Issue No.72
FRIENDS’ NEWSLETTER
April 2017
ANGUS SMITH, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
CONTENTS
PAGE ONE Music of Russia PAGE TWO Our Pictures Project PAGE THREE More Russian Composers PAGE FOUR Children’s Commission PAGE FIVE Howard Skempton PAGE SIX Fundraising Update PAGE SEVEN Coming soon PAGE EIGHT Dates for your diary
ON “WHAT MAKES RUSSIAN MUSIC RUSSIAN?” First impressions are so important. When I was 13 or 14 I went to hear Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring played by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Leonard Bernstein at the Royal Albert Hall. I couldn’t tell you what else was in the programme because I was so completely transfixed and overwhelmed by the raw, elemental power of this extraordinary piece. More Russian music followed, courtesy of my experiences as a member of the local Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra. Playing Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony – heart-on-sleeve passion, it seems to me – was exciting enough, but the searing intensity of Shostakovich’s 5th is even more powerfully etched into my memory. And not just because these pieces have such great trumpet parts! I was also swept away by the extraordinary technical and emotional power of great Russian pianists; I almost wore out my copy of Sviatoslav Richter’s LP of Brahms’ 2nd Piano Concerto and witnessing Andrei Gavrilov live was phenomenal. Add in the idiomatic sound of Russian operatic and church singers – not least for those extraordinary
Bass notes! – and we have another area where Russian music and musicians stand out from the rest. However, even if these experiences didn’t give me a false impression of Russian music, I can now see that they gave me an incomplete one. Only in recent times have I come to realise that in a host of 19th-century Russian composers’ chamber music – Glinka, Cui, Balakirev and Borodin, to name just a few – there is an easy elegance and lyricism that is a match for Tchaikovsky. And that Glazunov’s abundant lateromantic streak is every bit a match for Rachmaninov’s. I am also discovering that I need to look further than the wonderful music of Shostakovich and Prokofiev.
There is immense, heartfelt poignancy in the music of mid20th-century composers such as Weinberg and Myaskovsky and in a composer who seems to me to be their heir, the remarkable Sofia Gubaidulina. This is why I am looking forward so much to this festival. My pre-conceptions will be well and truly satisfied, but I also know there are going to be lots of wonderful surprises!
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WHO ARE PLATFORM 4?
TOM MCKINNEY PROVIDES AN INTRODUCTION TO ROSLAVETS, TSINTSADZE, GUBAIDULINA & DRANISHIKOVA
You’ll have seen by now that we have commissioned the four members of Platform 4 – young professional composers based here in Sheffield – to write new pieces for Ensemble 360 to perform at our Russia in the Round Festival this May. Many of you will know from last year’s Festival that Jenny Jackson, Chris Noble, Tom Owen, and Tom James have four really different musical voices and methods. They are each basing their piece on Russian music that will be heard in the same programme. It will be fascinating to see how they turn old music into new. We really want this process to open a window onto how new music is created, and how composers take their inspiration from the music that has gone before them. Why not take a look at their progress, which they have been documenting through blogs and vlogs which can be found on our website? Do have a look. Already, Jenny has quite literally ripped it up and started again, having become “too drawn in by using a tone row from a Haydn quartet”, and Chris has an ending that’s in the middle of his score and he’s now in Singapore, and Tom Owen has blogged about the perils of “rage-adding” notes to fill empty space on a computer screen…
OUR PICTURES PROJECT As many of you will know, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is based on ten artworks, some now lost, viewed by the composer in a St Petersburg art gallery. And for this year’s festival we thought: why not turn the idea on its head? So we are now working in partnership with Ignite Imaginations to create ten new artworks based on each movement of the Mussorgsky! Groups of people from all over the city – including from Mencap, Darnall Library, and the Timebuilders project – are each working with Ignite artists to create their own visual response to this wonderful music. And the pictures will come together as the festival kicks off, with an exhibition opening in the Winter Garden on the first Friday, a special free performance by Tim Horton of Mussorgsky’s piece there on the Saturday, and then a move of the paintings to the Crucible on the Wednesday in time for Tim’s Studio rendition that afternoon.
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So whether you’re at the Crucible or out and about during the festival, do go and enjoy these fascinating 21st-century responses to one of the 19th century’s greatest musical artworks.
Before we get to four of the less well-known composers in our Russia in the Round Festival, have a bit of fun with the pronunciation of these: Roslavets, Tsintsadze, Dranishnikova and Gubaidulina. Answers are at the bottom. Nikolai Roslavets (1881-1944) hoped to win favour in Soviet Russia by developing a new style which rejected fashionable composers, who, in his own words, “have found themselves rudderless and blindly adrift on the waves of an uncharted elemental sea of music”. The authorities greeted this new system by officially censoring him and sent him to Uzbekistan to explore the local folk music. Roslavets’ Viola Sonata (11 May, 12.45pm) was written after the 1917 Revolution, a considerably happier time for the composer. Through the rise of Communism, he was recognised as one of the most prominent figures of ‘leftist art’ in Russia – teaching violin and composition, leading the Association for Contemporary Music and editing journals in the state publishing house. In contrast to Roslavets, Sulkhan Tsintsadze (1925-1991) assimilated Georgian folk music with less progressive elements of Shostakovich, which made him a golden boy with the Soviet authorities - he was the recipient of the two most prestigious artists’ awards, the Stalin Prize and the People’s Artist of the USSR. You can hear an extract from one of his many string quartets in The Fatal Knock on the Door (6 May, 7.15pm). We have the American oboist Marc Fink to thank for rediscovering Marina Dranishnikova (19291994). It was Fink who found her long forgotten Poème for oboe and piano (11 May, 12.45pm), composed in 1953. She appears to have been very well respected, but very little is now known of her music, although the Poème is said to have been inspired by an unhappy love for the principal oboist in the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1973 Sofia Gubaidulina (born 1931) was attacked, strangled and left for dead in a lift in her apartment block. The attack had all the hallmarks of a KGB assassination. Why? Because she’d dared to allow Western influences and religion to enter her music. What kept her so determined to write such dangerous music was some offthe-record advice from Shostakovich, who once said to her, “My wish for you is that you should continue on your own incorrect path”. You can hear Gubaidulina’s ‘incorrect’ Hoquetus on 10 May, 12.45pm. Answers: RAW-slu-vyets , tsin-TSAD-zay ; dra-NEESH-nee-ko-va and goo-bye-DOO-lee-ner. Easy! Photo © F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH
HOWARD SKEMPTON AN UPDATE FROM FRASER WILSON ON OUR NEXT CHILDREN’S COMMISSION There’s been excellent progress this spring on our new commission for schools and families. Excitingly, the music and illustrations are now pretty much finished! Final tweaks will be made in the next month or so, and then we have all summer to prepare the resources that will surround it, which will make the whole project so valuable to teachers and families. Paul Rissmann and Jason Chapman have between them created a wonderfully engaging story with the usual highly addictive songs. Those of you who remember the first Stan and Mabel will recognise hints of the music in this new piece, and of course the two central characters return (Stan is a banjo-playing dog and Mabel is a cat conductor!). But the new piece is really fresh and innovative in every way, and I know that children and their grown-ups will love it.
We’ve been helped no end by pupils from Beck and Greystones primary schools here in Sheffield. At the end of February, we went into those schools to run workshops on the pictures, songs and story. The children responded really well and had all sorts of ideas in response, some of which are likely to appear in the final show! So the children have really made their mark on the piece. It’s thrilling to be able to get ideas directly from the little people for whom the music and story are being created. We have a working title now as well: Stan and Mabel and the Race for Space! I’m not going to reveal the whole story, but suffice to say it’s about what happens when humans try to put all the animals to work at the School for Wild and Dangerous Animals. Deprived of a habitat of their own, the animals hatch a plot (involving the transport museum and a space rocket) to find their own space… and you will have to wait for the concert to find out more! The schools’ project, including the world premiere concerts, takes place in early November. (Is your child’s school taking part?) Then the family concert will land in spring 2018. And we’ll see you there!
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After the immense success of Rime of the Ancient Mariner at last year’s May Festival, Howard Skempton returns to Music in the Round with a world premiere for Ensemble 360 and Roderick Williams a setting of the poem Man and Bat by D H Lawrence. Currently in the early stages of composing this exciting new work, Howard took five minutes off to give us a flavour of what we’ll hear in July. How did you come across the poem, and what made it so appealing to you? I was first drawn to D H Lawrence’s poetry about thirty years ago, and composed settings of three of his later poems for soprano and clarinet. The longer poems initially seemed unwieldy, but what drew me to Man and Bat was its clarity and dramatic potential. What might we expect from the piece? My intention is to write an exhilarating piece which never lets up. It will be thirty minutes long, which may seem a long time for the task at hand, but my view is that we will be witnessing the drama “in real time”. Are you writing specifically for the individual characters of Roddy and the Ensemble? Certainly. Lawrence’s poem expresses agitation one moment and tenderness the next, and I’ll have Roddy’s extraordinary dramatic gifts and musicianship always in mind. At the moment, I imagine the piano as the singer’s accomplice, and the strings as his antagonist!
Due to the instrumentation, Man and Bat has lent itself very nicely to being paired with Schubert’s Trout Quintet. Will that also make a nice fit musically? I hope the two pieces will prove very complementary in character. My style is mainly melodic, and extremely economical. The pairing with Schubert is a most attractive prospect for me. Composing is an exhausting and painfully slow activity. Do you ever wonder if there’s an easier way to make a living? Composing stretches me in all the ways I would wish to be stretched. I am also devoted to music. I’ve always imagined that being a professional singer might be the most natural, satisfying way to make a living. One of my own songs which I’m happy to sing is Show Me the Limelight, but I have no political ambitions!
The world premiere of Man and Bat by Howard Skempton will be performed by Roderick Williams and Ensemble 360 in the Upper Chapel on 20 July at 7.15pm, along with Schubert’s Trout Quintet and a selection of English songs. Tickets can be booked at Sheffield Theatres box office
0114 249 6000 or musicintheround.co.uk
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FUNDRAISING UPDATE VOLUNTEERS & CAKES NEEDED! 25 June, Open Gardens Park Hall, Chesterfield, S42 7LT Hosted by Kim and Margaret Staniforth
KEEP MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY RUNNING!
We’re looking for volunteers to help us make this fundraising event for our Bridge quartet scheme a huge success. Could you bake a cake, donate other homemade produce, publicise the afternoon in advance or help out on the day? We’re looking for a team of people to serve refreshments, act as stewards, set up and clear away on the day, to deliver leaflets and share the event on Facebook in advance.
Office plans to run the Sheffield halfmarathon are on hold due to lack of time to train (honest!) and a couple of niggling injuries. However, Deborah did complete the Couch to 5K having never done any running before and she, Fraser and a group of Music Hub colleagues will be running the Sheffield 10k in October to raise money for Music in the Community.
If you can help us in any way, fill in and return the form enclosed with this newsletter, email tom@musicintheround.co.uk or give us a call in the office on 0114 281 4660.
More information will be available in May, at www.musicintheround.co.uk, or see one of the team to support us or to join in.
COMING SOON!
There’ll be a concert in memory of Peter Cropper on Saturday 2 September to raise money for the Bridge scheme. Peter had always wanted to put on a concert in the rather special, early 15th century, St Martin’s Church in Stoney Middleton, which has an unusual octagonal nave. And who better to help realise that ambition than the Marmen Quartet, who he coached in their earliest months on the Bridge scheme, which he was so passionate about? Tickets, available from Music in the Round, are £20 and include a glass of wine in the interval; proceeds will go to the Bridge 2 fund apart from a donation to the Church fund. Capacity is limited to 100, so please do book early with Tom: tom@musicintheround.co.uk
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Congratulations to Gemma and Ben on the safe arrival of Isaac Nabarro! We know you will join us in sending good wishes to them both on the new addition to their family.
MORE IN MAY! Immerse yourself in the music of Mozart with concerts, events and activities for the whole family all in the heart of the Lake District. The Old Laundry Theatre in Bowness-on-Windermere will be hosting our next Mozart Festival taking place on 19 – 21 May 2017. Take a look at a few highlights on offer… Members of Ensemble 360 delve into Mozart’s music in the Festival’s lecture-recital event. This is an insightful introduction into music from one of three Ensemble concerts on offer over the weekend. The ‘Music Box’ children’s workshop is the perfect Saturday afternoon treat for your ‘miniMozarts’ – be sure to book early! Singers of all ages and abilities are invited to the festival’s ‘Bring & Sing’ led by the Hallé’s Stuart Overington. Stuart will expertly guide the choir in an afternoon of song and all those involved will also perform alongside the Ensemble in the Festival’s closing concert.
CONCERT FOR PETER
ENSEMBLE NEWS
For more information please visit www.oldlaundrytheatre.co.uk. Tickets are available to purchase online via the venue’s website or on 015394 40872.
SCHUBERT IN DONCASTER We return to Cast in Doncaster for our third weekend Festival of Chamber Music in the city, on the 13 and 14 October 2017. Join Music in the Round, Ensemble 360 and invited guests in celebrating the stunning music of Schubert. The full festival schedule will be announced shortly, but meanwhile, don’t forget to save the dates!
AUTUMN IN SHEFFIELD 2017 Ensemble 360 evening concerts this autumn include 8 November and 29 November, with lunchtime concerts scheduled for 26 October, 23 November and 7 December. The Leonore Piano Trio will also continue their Beethoven cycle on 11 November. Plus Tim Horton will be giving the first in a new series of recitals dedicated to Schubert’s piano sonatas on 2 December. Guest artists for the series include Imogen Cooper on 14 October. The Marmen Quartet gives their final recital as our Bridge Quartet on 21 October and the Van Kuijk Quartet returns on 28 October. On 17 November, Viktoria Mullova, Matthew Barley, Paul Clarvis and João Luís Nogueira Pinto will be performing their versions of Brazilian classics in Strad in Rio. And to top it all, we’re planning a really special Christmas concert on 16 December with Roderick Williams, Anna Harvey and Sheffield Young Singers. Save the dates! Priority booking opens in mid-July.
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ENSEMBLE 360 ON TOUR Scarborough, Stephen Joseph Theatre 27 April, 7pm GLAZUNOV String Quintet MOZART Violin Sonata in A K.526 TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No.3 01723 370541 www.sjt.uk.com Barnsley, Emmanuel Methodist Church 28 April, 7.30pm GLAZUNOV String Quintet MOZART Violin Sonata in A K.526 TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No.3
Barnsley, Hoylandswaine Parish Church 23 June, 7.30pm SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No.7 in F sharp minor Op.108 WEINBERG ‘Aria’ Op.9 for string quartet BAX Oboe Quintet FINZI Interlude Op.21 for oboe and string quartet TSINTSADZE ‘Spring’ from 12 Miniatures for string quartet on Georgian Folk Songs SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No.8 in C minor Op.110 01226 327000 www.barnsleycivic.co.uk
Carlisle, Old Fire Station 18 May, 7pm MOZART String Quartet K.421 MOZART String Quartet in D K.155 MOZART String Quartet K.465, Dissonance
Doncaster, CAST 24 June, 7pm SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No.7 in F sharp minor Op.108 WEINBERG ‘Aria’ Op.9 for string quartet BAX Oboe Quintet FINZI Interlude Op.21 for oboe and string quartet TSINTSADZE ‘Spring’ from 12 Miniatures for string quartet on Georgian Folk Songs SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No.8 in C minor Op.110
01228 598596 www.oldfirestation.carlisle.city
01302 303959 www.castindoncaster.com
Bowness-on-Windermere, The Old Laundry Theatre 19-21 May Marvellous Mozart Festival
Newcastle-under-Lyme, New Vic Theatre 28 June, 7.30pm PROKOFIEV 4 pieces from Romeo and Juliet arr V. Borisovksy BEETHOVEN Variations on Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen WoO 46 SCHUMANN Fantasiestücke Op.73 HINDEMITH Musikalisches Blumengärtlein und Leypziger Allerley BEETHOVEN Eyeglass Duo WoO 32 for viola and double bass ROSLAVETS Viola Sonata KAPUSTIN Sweet Georgia Brown
01226 327000 www.barnsleycivic.co.uk
A weekend of concerts, workshops and events for the whole family. 01539 440872 www.oldlaundrytheatre.co.uk
01782 717962
4th Floor, Sheffield Central Library, Surrey Street Sheffield S1 1XZ Registered Charity number: 326811 Company number 1880734 VAT number 391 1875 33