Principal Conductor Edward Gardner supported by Aud Jebsen
Principal Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis
Conductor Emeritus Vladimir Jurowski KBE
Patron HRH The Duke of Kent KG
Artistic Director Elena Dubinets
Chief Executive David Burke
Leader Pieter Schoeman supported by Neil Westreich
VALERIE COLEMAN
TZIGANE FOR WIND QUINTET (10’)
HINDEMITH
KLEINE KAMMERMUSIK FOR WIND QUINTET (16’)
MOZART QUINTET IN E-FLAT MAJOR FOR PIANO AND WINDS (25’)
THURSDAY 23 JANUARY 2025
6.30PM
ST JOHN’S CHURCH, WATERLOO
JULIETTE BAUSOR flute/piccolo
ALICE MUNDAY oboe
BENJAMIN MELLEFONT clarinet
LPO chair supported by Sir Nigel Boardman & Prof. Lynda Gratton
JONATHAN DAVIES bassoon
LPO chair supported by Sir Simon Robey
ANNEMARIE FEDERLE horn
LPO chair supported by Victoria Robey OBE
CATHERINE EDWARDS piano
There will be no interval in tonight’s concert.
A retiring collection will be held at the end of the performance in support of St John’s Waterloo’s community programme, Room for You. This initiative works with individuals experiencing homelessness or isolation, refugees, asylum seekers, and the wider local community.
VALERIE COLEMAN BORN 1970
TZIGANE FOR WIND QUINTET 2011 (10’)
Internationally acclaimed, Grammy-nominated composer and flautist Valerie Coleman is one of the most performed living composers in the world. Named Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year, her works have garnered multiple awards including the Van Lier Fellowship Award, Herb Alpert Awards’ Ragdale Prize and MAPFund.
In addition to multiple commissions from Carnegie Hall and The Philadelphia Orchestra, Coleman’s works have been performed by the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra, among many others.
Coleman is the founder of the acclaimed ensemble Imani Winds, and holds positions at The Juilliard School, the Tanglewood Institute and Manhattan School of Music.
Tzigane was composed in 2011. It is inspired by Ravel’s work of the same name for violin, which is a virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian rhapsody. In the tradition of the virtuoso string showpieces by Sarasate, Tzigane is a highly-charged, passionate journey through woodwind virtuosity.
OP. 24, NO. 2 1922 (16’)
1 LUSTIG. MÄSSIG SCHNELL VIERTEL (MERRY. MODERATELY FAST CROTCHETS)
2 WALZER. DURCHWEG SEHR LEISE (WALTZ: CONSISTENTLY VERY SOFT)
3 RUHIG UND EINFACH (CALM AND SIMPLE)
4 SCHNELLE VIERTEL (FAST CROTCHETS)
5 SEHR LEBHAFT (VERY LIVELY)
German composer Paul Hindemith’s affection for the ‘blowing’ instruments was not just a matter of lip service – his very large catalogue is liberally dotted with works featuring the winds. Notable among these are the sonatas with piano for, in chronological order of composition, flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, horn, trumpet, cor anglais, trombone and tuba. Before embarking on the sonatas, apparently thinking there was safety in numbers, he gathered five winds – flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon – for an adventurous quintet romp. The quintet, with the title Kleine Kammermusik (‘Small Chamber Music’), appeared in 1922.
Hindemith’s first Kammermusik, Op. 24, No. 1, written the same year, had been composed for a small orchestra that included accordion and a siren. That piece found the composer examining the Russian/Parisian Stravinsky under his microscope (the first movement recalls Petrushka), and flirting with jazz (one movement is titled Shimmy, another Ragtime) as well as with polytonality. One might conclude that he seemed determined to jolt his audience.
Having got this bizarre behaviour out of his system, Hindemith relaxed his experimental zeal, but still kept Stravinsky clearly in view. In tonight’s work, the dry, caustic timbre of the winds is matched perfectly to the lean, chic and impersonal materials that speak clearly the Stravinskian neoclassical tongue, as translated into what was to become Hindemith’s characteristic language. This is music that, while invoking the outdoor wind divertimentos of the 18th century, sneers at the late 19th century’s sonorous and emotional indulgences.
The very opening of the first movement sets the pungent, cerebral tone that pervades the work. The main theme in clarinet is comprised of three motifs which are subjected to expansion,
development and serious repetition, the latter by way of the kinds of obsessive ostinato figures (repeated musical patterns) on which Stravinsky held a lifetime patent. A contrasting theme in oboe suggests a relaxation of tension, although the propulsive three-note rhythm of the opening supplies energetic locomotion to its incipient lyricism. After a repeat of the main theme (in oboe, with a buffoonish figure, not in bassoon, but clarinet), the bassoon recalls the lyric tune, and then the movement ends in a puff of whimsical, dissonant smoke.
The second movement dances a satiric waltz, whereas the third movement has a dirge-like archaic character. The brief interlude that follows – really just a bridge to the finale – exploits the repeated notes that Hindemith has seized upon with such relish in the preceding movements. Within its mere 23 bars, each of the instruments has a mini-cadenza, with the repeated note figures forming the connective tissue. The whirlwind last movement is coolly sophisticated, bracingly syncopated, and bristling with the by-now-familiar ostinatos and repeated notes.
© Orrin Howard, reprinted by kind permission of the LA Phil
1 LARGO – ALLEGRO MODERATO
2 LARGHETTO
3 RONDO: ALLEGRETTO
The Quintet in E flat major for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon, K452, dated 30 March 1784 by the composer, was given its first performance on 1 April at the Burgtheater in Vienna, with Mozart himself at the piano. Some days later he wrote to his father, commenting on the beauty of the performance and saying he considered the Quintet ‘the best work he had produced’.
K452 is in fact Mozart’s only quintet with piano, and the combination of instruments used is itself unusual. Single wind, as opposed to pairs, pose problems of blend, so he explores the numerous different permutations of instruments to produce different sonorities, and uses short phrases and motifs for variety. No instrument is given
preferential treatment and, despite occasional concertante-type passages, the basic chamber-music character is maintained.
Of the three movements, the first has fewest bars and comprises an expressive Largo introduction which leads into the happy Allegro moderato The opening bars of the B flat major Larghetto are very reminiscent of the middle section of Leporello’s ‘catalogue’ aria from Don Giovanni, and there are some particularly beautiful moments later when the different groupings of the wind are accompanied by arpeggio patterns on the piano. The finale is a rondo with, near the end, a written-out cadenza for all five instruments.
© Sally Odom, reproduced by kind permission of Hyperion Records
SATURDAY 22 FEBRUARY 2025, 6.30PM ROTHKO CHAPEL
ANDREW NORMAN The Companion Guide to Rome FELDMAN Rothko Chapel
CHARLOTTE CORDEROY conductor
NEW LONDON CHAMBER CHOIR
LPO MUSICIANS
FRIDAY 7 MARCH 2025, 6.30PM ECHOES OF NOW
TANIA LEÓN String Quartet No. 2
JESSIE MONTGOMERY Break Away
BRIAN RAPHAEL NABORS Jump
DANIEL KIDANE Foreign Tongues
HANNAH KENDALL Vera
Performed by LPO MUSICIANS
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