Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor VLADIMIR JUROWSKI Principal Conductor Designate EDWARD GARDNER supported by Mrs Christina Lang Assael Principal Guest Conductor Designate KARINA CANELLAKIS Leader PIETER SCHOEMAN supported by Neil Westreich Patron HRH THE DUKE OF KENT KG Chief Executive and Artistic Director TIMOTHY WALKER CBE AM Chief Executive Designate DAVID BURKE
Programme notes & texts Friday 25 April 2020 | 7.30pm
Sibelius Pohjola’s Daughter Lutosławski Concerto for Orchestra Janáček Glagolitic Mass
Programme notes
Speedread Each of the works on tonight’s programme speaks of a fond, even fanatical, attachment to a national culture. Thanks to the encouragement of his future wife, the (originally) Swedish-speaking Sibelius determined to learn Finnish and, through it, his nation’s poetry. He was rewarded with rich material in the epic Kalevala, which inspired a host of works, including his ‘symphonic fantasia’ of 1905–6, Pohjola’s Daughter. For Lutosławski, a connection to patriotic cultural symbols proved more ambiguous after World War II and there is reason to believe that the folkloristic elements within his Concerto for Orchestra of 1950–4 were chosen to appease
Jean Sibelius
potential critics. But he also intended a sincere act of homage to the pioneering ethnomusicologist Bartók and the specific model he had provided for Lutosławski’s work. Janáček too had taken great pains to understand the music of his native Moravia. And it was in the midst of such a fecund land that the composer rooted his idiosyncratic Glagolitic Mass, taking its name from an ancient script used in the crucial translation of religious texts that became a marker of Czech nationalism. For Janáček, however, the celebrations described within his Mass were as much private as they were patriotic.
Pohjola’s Daughter
1865–1957
The Kalevala is the Finnish national epic. Its poetry and stories are drawn from both Finland and Karelia, the lands shared between modern-day Finland and Russia, which have long been a source of dispute. The texts are ancient, but had largely disappeared from Finnish consciousness until Elias Lönnrot published an edition in 1835, from which point the Kalevala again became a symbol of national pride. A committed patriot, albeit only speaking Swedish at the beginning of his life, Sibelius made a rigorous study of Finnish literary culture, as spurred by his fiancée Aino Järnefelt. Enthralled by the Kalevala, Sibelius found ‘pure music’ in its metre, images and atmosphere. ‘All my moods derive from the Kalevala’, he wrote to Aino in 1891, before embarking on what would become his Kullervo Symphony. It began a whole series of works
that derived their inspiration, programmes, even rhythms from passages of the Kalevala, including ‘four legends’ about one of the epic’s heroes, Lemminkäinen, and, in 1905–6, a ‘symphonic fantasia’ about Pohjola’s Daughter. The piece concerns an older hero from the Kalevala, Väinämöinen, who is making his way home from the far north (‘Pohjola’). There, he encounters a strange, beautiful woman, sitting on a rainbow and weaving a cloth of gold. He asks the daughter to join him on his journey, but she challenges him to build a boat from her spindle. Evil spirits intervene and, having failed the task, Väinämöinen has to carry on alone. Sibelius describes the tale in a vivid, 12-minute sonataform structure, in which a ‘bardic’ cello provides the
introduction, the brute force of the brass section speaks of Väinämöinen and the strings and the woodwind, as well as, notably, the harp (evoking the central spinning wheel), introduce the beautiful daughter of the title.
At last, she laughs shriekingly in Väinämöinen’s face, before he wends his desolate way and recedes into the frozen distance.
Witold Lutosławski
Concerto for Orchestra
1913–94
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Polish composer Lutosławski turned to folk material for inspiration. Arguably, he was pre-empting further criticism from the Soviet regime, who had deemed his First Symphony of 1947 ‘formalist’ – a catch-all term for anything that did not fit with their capricious view of art. Turning to folk tunes constituted a rejection of bourgeois ‘art for art’s sake’ and instead embraced the needs of the people (one of the benchmarks for Soviet culture). While Lutosławski always maintained that his use of folk music ‘had nothing to do with the regime’, there is no doubt that the work’s ‘socialist realism’ stood the composer in good stead. In both the genre of the Concerto for Orchestra and its roots in folk material Lutosławski had a particular model in mind: Bartók. The Hungarian’s final orchestral work, of course, provided the direct precursor for the Concerto, but his well-established brand of ethnomusicology was equally crucial for Lutosławski’s thinking. In response, he chose several folk tunes from the Mazowsze region surrounding Warsaw for his material. The stirring Intrada, over pounding timpani, strikes a martial note. Each entry helps create a thrilling, mounting polyphony. At times, there is violence, perhaps representing echoes from the past – or murmurs from the Russian east – while, in the second movement, the music turns decidedly quixotic, as if Mendelssohn’s fairies had found their way to Lutosławski’s homeland.
1 2 3
Intrada: Allegro maestoso Capriccio notturno ed Arioso: Vivace Passacaglia, Toccata e Corale: Andante con moto – Allegro giusto
The weight of the Concerto is, however, to be found in its Finale. This last movement takes the form of a passacaglia, as used by Hindemith in his, the first, Concerto for Orchestra of 1925. For Lutosławski, this structure and the music it inspired marked the beginning of a fascination with what he called ‘chainforms’, in which one idea begins before the previous one has resolved, thereby creating an increasingly elaborate, expanded structure. This intense, overlapping style is particularly evident in the coda to the Finale, where all the elements of this multi-part movement are brought together in a riotous display of Lutosławski’s skills – as well as those of the orchestra.
Programme notes continued
Leoš Janáček
Glagolitic Mass
1854–1928
1 Úvod [Introduction] 2 Gospodi pomiluj [Kyrie] 3 Slava [Gloria] 4 Věruju [Credo] 5 Svet [Sanctus] 6 Agneče Božij [Agnus Dei] 7 Varhany sólo [Organ solo] 8 Intrada [Postlude] The text and translation begin on the opposite page. The final decade of Janáček’s life was one of unimpeded inspiration. Having struggled for years to find his place within Czech culture, he finally established a unique position with the first performance in Prague of his 1904 opera Jenůfa. This 1916 event began a happy last chapter, heralded by the independence of Czechoslovakia (as it became after World War I) and a new friendship with Kamila Stösslová, beginning in the Moravian spa town of Luhačovice. Having been as unlucky in matters of the heart as in his professional life, Janáček craved Stösslová’s friendship, writing hundreds of letters to her, until his death in 1928. Typically, it was to his muse that Janáček described the inspiration behind his Glagolitic Mass, shortly before the work’s premiere in Brno in December 1927. ‘Today I wrote a few lines about how I see my cathedral. I’ve set it in Luhačovice. Not bad, eh? Where else could it stand than there, where we were so happy! And that cathedral is high – reaching right into the vault of the sky. And the candles that burn there, they are the tall pine trees, and at the top they have lighted stars. And the bells in the cathedral, they’re from the flock of sheep. The cathedral’s the subject of my work for 5 December. But now. Into that cathedral
two people enter, they walk ceremonially as if along the highway, all a carpet – a green lawn. And these two want to be married.’ The letter reveals much. Although educated at the Queen’s Monastery in Brno, Janáček had come to describe religion as ‘rituals, prayers, chants: death and nothing but death’. The Glagolitic Mass should not, therefore, be considered a confession of faith, but of his love for Stösslová and, in its employment of the old Slavonic version of the Ordinary of the Mass (first written in a ‘Glagolitic’, pre-Cyrillic script), his confidence in wider Slavic culture. Janáček began work on the piece in August 1926, writing a complete draft in just two weeks, followed by a long process revision. Changes continued to be made in the lead-up to the premiere in Brno and Janáček may also have made adjustments after the first performances, before the work was mounted in Prague in April 1928. In 1994, however, musicologist Paul Wingfield began to recreate the Mass as it had existed before Janáček’s many revisions. Some of Wingfield’s theses, including a suggestion that parts of the choral writing were too high for the singers in Brno or that three off-stage clarinets and four additional percussionists stretched resources too far, have been
the subject of debate. His reconstruction of a ‘September 1927’ version of the score, edited afresh by Jiří Zahrádka, nonetheless offers an intriguing insight into Janáček’s working methods. It certainly reveals a more complex version of the score, featuring concurrent metres, even more involved orchestrations (including intricate timpani parts) and a notably symmetrical nine-part form. In whatever version the work is performed, however, Janáček’s Mass is a resolute celebration of life, stirring into being during an orchestral introduction. After a petitioning Kyrie, the Gloria offers an energetic dance, announced by a beatific soprano. The Credo, the central pillar of Janáček’s ‘cathedral’ (though perhaps the most difficult text for a doubting composer to swallow), is manifestly theatrical. Following the
chorus’s questioning ‘věruju’ (I believe) and the tenor soloist’s impassioned assurances, the movement builds to a wild frenzy of Amens, described by Janáček as ‘the release of emotional turmoil’. The Sanctus combines these moods, starting serenely and then revealing more earthly delights in the hosannas. The Agnus Dei, on the other hand, is a sober reminder of the contrite Kyrie, though Janáček was keen to stress that his music was ‘without the darkness of the catacombs of the Middle Ages’. Finally, recalling his and Stösslová’s time together in Luhačovice, ‘where we were so happy’, the last two movements offer notably wordless celebrations, one for the organ and one for the full orchestra, as if the liturgy itself were unable to express Janáček’s joy at his fantasy marriage. Programme notes © Gavin Plumley
Glagolitic Mass text 1 Úvod
Introduction
2 Gospodi pomiluj Gospodi pomiluj, Chrste pomiluj, Gospodi pomiluj.
Kyrie Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy, Lord, have mercy.
3 Slava Slava vo vyšnich Bogu I na zeml’i mir Človekom blagovol’enja. Chvalim Te, Blagoslovl’ajem Te, Klanájem Ti se, Slavoslovim Te. Chvali vozdajem Tebĕ Velikyje radi slavy tvojeje. Bože, otce vsemogyj, Gospodi Synu jedinorodnyj, Isuse Chrste! Gospodi Bože, Agneče Božij, Synu Oteč!
Gloria Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will. We praise Thee, We bless Thee, We adore Thee, We glorify Thee. We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory. God the Father almighty, only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father.
Glagolitic Mass text continued
Vzeml’ej grechy mira, Pomiluj nas, Primi mol’enija naša! Sĕdej o desnuju Otca, Pomiluj nas! Jako Ty jedin svĕt, Ty jedin Gospod, Ty jedin vyšńij, Isuse Chrste. Vo slavĕ Boga Otca, So Svetym Duchom Vo slavĕ Otca Amin.
Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, receive our prayer. Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. For Thou alone art holy, Thou alone art the Lord, Thou alone art most high, Jesus Christ. With the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of the Father. Amen.
4 Vĕruju Vĕruju v jedinogo Boga, Otca vsemoguštago, Tvorca nebu i zeml’i, Vidimym vsĕm i nevidimym. Amin. I v jedinogo Gospoda Isusa Chrsta Syna Bozija jedinorodnago, I ot Otca roždenago Prĕžde všech vĕk. Boga ot Boga, svĕt ot svĕta, Boga istinna, ot Boga istinnago, Roždena, ne stvor’ena, Jedinosužtna Otcu. Jímže vsja byše Iže nas radi človĕk I radi našego spasenja Snide s nebes I voplti se Ot Ducha Sveta Iz Marije devy.
Credo I believe in one God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. Amen. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father by whom all things were made; Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from Heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary.
Orchestral interlude Raspet že zany, Mučen i pogreben byst. I voskrse v tretij den Po pisanju. I vzide na nebo, Sĕdit o desnuju Otca. I paky imat priti sudit
He was crucified also for us, suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the scriptures, and ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again with glory
Žyvym, mrtvym So slavoju, Jegože cĕsarstvju nebudet konca. I v Ducha Svetago, Gospoda i živototvoreštago, Ot Otca i Syna ischodeštago, S Otcem že i Synom kupno, Poklańájema i soslavima, I že glagolal jest proroky. I jedinu svetuju, Katoličesku i apostolsku crkov. I spovĕ daju jedino krščenje V otpuščenje grĕchov. I čaju voskrsenja mrtvych, I života buduštago vĕka. Amin.
to judge both the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there shall be no end. And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, proceeding from the Father and the Son. Who, together with the Father and the Son, is adored and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And in one holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
5 Svet Svet, svet, svet! Gospod, Bog Sabaoth, Plna sut nebo, zeml’a, Slavy tvojeje! Blagoslovl’en gredyj Vo ime Gospodńe. Osanna vo vyšńich!
Sanctus Holy, holy, holy! Lord God of hosts, Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory! Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!
6 Agneče Božij Agneče Božij, vzemlej grĕchy mira, Pomiluj nas!
Agnus Dei Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us!
7 Organ solo
Organ solo
8 Intrada
Postlude