Music of the Spheres album booklet by Aurora Orchestra

Music of the Spheres Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C major K551, ‘Jupiter’ 1 2 3 4

[i] Allegro vivace [ii] Andante cantabile [iii] Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio [iv] Molto allegro

11:29 10:17 4:10 8:21

Max Richter Journey (CP1919)

9:31

John Dowland (arr. Nico Muhly) Time Stands Still 3:42 Iestyn Davies countertenor

Thomas Adès Violin Concerto ‘Concentric Paths’

7 8 9

[i] Rings [ii] Paths [iii] Rounds Pekka Kuusisto violin

David Bowie (arr. John Barber) Life on Mars? Sam Swallow voice/piano

3:53 9:57 4:39

3:41

Iestyn Davies countertenor Pekka Kuusisto violin Sam Swallow voice/piano Aurora Orchestra Nicholas Collon conductor 3

Aurora Orchestra Alexandra Wood leader Michael Brooks Reid leader (Richter) Nicholas Collon conductor Flute / Piccolo Jane Mitchell Rebecca Larsen Oboe Thomas Barber Michael O’Donnell

1 – 4 , 7 – 10 7 – 9 1 – 4 , 7 – 10 1 – 4 , 7 – 10

Trombone Michael Buchanan

7 – 9

Tuba Sasha Koushk-Jalali

7 – 9

Piano / Celeste John Reid

Timpani / Percussion 1 – 4 , 7 – 10 Matthew Hardy

Clarinet / Bass Clarinet 6 – 9 Timothy Orpen

Percussion George Barton Louise Goodwin

Clarinet Thomas Lessels

7 – 9

Harp Sally Pryce

Bassoon Emily Hultmark Dominic Tyler

1 – 4 , 7 – 10 1 – 4 , 7 – 10

Violin 1 Alexandra Wood Michael Brooks Reid Maria Spengler Eva Thorarinsdottir Beatrix Lovejoy Kate Suthers Elizabeth Cooney Gillon Cameron Naoko Keatley Roberto Ruisi

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 7

Horn / Natural Horn 1 – 4 , 7 – 10 Pip Eastop Hugh Sisley 1 – 4 , 7 – 10 Andrew Budden 7 – 9 Trumpet / Natural Trumpet Chris Evans 1 – 4 , 7 – 10 Imogen Hancock 1 – 4 , 7 – 10

5 , 7 – 9 7 – 9

–4 –5 –5 –5 –4 –5 –4 –4 –9 –9

,6 ,7 ,7 ,7 ,7 ,7 ,7 ,7

– 10 – 10 – 10 – 10 – 10 – 10 – 10 – 10

Violin 2 Jamie Campbell Alessandro Ruisi Cassandra Hamilton Tamara Elias Laura Dixon Greta Mutlu Lara Sullivan Ronald Long

1 1 1 1 1 1 7 7

– 10 –5, –5, –5, –4, –4, –9 –9

Viola Ruth Gibson Nicholas Bootiman Asher Zaccardelli Jenny Lewisohn Matthew Kettle

1 1 1 1 1

– 10 –5, –5, –4, –5,

Cello Sébastien van Kuijk Torun Stavseng Reinoud Ford Alexander Holladay Clare O’Connell

1 1 1 1 7

– 10 – 5 , 7 – 10 – 5 , 7 – 10 – 5 , 7 – 10 –9

Double Bass Ben Griffiths Elena Hull Nathan Knight Simo Väisänen

1 – 4 , 7 – 10 1 – 5 , 7 – 10 7 – 9 5

1 – 4 played on natural horns and natural trumpets

7 7 7 7 7

– 10 – 10 – 10 – 10 – 10

7 7 7 7

– 10 – 10 – 10 – 10

Introduction In 2014, Aurora embarked on a new and fascinating journey, for the first time playing a complete symphony entirely from memory. It was Mozart’s 40th, the G minor, at the BBC Proms. The experience for me and the players was unforgettable: we felt able to digest the music and structure on an even deeper level; to find new levels of communication with each other; and to spend hours and hours in the company of Mozart’s masterpiece, a shared investment of time which would be impossible within the constraints of a normal rehearsal process. Well over a hundred ‘by heart’ performances later, we are thrilled to have made our first studio recording of a symphony using this distinctive approach. This time the work in question is Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’, and to our knowledge our sessions recording the piece at the BBC Maida Vale studios were unprecedented: the first time an orchestra had ever recorded a whole symphony in the studio without sheet music. I have never experienced recording sessions of such intensity and joy, pushing ourselves to dig ever deeper into an understanding of the notes Mozart wrote on the page, yet freed from the printed music. The whole orchestra was standing, as we do in performance, with no music stand in sight, giving everything for each other. It’s impossible of course to measure exactly what effect this had on musical outcome, but certainly these were shared musical experiences none of us will ever forget, and we hope that this comes across in the recorded performance.

The ‘Jupiter’ title which an unknown eighteenthcentury commentator bestowed upon Mozart’s final symphonic offering inspired us to search further into the heavens and alight on other celestial works for this album. Pythagoras’ theory of the ‘music of the spheres’ was born in a time when mathematics, astronomy and philosophy were intrinsically linked. The climax of the Jupiter’s fugal finale reminds me of this in its synthesis of mathematical perfection and Dionysian joy. This intricate balance of intellectual complexity and aesthetic beauty is equally what I believe makes the music of Thomas Adès so special: in my opinion his Violin Concerto is perhaps the greatest example of the genre written this century, and it was a sheer delight to record with Pekka Kuusisto, who has championed the work since soon after its publication. Around these two monoliths sit three shorter reflective gems. The first is an arrangement by Nico Muhly of Dowland’s lute song Time Stands Still for countertenor Iestyn Davies; the second a version by John Barber of Life on Mars?, David Bowie’s ‘gloriously strange sci-fi anthem’ (as one critic put it at the time of its release). Just two years before Bowie penned his timeless classic, in 1967, the very first pulsar was identified by astronomers. This discovery is the inspiration for our final piece, Max Richter’s Journey (CP1919), which was commissioned especially for this album. Max takes us on an imaginary journey to the pulsar CP1919, a star which pulses every 1.33 seconds, instructing the performers to play from memory in darkness. Perhaps you can recreate these conditions in the comfort of your living room! Nicholas Collon

1 – 4

Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C major K551, ‘Jupiter’ Mozart may never have heard his final symphony performed. Certainly he never learnt of its popular nickname ‘Jupiter’, likely bestowed on the work in the nineteenth century by London impresario Johann Peter Salomon and entirely fitting to a work just as spirited, powerful and triumphant as the Roman god himself. Yet the circumstances in which Mozart composed the work were far from joyful. The composer completed his last three symphonies in just nine weeks over the summer of 1788 amid a period of terrible strife in his personal life: Mozart found himself contending with the death of his six-month-old daughter, caring for his sick wife and beset with financial difficulties. Full of jest, pathos, technical complexity and unabashed exuberance, the ‘Jupiter’ stands as a breathtaking conclusion to Mozart’s symphonic output. The opening Allegro blends a strident first statement from the orchestra with a more lyrical theme in the strings. With mercurial wit, Mozart also quotes his opera buffa aria Un bacio di mano (A kiss on the hand), composed earlier that year, slotting it neatly into the end of the movement’s opening section. The Andante Cantabile sees Mozart venture away from the jubilant C major of the opening through a series of yearning passages for muted strings whose harmonies grow ever darker and more distant. The third movement presents a more conventional Minuet and Trio, before the symphony arrives at its dazzling fugato finale. The movement opens to a four-note motif derived from the Gregorian hymn Lucis creator (The Creator of Light) also found in a number of Mozart’s earlier works, including his Symphony No.1 which was composed when he was just eight years old. A further four motifs are introduced and subjected to intricate contrapuntal invention, before Mozart gathers all five themes together in a dizzying double fugue, concluding his final symphony with a coda of astonishing splendour. 8

Max Richter Journey (CP1919) Like many of my works, Journey (CP 1919) is a ‘What if?’ project. The proposition I’m looking at in this case is ‘What if, instead of being earthbound by gravity, we were released upward?’ The music is played in darkness, and appears continually to rise, reaching for something beyond itself. These rising lines pulsate at various speeds, and this rhythmic dimension is governed by the same ratios supposed by the ancient astronomers to describe the orbits of the planets; a kind of music of the spheres, pointing ever upward and outward. In our own time we have discovered a class of celestial bodies which have this rhythmic dimension; the pulsars. Jocelyn Bell Burnell described the first pulsar on November 28, 1967, in the constellation of Vulpecula. Initially it was called ‘LGM-1’ (for Little Green Men), but is now classified as CP1919. This star, which pulses every 1.33 seconds, is the imaginary destination of our Journey. Enjoy the trip! Max Richter

John Dowland (arr. Nico Muhly) Time Stands Still (The Third and Last Booke of Songs or Ayres, 1603, no.2) My arrangement of Time Stands Still remains quite faithful to the original harmonies, but always with a sense of the chords being fragile and slightly displaced and surreal, as if in a dream. To this end, certain notes will linger into the next bar, or a harmony will arrive first in the strings and then answered by the harp just a bit later. Around halfway through, the sense of pulse starts to unravel, and higher, more abstract patterns emerge from the harp and celesta. The arrangement ends with four very steady clock-chimes from this pair of instruments. Nico Muhly Time stands still with gazing on her face, Stand still and gaze for minutes, hours and years, to her give place: All other things shall change, but she remaines the same, till heavens changed have their course & time hath lost his name. Cupid doth hover upp and down blinded with her fair eyes, and fortune captive at her feet contemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d and conquerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d lies. When fortune, love, and time attend on Her with my fortunes, love, and time, I honour will alone If bloudlesse envie say, dutie hath no desert. Dutie replies that envie knowes her selfe his faithfull heart, My setled vowes and spotlesse faith no fortune can remove, Courage shall shew my inward faith, and faith shall trie my love. Text: anonymous

7 – 9

Thomas Adès Violin Concerto ‘Concentric Paths’ Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto was premiered in 2005 by Anthony Marwood and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the baton of the composer. A work of shimmering, complex mystery, the work shifts between the ecstatic and the melancholic, with even its title presenting us with something of a puzzle, combining as it does the linearity of ‘paths’ with the endless circling of the ‘concentric’. The composer describes the work as follows: ‘This concerto has three movements, like most, but it is really more of a triptych, as the middle one is the largest. It is the “slow” movement, built from two large, and very many small, independent cycles, which overlap and clash, sometimes violently, in their motion towards resolution. The outer movements too are circular in design, the first fast, with sheets of unstable harmony in different orbits, the third playful, at ease, with stable cycles moving in harmony at different rates.’

David Bowie (arr. John Barber) Life on Mars? With its mood of wry melancholy, Life on Mars? remains one of Bowie’s most beloved and enigmatic of hits. First released on the 1971 album Hunky Dory, the song has its roots in an earlier set of lyrics Bowie penned in 1969 for the French song Comme d’habitude by Claude François and Jacques Revaux. Bowie’s reworking, titled Even a Fool Learns to Love, was however rejected and since songwriter Paul Anka had acquired the rights to the song, Bowie had no use for his lyrics. The following year Bowie found himself listening to Anka’s version, sung by Frank Sinatra and set to be a smash hit:

‘The next time I heard it, it was My Way… I was really pissed off. I thought that should’ve been my song. So I thought, “I’ll write my own version.”’ Life on Mars? followed soon afterwards, written in a single afternoon (‘This song was so easy. Being young was easy.’) and the sleeve notes to Hunky Dory carry the droll inscription ‘inspired by Frankie’. Bowie initially said the song’s somewhat opaque lyrics told of ‘a sensitive young girl’s reaction to the media’ but later conceded it was altogether more personal: ‘You fall in love, you write a love song. This is a love song.’

It’s a God-awful small affair To the girl with the mousy hair But her Mummy is yelling no And her Daddy has told her to go

It’s on America’s tortured brow That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow Now the workers have struck for fame ‘Cause Lennon’s on sale again

But her friend is nowhere to be seen Now she walks through a sunken dream To the seat with the clearest view And she’s hooked to the silver screen

See the mice in their million hordes From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads Rule Britannia is out of bounds To my mother, my dog and clowns

But the film is a maddening bore For she’s lived it ten times or more She could spit in the eyes of fools As they ask her to focus on

But the film is a saddening bore ‘Cause I wrote it ten times or more It’s about to be writ again As I ask you to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall Oh man, look at those cavemen go It’s the freakiest show Take a look at the lawman Beating up the wrong guy Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know He’s in the best selling show Is there life on Mars?

Iestyn Davies After graduating in Archaeology and Anthropology from St John’s College, Cambridge, Iestyn Davies studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London. An esteemed Handelian, he has astounded audiences globally with his vocal agility in roles such as Orlando, Rinaldo, Ottone (Agrippina) and David (Saul). His intelligent and considered interpretations have led to fruitful collaborations with Thomas Adès, George Benjamin and Nico Muhly. Iestyn received an Olivier Award nomination for singing the role of Farinelli in Farinelli and the King opposite Mark Ryalnce at the Globe Theatre. The production was subsequently performed on the West End and Broadway in the United States. On the opera stage, he has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, New York; the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Teatro alla Scala Milan; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; English National Opera; Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Welsh National Opera; Salzburg Festival and in Munich, Vienna and Zurich. Concert engagements have included performances at the Teatro alla Scala Milan with Dudamel, the Concertgebouw and Tonhalle with Koopman and at the Barbican, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Lincoln Centre and at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall with orchestras that include the New York Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, English Concert, Britten Sinfonia, Concerto Köln, Concerto Copenhagen, Ensemble Matheus, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. A committed recitalist, his repertoire ranges from Dowland to Clapton and he has performed at Carnegie Hall, New York and enjoys a successful relationship with the Wigmore Hall where he has curated residencies. He has won a Grammy Award, three Gramophone Awards for recital recordings, the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist of the Year, and the 2013 Critics’ Circle Awards for Exceptional Young Talent (Singer). In 2017 he was awarded an MBE by the Queen for his services to music.

Sam Swallow Following a music degree at Clare College, Cambridge, Sam moved to London, where he has worked as a performer, composer, arranger and conductor ever since. In 2005 his band, Grace, signed a record deal with Virgin EMI and recorded their debut album Detours with Steve Osborne (U2, Doves, KT Tunstall) and Toby Smith (Jamiroquai). From 2007-2016 he was keyboard player, backing vocalist and songwriter in chart-topping band The Hoosiers, arranging strings and brass for four studio albums including the UK chart no. 1 album The Trick To Life (2007) and top 10 album The Illusion Of Safety (2010). They toured the UK relentlessly with headline tours of Germany, France and Japan. He has arranged and orchestrated for the likes of Simply Red, Echo and the Bunnymen, Simple Minds, The Wombats, The Vamps and Amy MacDonald. He conducted his orchestrations of the music of 90s indie legends Cast with the Liverpool Philharmonic, and conducted the BBC Philharmonic for the live broadcast of Blue Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 60th birthday special show. Sam arranged, orchestrated and conducted the Lewis Capaldi Symphony, an hour-long concert performed with Lewis Capaldi and the Manchester Camerata for a 12,000-strong crowd, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and BBC One. He has also collaborated with the BBC Concert Orchestra, performing his arrangements of tracks by Jack Savoretti for the Proms in the Park. Sam works regularly with The 1975, arranging strings for their UK no.1 albums Notes On A Conditional Form (2018) and, most recently, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (2020). He has brought a flavour of pop music to concerts with Aurora Orchestra since 2010, with concerts in Guadalajara, Germany, Singapore and around the UK.

Pekka Kuusisto Violinist, conductor and composer Pekka Kuusisto is renowned for his artistic freedom and fresh approach to repertoire. Widely recognised for his flair in directing ensembles, Kuusisto is Artistic Director of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (from season 21/22), and Artistic Partner with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He is also a Collaborative Partner of the San Francisco Symphony, Artistic Director of the ACO Collective and Artistic Best Friend of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. Kuusisto is an enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music and a gifted improviser and regularly engages with people across the artistic spectrum. Uninhibited by conventional genre boundaries and noted for his innovative programming, recent projects have included collaborations with Hauschka and Kosminen, Dutch neurologist Erik Scherder, pioneer of electronic music Brian Crabtree, eminent jazz-trumpeter Arve Henriksen, juggler Jay Gilligan, accordionist Dermot Dunne and folk artist Sam Amidon. He performs concertos written for him including Daníel Bjarnason’s Violin Concerto, Anders Hillborg’s Bach Materia and Nico Muhly’s violin concerto, Shrink. In recent seasons Kuusisto has also premiered new works by Sauli Zinovjev, Philip Venables and Andrea Tarrodi. He also tours around the world with orchestras such as Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco symphony orchestras, Concertgebouw Orkest, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as Tapiola Sinfonietta, and the Scottish and Swedish chamber orchestras. Kuusisto has released several recordings, notably for Ondine and BIS. He has recently recorded Hillborg’s Bach Materia and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard for BIS and Daníel Bjarnason’s Violin Concerto with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra with the composer conducting for Sono Luminus. Past releases include Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Noesis concerto for violin and orchestra for Ondine and Sebastian Fagerlund’s violin concerto Darkness in Light for BIS, both recorded with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu. 24

Nicholas Collon British conductor Nicholas Collon is Founder and Principal Conductor of Aurora Orchestra. He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Guerzenich Orchester in Cologne, and remains Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Residentie Orkest in The Hague until 2021 when he starts as Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony – the first non-Finn ever to hold this position. He is recognized as a born communicator, innovative programmer, and highcalibre interpreter of a wide repertoire. Under his direction Aurora Orchestra have become known for their eclectic programming and for performing complete symphonies from memory, ensuring that they appear every year at the BBC Proms and other major European festivals, and making them a regular fixture at the Southbank Centre as Associate Orchestra. He has conducted over 200 new works, and his elegant conducting style, searching musical intellect and inspirational music-making have prompted guest invitations from orchestras such as the Orchestre National de France, DSO Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony, and from many of the leading British orchestras including the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony. In 2019 he made his North American debut with the Toronto Symphony, and his Japan debut with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony. He has conducted opera at English National, Welsh National, Oper Köln and Glyndebourne on Tour. A violist and pianist by training, he also studied as Organ Scholar at Clare College, Cambridge. 27

Aurora Orchestra With its signature creative ethos, Aurora Orchestra combines world-class performance with adventurous programming and presentation. Founded in 2005 under Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon, it has quickly established a reputation as one of Europe’s leading chamber orchestras, garnering several major awards including two Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards, a German ECHO Klassik Award and a Classical:NEXT Innovation Award. Collaborating widely across art forms and musical genres, Aurora has worked with an exceptional breadth of artists, ranging from Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Sarah Connolly, Ian Bostridge and Leonidas Kavakos to Wayne McGregor, Edmund de Waal, and Björk. A champion of new music, it has premiered works by composers including Julian Anderson, Benedict Mason, Anna Meredith, Nico Muhly and Judith Weir. In recent years, it has pioneered memorised performance (without the use of printed sheet music), and is thought to be the first orchestra worldwide to perform whole symphonies in this way. Based in London, Aurora is Resident Orchestra at Kings Place and Associate Orchestra at Southbank Centre, where it presents The Orchestral Theatre, a series of orchestral adventures offering bold new ways to experience classical music. Its busy touring schedule has seen it appear in most of the UK’s major concert halls as well as in leading international venues including The Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Kölner Philharmonie, Victoria Concert Hall Singapore and Shanghai Concert Hall. 28

Auroraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s award-winning creative learning programme sees it bring music to thousands of schoolchildren and families annually, including many whose access to the concert hall is limited. For more information about Aurora and to watch highlights from the orchestraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s live performance archive, visit www.auroraorchestra.com.

1 – 4 Symphony No. 41 in C major K551, ‘Jupiter’ Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 5 Journey (CP1919) Composer: Max Richter Publisher: Decca Publishing 6 Time Stands Still Composer: John Dowland (arr. Nico Muhly) Publisher: St Rose Music Publishing Co. and Chester Music Ltd. 7 – 9 Violin Concerto ‘Concentric Paths’ Composer: Thomas Adès Publisher: Faber Music 10 Life on Mars? Composer: David Bowie (arr. John Barber) Publisher: Tintoretto Music (BMI) administered by RZO Music, Inc; EMI Music Publishing Ltd; BMG Blue (BMI) obo Chrysalis Music Ltd.

Recorded at Maida Vale Studio 1, London on 7–9 June 2019 Produced and edited by Raphaël Mouterde (Lemniscat) Track 5 co-produced by Max Richter Recording Engineer: Susan Thomas Mixing Engineer: Raphaël Mouterde Mastering Engineer: Raphaël Mouterde Assistant Engineer: David Rowell Album artwork and layout by Saboteur Studio Photographs by Nick Rutter except pp. 9 and 13 by Simon Weir and pp. 34–35 by Jim Hinson Booklet notes by Kate Wakeling except where otherwise indicated Booklet editing by Helen McKeown © 2020 Aurora Orchestra under exclusive license to Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin

Acknowledgements We are deeply grateful to everyone who supports Aurora. We particularly want to acknowledge the following, without whom this recording would not have been possible: Arts Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Priscylla Shaw, Hugh Ridell & Morag Mclaren, Richard & Helen Sheldon, Ian Ingram, the Sir John Fisher Foundation, Eduardo Tamraz, Richard and Anne Lee and the Marchus Trust. The first performance of this Music of the Spheres programme was part of The Orchestral Theatre: The Claus Moser Series at Southbank Centre, generously supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (in memory of Sir Claus Moser), Cockayne – Grants for the Arts and The London Community Foundation, the Hargreaves and Ball Trust, Nicholas & Margo Snowman, and the Aurora Patrons & Friends. The recording of Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto was supported by Resonate, a PRS Foundation initiative in partnership with Association of British Orchestras, BBC Radio 3 and The Boltini Trust.

Aurora Management Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon Chief Executive John Harte Creative Director Jane Mitchell Director of Development & Strategic Planning Caroline Harris Projects Director Megan Russell Creative Marketing Manager Yung-Yee Chen Concerts Manager Alana Grady Development Officer Helen McKeown Concerts Assistant & Librarian Anahita Falaki Orchestra Personnel Manager Hal Hutchison