Ryman Healthcare Season Opening Gala: The Planets

CONCERT PROGRAM

RYMAN HEALTHCARE SEASON OPENING GALA

JAIME CONDUCTS THE PLANETS

A CONCERT FOR HUMANITY

Featuring the World Premiere of Earth by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO.

21–23 MARCH

Arts Centre

Melbourne, Hamer Hall

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ARTISTS

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Jaime Martín conductor

Alban Gerhardt cello

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO soprano (Yorta Yorta)

Upper voices of the MSO Chorus

Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus director

Steven Hodgson guest chorus director

PROGRAM

21 & 23 MARCH

ELGAR Cello Concerto

– Interval –

DEBORAH CHEETHAM FRAILLON AO Earth^

HOLST The Planets

22 MARCH

GRIEG Peer Gynt Suite No.1

ELGAR Cello Concerto

Our musical Acknowledgment of Country, Long Time Living Here^ by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, will be performed at these concerts.

^ World premiere of an MSO Commission

CONCERT EVENTS

21 March & 23 March at 6.45pm in the Stalls Foyer on Level 2 at Hamer Hall.

22 March at 10.15am in the Stalls Foyer on Level 2 at Hamer Hall. Want to learn more about the music being performed? Arrive early for an informative and entertaining pre-concert talk by Aaron Wyatt and Alex Allen on 21 & 23 March, and MSO cellist Rohan de Korte on 22 March.

These concerts may be recorded for future broadcast on MSO.LIVE

Duration

21 & 23 March: 2 hours including interval. 22 March: 50 minutes, no interval.

In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone.

ACKNOWLEDGING COUNTRY

In the first project of its kind in Australia, the MSO has developed a musical Acknowledgment of Country with music composed by Yorta Yorta composer

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, featuring Indigenous languages from across Victoria. Generously supported by Helen Macpherson Smith Trust and the Commonwealth Government through the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, the MSO is working in partnership with Short Black Opera and Indigenous language custodians who are generously sharing their cultural knowledge.

The Acknowledgement of Country allows us to pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land on which we perform in the language of that country and in the orchestral language of music.

About Long Time Living Here

As a Yorta Yorta/Yuin composer the responsibility I carry to assist the MSO in delivering a respectful acknowledgement of country is a privilege which I take very seriously. I have a duty of care to my ancestors and to the ancestors on whose land the MSO works and performs.

This new work [2024] will become the second in a suite of compositions I am creating for the MSO, known simply as Long Time Living Here.

As MSO continues to grow its knowledge and understanding of what it means to truly honour the First people of this land, the musical acknowledgment of country will serve to bring those on stage and those in the audience together in a moment of recognition as as we celebrate the longest continuing cultures in the world.

– Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO

WELCOME

Good evening, and welcome to the 2024 Ryman Healthcare Season Opening Gala. We are so glad you have chosen to join us as we look forward to one of our biggest years of orchestral music ever.

With hearts attuned to the universal rhythm of compassion, the MSO stands for Humanity and Peace. There are many for whom this is a time of great upheaval. Music at its very core stands for humanity, peace, freedom of expression, and for coming together above personal difference. The MSO dedicates tonight’s concert to those who stand up for dignity and safety at this time of conflicts around the world.

I can think of no greater combination of orchestral works to illustrate the importance of unity and connection between all the world’s people than Holst’s The Planets and the World Premiere of Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO’s Earth. I hope you enjoy this special performance.

Finally, I am delighted to announce the extension of Jaime Martín’s tenure with our Orchestra until 2028! As well as Chief Conductor, from next year Jaime will extend his role to also include Artistic Advisor. I know you will join us in celebrating this exciting news tonight.

Yours in music,

Sophie Galaise MSO Managing Director

MSO Chief Conductor Jaime Martín and First Nations Creative Chair Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO

MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Committed to shaping and serving the state it inhabits, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is Australia’s preeminent orchestra and a cornerstone of Victoria’s rich, cultural heritage.

Each year, the MSO and MSO Chorus present more than 180 public events across live performances, TV, radio and online broadcasts, and via its online concert hall, MSO.LIVE, engaging an audience of more than five million people in 56 countries. In 2024 the organisation will release its first two albums on the newly established MSO recording label.

With an international reputation for excellence, versatility and innovation, the MSO works with culturally diverse and First Nations artists to build community and deliver music to people across Melbourne, the state of Victoria and around the world.

In 2024, Jaime Martín leads the Orchestra for his third year as MSO Chief Conductor. Maestro Martín leads an Artistic Family that includes Principal Conductor in Residence Benjamin Northey, Cybec Assistant Conductor Leonard Weiss, MSO Chorus Director Warren Trevelyan-Jones, Composer in Residence Katy Abbott, Artist in Residence

Erin Helyard, MSO First Nations Creative Chair Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, Young Cybec Young Composer in Residence Naomi Dodd, and Artist in Association Christian Li.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra respectfully acknowledges the people of the Eastern Kulin Nations, on whose un‑ceded lands we honour the continuation of the oldest music practice in the world.

MUSICIANS PERFORMING IN THIS CONCERT

FIRST VIOLINS

Laurence Jackson*

Guest Concertmaster

Anne-Marie Johnson

Acting Assistant Concertmaster

David Horowicz#

Peter Edwards

Assistant Principal

Margaret Billson and the late Ted Billson#

Peter Fellin

Deborah Goodall

Karla Hanna

Lorraine Hook

Kirstin Kenny

Eleanor Mancini

Anne Neil#

Mark Mogilevski

Michelle Ruffolo

Anna Skalova

Kathryn Taylor

Oksana Thompson*

Donica Tran^

SECOND VIOLINS

Matthew Tomkins

Principal

The Gross Foundation#

Monica Curro

Assistant Principal Dr Mary Jane Gething AO#

Mary Allison

Isin Cakmakçioglu

Tiffany Cheng

Glenn Sedgwick#

Freya Franzen

Cong Gu

Newton Family in memory of Rae Rothfield#

Isy Wasserman

Philippa West

Andrew Dudgeon AM#

Patrick Wong

Roger Young

Shane Buggle and Rosie Callanan#

Clare Carrick*

Jacqueline Edwards*

Felix Pascoe*

VIOLAS

Christopher Moore

Principal

Di Jameson and Frank Mercurio#

Lauren Brigden

Katharine Brockman

William Clark

Gabrielle Halloran

Jenny Khafagi

Fiona Sargeant

Isabel Morse°

Karen Columbine*

Ceridwen Davies*

Murray Kearney*

CELLOS

David Berlin

Principal

Rachael Tobin

Associate Principal

Anonymous#

Rohan de Korte

Andrew Dudgeon AM#

Rebecca Proietto

Caleb Wong

Michelle Wood

Andrew and Judy Rogers#

Alexandra Partridge°

Jonathan Chim*

Anna Pokorny*

DOUBLE BASSES

Jonathan Coco

Principal

Stephen Newton

Acting Associate Principal

Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser#

Rohan Dasika

Acting Assistant Principal

Suzanne Lee

Caitlin Bass°

Emma Sullivan°

Siyuan Vivian Qu*

FLUTES

Prudence Davis

Principal Anonymous#

Wendy Clarke

Associate Principal

Sarah Beggs

PICCOLO

Andrew Macleod

Principal

OBOES

Michael Pisani

Acting Associate Principal

Ann Blackburn

The Rosemary Norman Foundation#

Alexandra Allan^

COR ANGLAIS

Rachel Curkpatrick Acting Principal

BASS OBOE

Martin Lee* Guest Principal

CLARINETS

Philip Arkinstall Associate Principal

Craig Hill

Rosemary and the late Douglas Meagher#

Oliver Crofts*

BASS CLARINET

Mitchell Berick* Guest Principal

BASSOONS

Jack Schiller

Principal Dr Harry Imber#

Elise Millman

Associate Principal

Natasha Thomas

Dr Martin Tymms and Patricia Nilsson#

CONTRABASSOON

Brock Imison

Principal

HORNS

Nicolas Fleury

Principal

Margaret Jackson AC#

Andrew Young

Associate Principal

Saul Lewis

Principal Third

The late Hon Michael Watt KC and Cecilie Hall#

Abbey Edlin

Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM#

Josiah Kop

Rachel Shaw

Gary McPherson#

Rebecca Luton*

TRUMPETS

Owen Morris

Principal

Shane Hooton

Associate Principal

Glenn Sedgwick and Dr Anita Willaton#

Rosie Turner

John and Diana Frew#

Callum G’Froerer*

Timothy Keenihan*

Adam Davis^

TROMBONES

Mark Davidson Principal

Richard Shirley

Mike Szabo

Principal Bass Trombone

James Blackford*

Guest Tenor Trombone Principal

TUBA

Timothy Buzbee Principal

TIMPANI

Matthew Thomas Principal

John Arcaro

Tim and Lyn Edward#

PERCUSSION

Shaun Trubiano Principal

Robert Cossom

Drs Rhyl Wade and Clem Gruen#

Greg Sully*

Kevin Man*

HARP

Yinuo Mu Principal

Delyth Stafford*

CELESTE

Louisa Breen*

ORGAN

Andrew Bainbridge*

* Denotes Guest Musician

^ Denotes MSO Academy

° Denotes Contract Musician

# Position supported by

JAIME MARTÍN CONDUCTOR

Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 2022, Jaime Martín is also Chief Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland) and Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (Spanish National Orchestra) for the 22/23 season and was Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Gävle Symphony Orchestra from 2013 to 2022.

Having spent many years as a highly regarded flautist, Jaime turned to conducting full-time in 2013, and has become very quickly sought after at the highest level. Recent and future engagements include appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Antwerp Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica y Coro de RTVE (ORTVE) and Galicia Symphony orchestras, as well as a nine-city European tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Martín is the Artistic Advisor and previous Artistic Director of the Santander Festival. He was also a founding member of the Orquestra de Cadaqués, where he was Chief Conductor from 2012 to 2019.

ALBAN GERHARDT CELLO

Having launched his career with Berliner Philharmoniker and Semyon Bychkov in 1991, Alban Gerhardt has since gained recognition as one of the world’s most versatile cellists, highly regarded for his technical mastery, profound musicality, and insatiable artistic curiosity. His gift for shedding fresh light on familiar scores, along with his appetite for investigating new repertoire from centuries past and present, truly set him apart from his peers.

Notable orchestral collaborators include Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, all the British and German radio orchestras, Berliner Philharmoniker, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestre National de France, Orquesta Nacional de España as well as The Cleveland Orchestra, and Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago symphony orchestras, under conductors such as Christoph von Dohnányi, Kurt Masur, Klaus Mäkelä, Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, Susanna Mälkki, Vladimir Jurowski and Andris Nelsons.

A prolific recording artist, Gerhardt has received several awards for his recordings including an ECHO Klassik Award in 2008 for Reger: Cello Sonatas with Markus Becker under Hyperion, a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2015 for his recording of Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto with Myung-Whun Chung and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra under Deutsche Grammophon (for which he was also shortlisted for a Gramophone Award), and an International Classical Music Award in 2021 for Shostakovich: Cello Concertos with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and Jukka-Pekka Saraste under Hyperion. Gerhardt plays a Matteo Gofriller cello dating from 1710.

DEBORAH CHEETHAM FRAILLON AO SOPRANO & COMPOSER (YORTA YORTA)

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO (Yorta Yorta/Yuin), soprano and composer, is a respected human rights advocate and recognised thought leader on the importance of cultural authority in the Art Music space.

Throughout a long and distinguished career Deborah has championed the voice and visibility of classically trained Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island musicians. She is the artistic director of Australia’s national First Nations Opera Company, Short Black Opera (est. 2009), and Director of Dhungala Children’s Choir (est. 2008). In 2019 she established the One Day in January project, which produced Ensemble Dutala, Australia’s first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Chamber Ensemble.

As a composer, Cheetham Fraillon’s has written commissions for major ensembles and companies in Australia and internationally. Her landmark compositions include Australia’s first Indigenous opera Pecan Summer (2010), Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace (2018) and the ongoing multi-layered, multi-lingual chamber music series Woven Song (2018).

Cheetham Fraillon has been celebrated with a number of significant honours including the Don Banks Music Award (2023) and the Queensland Government – Australian Women in Music Lifetime Achievement Awards (2022). In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Deborah was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and in 2022 she was appointed as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA)

In 2021 Cheetham Fraillon began a five-year appointment as MSO First Nations Creative Chair and 2023 was appointed the inaugural Elizabeth Todd Chair of Vocal Studies at The Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the University of Sydney.

UPPER VOICES OF THE MSO CHORUS

For more than 50 years the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus has been the unstinting voice of the Orchestra’s choral repertoire. The MSO Chorus sings with the finest conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, Mark Wigglesworth, Bernard Labadie, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Manfred Honeck, Xian Zhang and Nodoko Okisawa, and is committed to developing and performing new Australian and international choral repertoire.

Commissions include Brett Dean’s Katz und Spatz, Ross Edwards’ Mountain Chant, and Paul Stanhope’s Exile Lamentations. Recordings by the MSO Chorus have received critical acclaim. It has performed across Brazil and at the Cultura Inglese Festival in Sao Paolo, with The Australian Ballet, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, at the AFL Grand Final and at the Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies.

The MSO Chorus is always welcoming new members. If you would like to audition, please visit mso.com.au/chorus for more information.

STEVEN HODGSON GUEST CHORUS DIRECTOR

Steven Hodgson has worked with various choirs and vocal ensembles for over 20 years, appearing as a vocalist with The Song Company, e21, the Australian Chamber Choir, Alchemy, The Consort of Melbourne and, in 2023, as the baritone soloist for Wynton Marsalis’ epic first symphony All rise with the Jazz at Lincoln Center and Sydney Symphony orchestras.

He completed a Bachelor of Music with Honours at the University of Melbourne in 2004, studying composition with Stuart Greenbaum, Brenton Broadstock and Brett Dean and voice with Stephen Grant. Most recently, he completed the Kurt Thomas Cursus at the HKU Utrecht Conservatory, specialising in chamber choir repertoire.

As a conductor, Steven was appointed Artistic Director of the Consort of Melbourne in 2016 and has held the position since. He has a particular interest in contemporary Australian music, giving frequent premiere performances with the ensemble including Sally Whitwell’s Lockdown Alphabet, Meta Cohen’s Swerve, Kym Dillon’s Robbie’s Daydream and Wally Gunn and Maria Zajkowski’s I heart Artemis. In 2023, Steven assisted in preparing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus for Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, sung entirely in the ancient dialects of the Gunditjmara people.

MSO CHORUS PERFORMING IN THIS CONCERT

SOPRANO

Giselle Baulch

Anne-Marie Brownhill

Eva Butcher

Jillian Colrain

Ella Dann-Limon

Samantha Davies

Carolyn Francis

Nicole Free

Camilla Gorman

Karina Gough

Penny Huggett

Gina Humphries

Leanne Hyndman

Gwen Kennelly

Theresa Lam

Natasha Lambie

Katie Lewis

Charlene Li

Caitlin Noble

Susie Novella

Karin Otto

Fiona Steffensen

Jillian Wood

ALTO

Margaret Arnold

Tes Benton

Jacqueline Cheng

Juliarna Clark

Marie Connett

Jill Giese

Debbie Griffiths

Sophia Gyger

Ros Harbison

Jennifer Henry

Kristine Hensel

Helen Hill

WARREN TREVELYAN-JONES CHORUS DIRECTOR

Helen MacLean

Christina McCowan

Penelope Monger

Natasha Pracejus

Kate Rice

Lisa Savige

Libby Timcke

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus Director Warren Trevelyan-Jones is the Head of Music at St James’, King Street in Sydney and is regarded as one of the leading choral conductors and choir trainers in Australia. Warren has had an extensive singing career as a soloist and ensemble singer in Europe, including nine years in the Choir of Westminster Abbey, and regular work with the Gabrieli Consort, Collegium Vocale (Ghent), the Taverner Consort, The Kings Consort, Dunedin Consort, The Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars. Warren is also Director of the Parsons Affayre, Founder and Co-Director of The Consort of Melbourne and, in 2001 with Dr Michael Noone, founded the Gramophone award-winning group Ensemble Plus Ultra. Warren is also a qualified music therapist.

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To learn more about becoming an MSO Guardian, or to have a confidential discussion on including a gift in your Will, please contact MSO Philanthropy on (03) 8646 1551 or by scanning the QR code.

PROGRAM NOTES

APPEARING IN ALL CONCERTS

EDWARD ELGAR (1857–1934)

Cello Concerto in E minor, Op.85

I. Adagio – Moderato –

II. Lento – Allegro molto

III. Adagio

IV. Allegro – Moderato – Allegro, ma non troppo

Alban Gerhardt cello

Elgar’s compositional career reached its last zenith with the appearance of his Violin Concerto in 1910 and Second Symphony in 1911, works into which he claimed, ‘I have written out my soul… shewn myself’. Between them and this 1919 Cello Concerto – his last major work – Elgar faced steadily worsening prospects in almost every aspect of his life, from the personal challenges of aging, ill-health and bereavement, to the professional affronts of being elbowed aside as a conductor and composer by younger colleagues. And there was also the war. While the youth of Britain marched into France in August 1914 singing a music-hall hit, It’s a long way to Tipperary, Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory – which had originated a decade earlier during the second Boer War as the trio of his first Pomp and Circumstance March (1901) – was mobilised again by their parents as a patriotic anthem. Rendered superfluous by his own old tune at home, and his music having little appeal to the average soldier at the front, Elgar, at 57, struggled to find a new wartime voice in works like Carillon, a musically slight but sentimentally eloquent response to the tragedy in Belgium, which he recorded for gramophone in 1915, and which

here in Australia became his next-mostpopular contribution to the war effort. His artistically and emotionally more substantial choral score The Spirit of England, settings of war poems by Laurence Binyon first heard in 1916 and 1917 in a Britain still deep in the hostilities, had more hopeful first performances in Melbourne and Sydney in July – August 1918, just as public confidence in an Allied victory exploded. But it was Binyon’s lines commemorating the millions fallen (‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn’) – not Elgar’s music for them – that everyone remembered. Binyon, who wrote these lines in the war’s first month, worked at the British Museum under Elgar’s close friend Sidney Colvin, the keeper of prints and drawings, and it was Colvin who first suggested Elgar turn them into ‘a wonderful Requiem for the slain’. Too old to fight, but having meanwhile volunteered as a hospital orderly in France, Binyon himself approached Elgar immediately the Armistice was declared with a request to set his new ode, ‘Peace’. But by letter on 18 November, Elgar demurred: ‘I do not feel drawn to write peace music somehow…the whole atmosphere is too full of complexities for me to feel music to it.’ Moreover, he found Binyon’s invocations of happy dead and healing spirits ‘cruelly obtuse to the individual sorrow and sacrifice – a cruelty I resent bitterly & disappointedly’. He had anyway, as his wife, Alice, privately recorded in her diary two months earlier, already conceived another ‘lament which should be in a war symphony’, music which evolved over the spring and summer of 1919 into ‘a real large work & I think good and alive’, as he described the ‘nearly completed’ Cello Concerto in a letter to Sidney Colvin and his wife, Frances, on 26 June, asking permission to dedicate it to them. On 27 October Elgar himself, out of duty to soloist

Felix Salmond, reluctantly proceeded to direct the premiere, well knowing it was destined for near disaster after his co-conductor, Albert Coates, used up most of the London Symphony’s available rehearsal time preparing Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy, which to add insult to injury was greeted by a storming ovation. As to the work itself, even some of his warmest admirers were at a loss what to make of a work that, as one wrote to The Musical Times in 1923, ‘anyhow, in my opinion… does not represent Elgar at his greatest’. And it was not until Elgar and Beatrice Harrison made their still-available 1928 recording that a new public, many of them unfamiliar with his earlier successes, began to appreciate the work as a masterpiece in its own right. The work is laid out on paper in four movements, though listeners tend to hear the first and second movements, played without break, as a single span. Whereas his Violin Concerto opened into a conventionally spacious orchestral introduction, pending the princely arrival of its soloist, Elgar sets his cello soloist in a more intimate frame. Denied welcoming brass or upper strings, the brief opening cello recitative ( Adagio) sets its own unusually pared-back terms – hereinafter will be lyricism, light orchestration, simple layouts. The violas, completely unaccompanied, announce the dreamy, modal, much-loved main theme (Moderato), its rocking rhythm Elgar’s characteristic pastoral lilt. The winds introduce the airy, major-tending contrasting theme, which the cello then sets about varying, before the main theme simply returns. A longer, second cello recitative (Lento) inducts into faster, lighter, scherzo-like Allegro molto, the cello driving the music forward with its scrubbing semiquavers.

Elgar anticipated that the Adagio, despite its anticipatory half-close, would often be played without the rest of the concerto, and scored it with just strings

and wind sextet. The cello melody gives the uncanny impression of being an internal dialogue between two separate voices, higher and lower, each merging in and out of the countermelodies of the supporting strings.

The finale opens, exceptionally, announcing its fragmentary theme ( Allegro) without the cello. The cello then reworks it in a parenthetic recitative and short cadenza (Moderato), before it takes over fully ( Allegro, ma non troppo). The soloist sweetly but firmly pulls the music up introducing its arcing subsidiary idea, then carried on by flowing semiquavers into the extensive development. There’s a heady reprise of the fast theme, echoes of earlier quiet asides, and a penultimate throwback to the concerto’s opening gesture, caught up into a rapid, surging close.

Graeme Skinner © 2014

21 & 23 MARCH ONLY

DEBORAH CHEETHAM FRAILLON AO (born 1964)

Earth

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO soprano as originally published in Limelight Magazine, March 2024.

It is possible, if not probable, that in my life time I will have the chance to view our Planet from space. Like me, you too may enjoy contemplating what new perspective that experience would bring for humanity, the chance to survey our planet in context. How would it change us to see, first hand, the Earth in its finite solitude?

The original premise for this commission from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was to create a movement which would compliment the intent of Holst’s The Planets suite by adding the

Earth to the seven movements named for our neighbours in the solar system. A daunting enough task but with all the excitement and challenge of a large orchestral palette. Somewhere along the way Earth became a stand alone work for this performance changing some of my initial plans for the composition. But as with each commission the main point is to find your inspiration and begin.

2023 had been a huge year for me personally, beginning with overwhelming joy and happiness of my marriage to much loved Australian conductor Nicolette Fraillon. My appointment as Elizabeth Todd Chair of Vocal Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music which came with a move back to my home state of NSW after 16 very happy years in my adopted home on Boon Wurrung country in Naarm. A new ballet score for Daniel Riley’s work The Hum; my second opera Parrwang Lifts the Sky produced by Short Black Opera; Sydney World Pride; vocal recitals; an international tour and other commissions but all the while Earth was firmly in my thoughts.

How to capture the character of this planet in just 8 minutes? What to say? How much? How little?

Then a referendum was unleashed on us all.

Uninvited, this process came in and took over my life.

Gruelling, punishing and ultimately devastating, the process left me mute for several months.

I could not sing, I could not write. But Earth demanded my attention. It broke my compositional silence in the most dramatic way. The moment of creation. The expansion of the universe from unsustainable tension and density. What a metaphor!

Ultimately the Earth is set apart from

its neighbours in this solar system by our humanity. And so, in the process of composing this work I decided to include that which truely defines us – our Voice. It seemed fitting, on the occasion of the premiere in March 2024, that I regain my voice and perform the text alongside colleagues and friends of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra including Chief Conductor Jaime Martín on the podium. The glimmering, shining beauty of nature lifted me from my silence and dismay to finally to write this text and to set it as the finale of this work.

Come, come shining world moving through silence just for a moment let me shine with you carry my song moving through silence shining world Sun breathing Earth glist’ning in space when I dream, you tell me all you know let me remember moving through silence this shining world is our home.

Cheetham Fraillon AO 2024

GUSTAV HOLST (1874–1834)

The Planets, Op.32

Mars, the Bringer of War

Venus, the Bringer of Peace

Mercury, the Winged Messenger

Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age Uranus, the Magician

Neptune, the Mystic

Upper voices of the MSO

Though Gustav Holst’s The Planets is a foundational piece of space music – a sonic accompaniment for children learning about the solar system and

an inspiration for sci-fi scores from The Twilight Zone to Star Trek to Star Wars – the piece was inspired by astrology more than astronomy. Holst was a bit embarrassed by his interest in the pseudoscience, which he learned about in 1913 while vacationing in Spain. He professed not to take it seriously as fortunetelling, but admitted to a fascination with human personalities and how they might be affected by celestial bodies. The movements’ subtitles – “The Bringer of War,” “The Bringer of Peace,” “The Bringer of Jollity,” and so forth – suggest earthly affairs as much as anything beyond our orbit.

As a young man in 1895, Holst had earned a scholarship to the Royal Conservatory of Music, and then worked as a trombonist in theater orchestras. But he soon gave that up to become a teacher at the James Allen Girl’s School and musical director at St. Paul’s Girl’s School, both in London. By all accounts he was an excellent teacher who took seriously the musical talents of young women. His students participated in many of his pieces and were sometimes entrusted with preparing scores and sheet music, especially when bouts of inflammation prevented him from writing things out by hand.

Though respected as an educator, Holst had received only limited recognition as a composer as he neared age 40. This didn’t necessarily bother him – he detested publicity and was content with small and semi-private performances. Imogen Holst, his daughter and biographer, paraphrased his outlook: “A piece of music was either good or bad. If it was good it would speak for itself. Why dress it up in headlines, and concoct little paragraphs about it for the gossip columns of the evening papers?”

Yet in 1911 he made a New Year’s resolution to be more ambitious. He had already written a number of choral and orchestral works, some inspired

by English folksong and others by Sanskrit texts and Hindu philosophy. Soon he began to conceive a new kind of orchestral suite with the working title “Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra” –what we now know as The Planets.

It took Holst almost four years to finish the piece – composing in his soundproof music room at St. Paul’s on weekends and school vacations – and then he waited another three for a complete performance, in 1920. Early previews were limited to just a few movements because the conductor Adrian Boult thought “when [listeners] are being given a totally new language like that, 30 minutes of it is as much as they can take in.” But he underestimated his audience – the piece quickly became extremely popular, and Holst achieved a level of celebrity he almost instantly regretted. “Gushing admirers were the plague of his life,” recalled Imogen. “His ‘enemies’ – those who hated his music with a hatred that seemed almost personal in its intensity – he could easily ignore, but the adoration of some of his disciples could be painfully embarrassing.”

It was important to Holst to differentiate the musical symbolism of The Planets from the kind of epic musical storytelling found in the tone poems of Richard Strauss. “These pieces were suggested by the astrological significance of the planets; there is no programme music,” he wrote. “Neither have they any connection with the deities of classical mythology bearing the same names. If any guide to the music is required, the subtitle to each piece will be found sufficient, especially if it be used in the broad sense. For instance, Jupiter brings jollity in the ordinary sense, and also the more ceremonial type of rejoicing associated with religions or national festivities. Saturn brings not only physical decay, but also a vision of fulfillment. Mercury is the symbol of mind.”

Holst didn’t think it necessary to say anything more, but here is a slightly more elaborate guide to the music:

Mars, the Bringer of War, was completed just before the outbreak of World War I, as if Holst could foresee the conflict. Its driving, off-kilter march ends in a fractured climax. Venus, the Bringer of Peace, was written as the first news came of combat on the Western Front (Holst himself was unable to serve due to poor health). It is a lyrical and melancholy movement with horns and winds mingling with hushed strings.

Mercury, the Winged Messenger, is rambunctious and fleeting, with silvery touches from the harp and celesta. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity, was heavily influenced by English folksong, broadening in the second half with a plummy strings-and-brass theme marked Andante maestoso (majestic).

Now we gaze to the outer solar system, encountering stranger, more distant planets. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age, is a creaky giant, wheezy and weary, but still an eminent presence when roused. Uranus, the Magician, has a whole bag of tricks – entertaining and eccentric, wobbling between frightening and justkidding.

At last, Neptune, the Mystic, is cold and remote. “The strange chords in Neptune make our ‘moderns’ sound like milk and water,” wrote Ralph Vaughan Williams in a forward for Holst’s biography. “Yet these chords never seem ‘wrong’, nor are they incongruous.” Here Holst introduces an offstage chorus of sopranos and altos, sung at the first performance by his own students. The most human sound in the entire piece is also the most unearthly, with the last bar repeated until the sound is lost in the distance.

© Benjamin Pesetsky 2024

22 MARCH ONLY

EDVARD GRIEG (1874–1834)

Peer Gynt: Suite No.1, Op.46

Morning – Mood (Allegretto pastorale)

The Death of Åse (Andante doloroso) Anitra’s Dance (Tempo di Mazurka)

In the Hall of the Mountain King (Alla marcia e molto marcato)

The great Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg, was fascinated by the literature of his native land. From the 1870s onwards, Grieg collaborated extensively with the Norwegian author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson; setting many of his poems, writing incidental music for his plays, and starting an opera with him.

But when the operatic collaboration failed, Grieg turned his attention to Henrik Ibsen’s dramatic poem and Grieg’s incidental music, written as two concert suites, would become as famous as the poem itself. The eponymous Peer is an anti-hero, whose character defects, such as recklessness and ego, keep him perpetually on the brink of disaster. His adventures take him to Mountain Kingdoms, Bedouin camps and other exotic destinations; but nothing, it seems, can bring him to any form of self-realisation.

Nevertheless, Grieg finds in this mad journey the stuff of musical sublimity, with each section of the First Suite a jewel in the crown of orchestral repertoire. Morning – Mood brings us sunrise over the Norwegian fjords, Åse’s Death marks a poignant tribute to Peer’s mother, Anitra’s Dance is a Saharan travelogue, while the frenzied tone of the immortal In the Hall of the Mountain King scarcely requires any introduction!

© Martin

2005

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