Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert season 2018 / 19 Guildhall, Portsmouth
Kirill Karabits Chief Conductor
Welcome to the 2018 / 19 Concert Season at Ports One hundred and twenty-five years since a local paper wrote “It seems as if the new band will catch on” we launch the new season in good heart with the BSO performing at the highest level under the outstanding leadership of Chief Conductor Kirill Karabits. The pinnacle of symphonic writing is explored this season from the first exponents of the form by Sibelius and Shostakovich – both highly accomplished debuts using their own distinctive voices. We also bring masterpieces by Dvořák and Rachmaninov as well as Beethoven’s iconic Fifth.
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra smouth Guildhall Musical highlights also include Elgar’s ever-popular Enigma Variations, Vaughan Williams’ haunting Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Strauss’ epic Also Sprach Zarathustra and concertos by Tchaikovsky, Bruch, Walton and Brahms. Our commitment to developing artistic relationships continues, and we are delighted to welcome back a number of guest artists including conductors Karl-Heinz Steffens and Frank Zielhorst, and soloists Benjamin Grosvenor, Johannes Moser (this season’s BSO Artist-in-Residence) and Sunwook Kim. The season also sees debuts by Jacek Kaspszyk, Ben Gernon and Jamie Phillips.
With the recruitment of the world’s first professional disabled-led ensemble, BSO Resound, and the winning of Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friendly Organisation of the Year award, the BSO is demonstrating that, 125 years on, it is leading the way on crucial cultural agendas. As one of the UK’s leading arts charities, our work to empower the lives of communities across our diverse region would not be possible without your help. I would like to thank everyone who supports this remarkable company to build a strong future. I look forward to welcoming you to another season of great music making. Dougie Scarfe, Chief Executive
thursday
Beethoven Five Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, more than any other work in the musical repertory, is the archetypal example of the technique and content of the form, and has the most famous beginning in all of classical music. It is a work of enormous accumulated energy which propels you harmonically and rhythmically through from the opening gesture to the final glorious cadences. Written to show off his extraordinary talent, Chopin’s E minor Concerto opens with a grand orchestral sweep before the piano enters with a dazzling display of technical virtuosity. His gift for melody absolutely shining throughout, Chopin
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october 7.30 pm
treats the piano as an opera singer in a series of lyrical arias, with the orchestra in the pit – dominating proceedings with a series of blazing scales and arpeggios both enthralling and exhausting, and thoroughly infusing the music with Romantic fantasy, colour and verve. A work of tension, suavity, precision and excitement, Parry’s set of variations has some of the best and most imaginative orchestration of any piece in its generally Brahmsian style. Only half the orchestra is used for most of it, so the effect when the whole band suddenly comes in with the biggest tune is stunning.
parry Symphonic Variations chopin Piano Concerto No.1 beethoven Symphony No.5 Frank Zielhorst conductor Kim Barbier piano
thursday
18
Masters of Melody
mozart The Magic Flute Overture bruch Violin Concerto No.1 rachmaninov Symphony No.2
Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony is his largest work for orchestra. Full of themes which slowly emerge, reappear and reach intense climaxes, it is a truly luscious piece, shown best in the glorious adagio. Its unqualified success vindicated Rachmaninov’s compositional powers, drawing upon his talent for creating ardent, emotionally compelling melodies. Filled with passionate musical outbursts and lovingly quiet interludes it remains an audience favourite. Bruch’s concerto was his first major work, yet it is one of his best – a rich, wonderfully lyrical expanse of music offering melodies tailor-made for the violin and explosive technical fireworks in equal measure. The orchestral writing, too, fully complements the solo part with its richness and drama.The Magic Flute is one of Mozart’s most enduring and endearing operas. The overture, after a sombre opening of weighty trombone chords, skips off in a gleeful, fugal allegro, notable for Mozart’s brilliant use of counterpoint and dynamic contrasts.
october 7.30 pm
Ben Gernon conductor Nikita Boriso-Glebsky violin
friday
Smooth Classics II Enjoy another evening of the world’s most relaxing symphonic music including four of the most beautiful slow movements from piano concertos by Rachmaninov, Mozart, Beethoven and Shostakovich.
dvok Serenade – larghetto shostakovich Piano Concerto No.2 – andante satie Gymnopédie No.1 rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 – adagio bizet Intermezzo from Carmen mozart Piano Concerto No.21 – andante elgar Nimrod sibelius Valse Triste mozart Eine kleine Nachtmusik – romanze beethoven Piano Concerto No.5 – adagio tchaikovsky Symphony No.5 – andante cantabile
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november 7.30 pm
BSO Young Conductor in Association Anna Fedorova piano
thursday
29
Unmistakable Voices
stravinsky Pulcinella Suite walton Cello Concerto shostakovich Symphony No.1
Shostakovich was just 19 when he wrote his precocious First Symphony as a graduation exercise in composition at the Leningrad Conservatory. Youthful symphonies seldom reveal their composer’s true voice, but this symphonic debut immediately speaks in his own distinctive idiom, juxtaposing the ironic with the romantic, the intimate with the bombastic, and the chromatic with the diatonic. This is the signature sound that is heard throughout his storied career melded from an exceptionally broad exposure to contemporary music whilst studying. Not one for staying the same, Stravinsky’s compositional style changed radically in his career.
november 7.30 pm
Kirill Karabits conductor Johannes Moser cello
Pulcinella marked an important turning point, heralding his “neo-classical” style which was to dominate his later works. Unlike his earlier ballets, characterised by huge orchestras and innovative rhythms, it is simple and sparse, using Pergolesi’s melodies and bass lines with little change. Yet he still puts his own unmistakable stamp on the music. Walton’s Cello Concerto is introspective and reflective. Wistful Romanticism and lush harmonies evoke the peace and tranquility of the English countryside. It is a carefully balanced work; sizzling virtuosity is occasionally interrupted by moments of poignant lyricism.
“karabits keeps a steady hand on the structural tiller, eliciting an impressively secure orchestral response and excavates plenty of ear-pricking detail� Gramophone Magazine December 2017
“the colours change from bright van goghs to dusky monochrome, as vivid as bizet’s orchestration, sparklingly dispatched by the bournemouth symphony orchestra” The Times June 2017
thursday
Last Night of the Christmas Proms Kick off Christmas with a fun-packed concert for all the family, featuring classics old and new, all wrapped up with a sprinkling of magic and sparkle. A rollercoaster of seasonal favourites includes Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Sleigh Ride, Walking in a Winter Wonderland, Let it Snow Let it Snow, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year and much, much more!
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december 7.30 pm
Pete Harrison conductor
thursday
24
Backward Glimpses
ravel Valses nobles et sentimentales saint-saëns Piano Concerto No.2 rachmaninov Symphonic Dances
The Symphonic Dances proved to be Rachmaninov’s last work, and the music suggests a new direction he might have pursued had fate granted him more time. In contrast to the lush harmonies and sweeping melodic lines that pervade his earlier style, it offers a more modern sound of leaner textures and sharper harmonies. He creates a wondrous kaleidoscope of instrumental colours, from the mellow crooning of an alto saxophone to the dry-bones clatter of a xylophone. With its incisive dance rhythms inspired by folk and jazz, the work finally explodes with visceral energy. It did not take long for Saint-Saëns’ Second Piano Concerto to become a perennial favourite. Its novelty shows a youthful high-spiritedness and somewhat inorganic juxtaposed themes and
january 7.30 pm
Jacek Kaspszyk conductor Benjamin Grosvenor piano
movements. A famous witticism claimed “It begins with Bach and ends with Offenbach” and indeed its unusual introspective, improvisatory opening is reminiscent of Bach. The skill of Saint-Saëns the pianist shines throughout, with its virtuosic passages and arpeggios, ultimately sparking to the finale’s tempestuous pyrotechnics. But this exquisite concerto is a hallmark of Saint-Saëns the composer as well, characterised by his beautiful turns of phrase and harmonic diversions. Ravel greatly admired Schubert’s collection of Valses Nobles andValses Sentimentales, inspiring him to write his own cycle of eight solo piano waltzes which he later orchestrated – each a sparkling jewel.
friday
8
Natural Beauty
mendelssohn The Hebrides Overture brahms Violin Concerto dvok Symphony No.8
Dvořák broke new ground with his Eighth Symphony, a work, as he explained, meant to be “different from the other symphonies, with individual thoughts worked out in a new way.” The music is steeped in the flavour and atmosphere of the Czech countryside. Often described as a sunny work it is much more than that. There are passages of drama, exhilaration, happiness and nostalgia, evoking a wide range of human emotions and profound optimism. Brahms’ concerto stands as one of the largest and most challenging works in the solo violin repertoire, a piece which shows the two opposite sides of his creative mind – Brahms the song writer and Brahms the symphonist. It is a song for the violin on a symphonic scale – a lyrical outpouring which exercises to the full his great powers of inventive development. Fingal’s Cave conjures up a whole seascape including the grandeur of the cave itself, the swelling of the sea, the light on the water and the fury of the waves breaking on the cliffs. It was one of the first works of music to evoke nature in this way, and remains one of the greatest of its genre.
february 7.30 pm
Michael Seal conductor Ning Feng violin
Ning Feng
thursday
Superhuman Strauss Strauss had an extraordinary knack when it came to figuring out how to begin pieces. In Also Sprach Zarathustra he opens with the famous orchestral sunrise referring to the part in Nietzsche’s book when Zarathustra, an ancient Persian prophet who has dwelled on a mountaintop for ten years, watches a new day begin. It was not Strauss’ intention to write philosophical music or to portray Nietzsche’s great work in musical terms, but rather to suggest the evolution of the human race from its origins, through its various phases of development (religious and scientific), right up to Nietzsche’s idea of the ‘superhuman’. Where Nietzsche employed resonant symbols, parables, and wordplay, Strauss achieves something comparable in purely musical terms,
eliciting a sense of what is at stake by manipulating key relationships, as well as through his phenomenal technique of orchestration. The influence of Mozart is apparent throughout Beethoven’s C Major Piano Concerto. The piano’s role ornaments the orchestral material, but the broad artistic expressiveness shows Beethoven’s embrace of the emerging Romantic mood of the day. The Third Leonore Overture stands as one of the great emblems of the heroic Beethoven, a potent and controlled musical embodiment of a noble humanistic passion. Too strong and big a piece, with music of rapturous, fiery energy as well as profound darkness, it was always going to be more than a mere introduction.
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february 7.30 pm
beethoven Leonore Overture No.3 beethoven Piano Concerto No.1 r strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra Karl-Heinz Steffens conductor Andrew Tyson piano
friday
15
Williams v Zimmer
Pete Harrison conductor
Two titans of the film music world compete head to head! In a concert featuring some of the best scores of John Williams and Hans Zimmer, the cream of recent movie music is brought together in one place. Award-winning soundtracks of some of the most iconic films of all time include Star Wars, Gladiator, The Da Vinci Code, Schindler’s List, Harry Potter, Interstellar, ET, Batman Begins, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Last Samurai, Pirates of the Caribbean, Superman and many, many more.
march 7.30 pm
thursday
Spirit of England “the passion shone through in the bso’s performance as the musicians thrillingly conveyed the complex moods of this weighty symphony” The Times February 2018
The Variations on an Original Theme resulted from Elgar’s habit of unwinding after a day’s work by improvising at the piano. On one such occasion a particularly memorable theme caught the attention of his wife and they played a game of metamorphosing it to take on the character of some of their friends, family and neighbours. They contain some of the most charming and deeply felt music Elgar ever penned. The Cello Concerto was Elgar’s final major work. The death of his beloved Alice six months after its premiere seems to have extinguished his creative spark. Private and poignant, the music remains richly lyrical and noble with the solo cello in full focus. The Tallis melody that is the basis for Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia is one of nine he contributed to the Psalter of 1567 for the first Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. It is heard in its complete form three times and serves as the source for a wonderful miasma of variants and developments in this rich orchestral composition written for a large string orchestra divided into three parts. Although it is not specifically religious music, it seems to speak to the spirit.
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march 7.30 pm
vaughan williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis elgar Cello Concerto elgar Enigma Variations David Hill conductor Tim Hugh cello
friday
12
Echoes of Home
smetana Vltava tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 sibelius Symphony No.1
With Sibelius already a star in his native Finland, his First Symphony was eagerly awaited. It did not disappoint. Never before had a work of such stature emerged from Northern Europe, unveiling the previously unheard character of Nordic music. Although not nationalistic, it is clearly a work by a skilled composer who already had a musical voice of his own, and much of the musical personality that makes his later symphonies so distinctive is already visible. Sounding ‘old’ and ‘new’ at the same time, with tempestuous mood-swings, it is both dramatic and austere throughout. Despite its popularity, Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto remains refreshingly original with its exciting and exceptional opening, and richly forged musical dramas of powerful virtuosity and uncommon sensitivity. Vltava is the most frequently performed of the six pictorial tableaux of Smetana’s Má Vlast. It depicts the flow of the eponymous river from its source in the Šumava Mountains to Prague and beyond, on the way passing a hunting party and a village wedding.
april 7.30 pm
Jamie Phillips conductor Denis Kozhukhin piano
thursday
Czech Mates Dvořák’s Piano Concerto is a beautiful and life-affirming work, rich in his characteristic melodic abundance and vivid colouring. Lyric and dramatic elements are effectively contrasted in the opening movement. The slow movement is an idyll of serenity with its theme of noble simplicity, the basis for a dialogue between soloist and orchestra that reaches no great climax but sustains a convincing atmosphere of deep peace prior to the vigorous finale. His Fifth Symphony is a milestone work, one of those remarkable pieces that allow creative artists to unlock doors to new possibilities. It has all the power and invention required to beguile, transport and agitate its audience, particularly in the stormy finale. Written in 1903, Suk’s sunny Scherzo Fantastique is partly an homage to his father-in-law, Dvorřák. It has two themes in the first part, a lively dance for woodwinds and a waltz introduced by the cellos, before a slow polka leads to an exuberant conclusion.
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may 7.30 pm
suk Scherzo Fantastique dvok Piano Concerto dvok Symphony No.5 Kirill Karabits conductor Sunwook Kim piano
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra would like to thank the following supporters principal funder
principal patrons
John & Ruth Lang In memory of Mike Lumb Terence & Annette O’Rourke David & Jill Peters Dave & Jan Pointer Sue & Chris Thomas
public funders trusts & foundations
principal media broadcast media partner partner partner
partner
patrons
principal academic partner
academic partner
conservatoire partner
Bristol Music Trust Talbot Village Trust The Leverhulme Trust The Valentine Charitable Trust The Michael & Ilse Katz Foundation The Flaghead Charitable Trust The Sherling Charitable Trust The PRS Foundation The Pitt-Rivers Charitable Trust The Alice Ellen Cooper-Dean Charitable Foundation The Cressy Foundation The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust Gess Charitable Trust Hinrichsen Foundation ESG Robinson Charitable Trust Miss Jeanne Bisgood’s Charitable Trust The VEC Acorn Trust Bedhampton Charitable Trust
thank you gold corporate members
in-kind partners
We would like to thank our Patrons and Performance Champions, those who have chosen to remember the BSO in their Will, and everyone who supports us through donations, membership or by volunteering their time
tickets Ticketmaster
0844 453 9028 (calls cost 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge)
Portsmouth Guildhall
02393 870211 (please note that this number is open from 9.30am – 2.30pm Monday to Friday)
series concerts Tickets go on general sale on Wednesday 5 September.
£31 £26 £21 £16 Ticket prices are inclusive of an 10% booking charge. (Charges apply for all ticket sales by telephone, online and in person)
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A £1.25 per ticket restoration levy is also payable on all purchases, to help fund the Guildhall Renaissance capital project of repairs and upgrades.
FREE ‘Meet the Music’
concessions
pre-concert talks for all concert ticket holders take place before each concert (not 16 Nov, 20 Dec or 15 Mar) at 6.40pm in the Council Chamber on the second floor of Portsmouth Guildhall.
The BSO offers the following concessions to most concerts. Please note that only one concession applies per ticket and that concessions are not available retrospectively. Proof of status is required at the time of collection. All concessions and discounts are subject to availability. BSO Kids for a Quid Under 18s: £1 per ticket (some exclusions apply)
additional concerts Why not book a package of concerts and save money? Generous discounts are available if you buy 3 concerts or more. Book for all 12 concerts and you will receive a massive 40% off!
Tickets on sale now 16 Nov Smooth Classics II 20 Dec Christmas Proms 15 Mar Williams v Zimmer
£31 £26 £21 £16
Multibuy Discounts 40% 12 concerts 30% 9 – 11 concerts 20% 6 – 8 concerts 10% 3 – 5 concerts
Student Standby £5 per ticket (available one hour before concert) 50% discount for Full-time students, Patrons on Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support or Employment and Support Allowance, Wheelchair users and personal assistants.
Group booking discounts 10 or more tickets 10% 20 or more tickets 20% 30 or more tickets 30% Group discounts are applicable for tickets purchased for the same concert. Tickets must be paid in full one month in advance of the concert date, otherwise they will be released for resale.
The BSO is a unique orchestra with a unique remit. It is a cultural beacon for the South and South West. From our home in Poole, we create and perform concerts that empower the music scene across more than 10,000 square miles of our region whilst maintaining a vibrant and important national and international stature.