinet Lenny Sayers † Alto Saxophone

Rob Buckland Bassoons Jarosπaw Augustyniak * Martin Bowen Joanna Shewan Contrabassoon David Buckland † Horns Tim Thorpe * Irene Williamson Ian Fisher † William Haskins Marcus Bates Neil Mitchell Craig MacDonald Trumpets Philippe Schartz * Robert Samuel Andy Everton † Trombones Brian Raby ‡ David Whitson

Tenor Tuba

Donal Bannister

Transport Manager Mark Terrell

Tuba Craig Anderson ‡

Senior Producer Tim Thorne

Timpani Steve Barnard *

Artists and Concerts Administrator Victoria Massocchi

Percussion Chris Stock * Mark Walker † Philip Girling Clifton Prior Graham Bradley Harps Valerie Aldrich-Smith † Ceri Wynne Jones Piano Catherine Roe Williams * Section Principal † Principal ‡ Guest Principal # Assistant Principal Director David Murray Assistant to Director and Orchestra Manager Bethan Everton Orchestra Manager Byron Jenkins Assistant Orchestra Manager Andy Farquharson Orchestral Coordinator Eugene Monteith Music Librarian Christopher Painter

Broadcast Assistant Callum Thomson Marketing Manager Sarah Horner Assistant Marketing Manager

Jodi Bennett

Marketing and Publicity Assistant Lucy Burke Communications Officer David Hopkins Audience Line Operators Nerys Lloyd-Evans Margarita Felices Phillippa Scammell Education and Community Manager Suzanne Hay Education and Community Assistant Peggy Holder Chorus Manager Osian Rowlands Senior Audio Supervisor Huw Thomas Business and Finance Manager Chris Rogers

Stage Manager Andrew Smith

Bass Trombone Darren Smith †

Programme produced by BBC Proms Publications. Welsh translation by Annes Gruffydd. 16

bbc.co.uk/now