Stephen McNeff The Celestial Stranger Irish Premiere NSO co-commission with BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2
‘WHEN GONZÁLEZ-GRANADOS
CONDUCTS, IT’S AS IF THE MUSIC IS ALIVE INSIDE HER BODY, FLOWING THROUGH HER ARMS, DANCING WITH ALL THE RIGHT STEPS’
(Los Angeles Times)
National Symphony Orchestra
Bruckner 200
National Symphony Orchestra
Hans Graf conductor
Stefan Jackiw violin
Friday 6 December 2024, 7.30pm
National Concert Hall
Presented by Paul Herriott, RTÉ lyric fm
Programme
Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5, ‘Turkish’ / 31’
Bruckner Symphony No. 7 / 64’
*Broadcast live on RTÉ lyric Live on RTÉ lyric fm
PLEASE NOTE: The NCH does not permit photography or videography during the performance (without prior permission). We kindly ask you to refrain from using any recording equipment for the duration of tonight’s performance.
CEO
Robert Read
NCH Board Members
Maura McGrath Chair | James Cavanagh | Cliona Doris
Rebecca Gageby | Hilary Hough | Peter McKenna
Niamh Murray | Michelle O’Sullivan | Don Thornhill
Patron
Michael D. Higgins President of Ireland
Fáilte Welcome
My concerts in Dublin have twice allowed me to present music by Anton Bruckner – his Fourth Symphony in 2015 and the Te Deum in 2017 – who is maybe one of the strangest composers, certainly one of the most fascinating and incomparable.
It is a noble duty to be an advocate for his music as the number of people who are deeply touched by it has grown over the four decades of my work as a conductor.
My love for Bruckner’s music was not given to me by birth or neighbourhood (our birthplaces are 10 miles apart). After a time of complete and emotional acceptance in my youth, there were about 10 years of cool distance and preference for ‘clever’ or more ‘interesting’ composers, mainly of the 20th century.
While this interest has survived and grown, Bruckner’s music made a quiet but deep and satisfying return into my spirit and soul.
This music often doesn’t follow all the rules of groomed compositional principles and at times poses challenges. But with growing familiarity, deeper knowledge and understanding its inner logic, it gets absolutely convincing and often overwhelming.
Symphony No. 7, which we play tonight, is maybe his most ‘perfect’, inviting and accessible symphony, showing the beauty of his mature melodic invention and the dramatic power of his orchestral ideas and sound cathedrals.
I am looking forward to performing this gentle, tender, majestic and powerful symphony with this great orchestra in returning to Dublin which has had my grateful sympathies since our first encounter.
Hans Graf
Programme Notes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91)
Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 291, ‘Turkish’
I. Allegro aperto
II. Adagio
III. Rondeau: tempo di menuetto
The signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz (present-day Sremski Karlovci in Serbia) in 1699 brought to an end a four-centuries-long enmity between the countries of central Europe and the Ottoman Empire. With hostilities resolved, as the historic might of the Ottomans faded, a new relationship between the two powers developed, Europe finding a more palatable side to its quondam foe in its exotic-sounding music.
What came to be called ‘Turkish music’ served as diplomatic balm to soothe old hurts and help forge a new and different engagement between East and West, one that made ready use of what might now be called cultural appropriation.
Vienna, soon to find itself at the heart of the nascent Austro-Hungarian Empire, had long resisted the Ottomans’ imperial ambitions. In an era of peace it acquired a new fascination with its music. An obsession that had found burgeoning interest in its equally once-afflicted neighbours, all enthralled by the martial, percussive brilliance of marching music played by the elite Janissary troops of the Sultan.
Having been admired as a violinist, pianist and composer of brilliance since Europe first acclaimed him as a child prodigy, Mozart was not yet out of his teens when he wrote his Fifth Violin Concerto. Or perhaps he was into his early twenties, the exact date of composition – likely to have been between 1773 and 1780 – unknown.
Nor is it known for whom Mozart composed his violin concertos. Was it himself or the Italian Antonio Brunetti, a prominent musician with the Salzburg Court Orchestra, to which the 16-year-old Mozart had been appointed Concertmaster in 1775?
The last of his concertos for the instrument, the Fifth is also the richest and most accomplished. That he wrote no more such works perhaps suggests the youthful composer felt he had said all there was to say with the form. Although one wonders what the mature Mozart might have brought to it. Certainly, the three movements of K. 291, cast in traditional sonata form, display the most acute awareness of, and engagement with, the instrument’s grandstanding qualities.
It begins with characteristic Mozartian daring: the orchestral Allegro introduction (qualified by an aperto marking encouraging a broader, more majestic approach) quickly giving way to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, six-bar middle movement Adagio from the violin. A conceit as dazzling as it is daring.
The slow, graceful middle movement foregrounds an aching melody introduced by First Violins then taken up in rhapsodic fashion by the solo violin. A melancholy interlude provides due contrast, the solo instrument’s cadenza presaging the movement’s lyrical end.
The concerto derives its Turkish soubriquet from its Rondeau finale (a conceit Mozart later brought to perfection in the Rondo alla Turca passage of his Piano Sonata No. 11, K. 331). In essence it is a severally repeated minuet in the midst of which an abrupt change of tempo and shift from major to minor key seems to mimic the bristling pomp of an Ottoman Janissary military band, accented by col legno (strings struck rather than bowed) interjections by cellos and double basses. Punctuated by contrasting episodes, the movement opens and ends with the return of the principal theme courtesy of the solo violin, ending with a last buoyant flourish of orchestral voices marked by a concluding five ascending notes of becoming, minuet-like delicacy.
INTERVAL
Anton Bruckner (1824-96)
Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107
I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio: Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam
III. Scherzo: Sehr schnell
IV. Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht schnell
Bruckner had passed his 40th birthday when he produced his First Symphony in 1866. Newly transfixed by the possibilities of the large-scale orchestral form, over the next three decades he wrote another eight such works that individually and collectively are some of the most distinctive symphonies in the entire canon.
Having completed his musical studies only the previous year, it was a performance of Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser in 1863 that had proved Bruckner’s Damascene moment. The encounter transformed how he thought about music and how he went about composing.
But Bruckner’s conversion saw him caught between the musically conservative forces of Mendelssohn, Schumann and the fast-emerging Brahms on the one hand, and the avant-garde ‘new music’ advocated by supporters of Liszt and Wagner on the other. Unintentionally, he found himself embroiled in a combustible debate that he had no interest in, nor any intention of consciously contributing to.
That his detractors dismissed Bruckner’s symphonies as derivative of Wagner was to overstate the case. Although they have an affinity with the Bard of Bayreuth – not least in their tendency towards expansiveness, and in terms of sheer scale – the symphony, more pointedly, offered something else instead to Bruckner; the prospect of realising his own musical credo, one that spoke unabashedly of the mystery and magnificence of faith.
If that aspiration also chimed, in part, with Wagner, Bruckner’s faith was rooted in scripture and the one Christian God rather than in the panoply of Pagan legends, myths and gods hymned by his musical idol.
Dedicated to Wagner and quoting from two of his operas (although its concluding section clearly anticipates Mahler), the Third Symphony of 1873 had been Bruckner’s symphonic breakthrough. But it was the Seventh Symphony that gave him the greatest success of his career.
At its first performance, conducted in Leipzig by Arthur Nikisch in December 1884, it was afforded a 15-minute ovation. Long before the decade was out, it had been performed in nearly a dozen cities including Munich, Vienna, Chicago, Budapest and London, each time to a rapturous reception.
Not everyone was persuaded. The critic Gustav Dömpke railed against Bruckner for ‘composing like a drunkard’ and dismissed him as ‘virtuosic imitator’ of Beethoven and Wagner. Certainly, and even more so than the Third Symphony, the Seventh paid explicit tribute to Wagner in its radiantly poetic opening, the first use in symphonic music of ‘Wagner tubas’ (originally developed for The Ring cycle and intended to bridge the gap between horns and trombones) and, not least, in the sombre, heart-wrenching Adagio. Although Bruckner had begun sketching the passage a year previously, it was not completed until nine weeks after Wagner’s passing in February 1883.
The first movement’s structure is that of an extended poem containing, in effect, three substantial stanzas, an expansive development section and a coda that seeks to unify all. It begins with a characteristic Brucknerian statement: an elegant and noble melody magically spun out of stillness and quiet by cellos and first horn over shimmering violin tremolos. It continues in familiar fashion, too, reaching a forceful climax before receding to make space for the second theme in oboes and clarinets.
Yet disguised within the familiar are discernible hints of the new directions Bruckner had set himself upon and of a confidence that anticipates his coming maturity. Although the introduction of the principal theme is conventionally done, Bruckner goes on to treat it in increasingly surprising ways. (So struck was Schoenberg by the movement’s innovations that he later tasked his students to arrange it for chamber ensemble.)
Marked ‘sehr feierlich und sehr langsam’ (‘very solemn and very slow’), the soulful Adagio second movement is an unabashed homage to Wagner; in Bruckner’s own words, ‘funeral music for the Master’. It gains much of its power from the blending – and subsequent development – of two contrasted themes: the first introduced by the massed voices of tubas and the lamenting low-lying strings of violas, cellos and basses. Advancing with grave reverence, the movement reaches a moment of apotheosis marked by a rumbling drum roll like the sound of thunder rippling along a valley – a consigning, perhaps, of Wagner’s spirit to his own Valhalla – that seems both irresistible and inevitable.
The decidedly athletic third movement Scherzo boasts a rustic dance at its heart in which a raucous trumpet call seems to mimic the crowing of an animated rooster. The accompanying trio is marked by a lyrical, pastorally accented warmth.
The Finale has been described by the composer Robert Simpson (whose own symphonies owe a debt to Bruckner’s mystical grandiloquence) as a marriage of ‘solemnity and humour in festive grandeur’. Structurally a virtual mirror of the first movement, tonally it is an altogether different, lighter, more buoyant proposition, one that returns in due course to the symphony’s opening theme.
The most varied and variegated passage in the whole symphony, Bruckner instructed the movement to be played ‘Bewegt, doch nicht schnell’ (‘moving but not fast’). It ends in the firestorm of an E major flourish, trumpets blazing, strings exultant, percussion thundering as if the very gates of Heaven were opening to admit the venerable spirit of Bruckner’s demigod, Wagner.
Tellingly, while composing the movement in August 1883, Bruckner had visited Wagner’s grave in Bayreuth, completing it on his return home. Fifteen months later, proceeds from the premiere of the Seventh Symphony were donated to an appeal to raise a memorial to Wagner.
Neasa Ní Chuanaigh shadow puppetry | Gavin Maloney conductor
Get set for an immersive experience for all ages, blending storytelling, puppetry and orchestral brilliance into a magical fusion of sight and sound.
Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf featuring new and specially commissioned shadow puppetry
Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
SUNDAY 9 FEB 2025, 12.30pm, 3pm, 5pm
Designed for children aged 5 and up and their families, all are welcome.
Tickets: Full Price €30, Child €23, Restricted View €15, Family Ticket €94 (4 tickets, maximum 2 adults) nch.ie
Hans
Graf conductor
Hans Graf is Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra since July 2022. He was Music Director of the Houston Symphony from 2001-2013, Music Director of the Calgary Philharmonic, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Basque National Orchestra and Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg.
His work in the US includes a long collaboration with the Boston Symphony, numerous appearances with the orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York, and the major orchestras of the US and Canada. In Europe, Graf conducted the Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw and Leipzig Gewandhaus, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Bavarian and Stuttgart Radio Orchestras, Dutch Radio Philharmonic, the LSO, LPO, RPO, Hallé, RSNO, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and other leading orchestras.
He works closely with the Aalborg SO and South Netherlands PO and is a regular guest with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphonies, the Seoul, Hong Kong and Malaysia PO. He has appeared at the Salzburg Festival since 1983 and at festivals like Bregenz, Orange, Aix-en-Provence, Maggio Musicale and Savonlinna. US festival appearances include Tanglewood, Blossom, Aspen, Bravo! Vail, and Mostly Mozart. He conducted many performances at the Vienna State Opera since 1981, and at the opera houses of Munich, Berlin, Paris and Rome among others. Recent opera work includes Zurich (Parsifal) and Strasbourg (Boris Godunov).
In 2014 he was awarded the Österreichischer Musiktheaterpreis for Richard Strauss’s Feuersnot at Vienna Volksoper, where his most recent premiere was Der Rosenkavalier in 2021.
His discography includes all of Mozart’s and Schubert’s symphonies, Dutilleux’s complete orchestral works, and the world premiere recording of Zemlinsky’s Es war einmal. Among his recordings with the Houston Symphony are a DVD of Holst’s The Planets, CDs of Bartók’s The Wooden Prince, Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, and Berg’s Wozzeck which won the ECHO KLASSIK (2017) and Grammy (2018) awards.
Hans Graf is Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur and was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honour of the Republic of Austria.
He is Professor Emeritus for Orchestral Conducting at the Universität Mozarteum, Salzburg.
Stefan Jackiw violin
Stefan Jackiw is one of America’s foremost violinists, captivating audiences on both sides of the Atlantic with his poetry, pure sound, and impeccable technique. Hailed for playing of ‘uncommon musical substance’ that is ‘striking for its intelligence and sensitivity’ (Boston Globe), Jackiw has won the support of numerous conductors including Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Andrew Davis, Juraj Valčuha, Yuri Temirkanov, Hannu Lintu, Ludovic Morlot, Philippe Herreweghe and Hans Graf.
Since bursting onto the London stage with the Philharmonia aged 14, Jackiw has been a frequent visitor to Europe, recently collaborating with the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Helsinki Philharmonic, RTVE Madrid, RAI Turin Orchestra, and London Philharmonic Orchestra.
In recital Stefan Jackiw has performed at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival with pianist Christoph Eschenbach and at the Louvre in Paris, and regularly gives recitals throughout North America including at the opening night of Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. As a chamber musician he has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Steven Isserlis, Mahan Esfahani and regularly works with Jeremy Denk. He is a member of the Junction Trio with pianist Conrad Tao and cellist Jay Campbell.
On disc, Jackiw received critical acclaim for his debut recording of Brahms’s Violin Sonatas with pianist Max Levinson released on Sony: ‘Jackiw is fantastic… This is now the recording of Brahms’s violin sonatas to have’ (Fanfare). He has recorded the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields with Alan Gilberg, Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan for Decca Gold, and the Ives Violin Sonatas with Jeremy Denk for Nonesuch.
Born of Korean/German heritage, Jackiw began studying the violin at the age of four. His teachers included Zinaida Gilels, Michèle Auclair and Donald Weilerstein, and in 2002 he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. He plays a violin made by Vincenzo Ruggieri in Cremona in 1704, and lives in New York City.
Meet The Orchestra
Get to know the people behind the instruments of the National Symphony Orchestra
Melanie Cull
Second Violin
When did you join the National Symphony Orchestra? 1996.
Why did you choose to play your instrument?
As a child I remember expressing an interest in the harp or the cello but was told the family car was too small. Then one day, the headmistress of my school brought in a violin and I went home to tell my parents that I had to learn how to play it.
Who is your favourite composer and what is your favourite work?
I absolutely adore Baroque music, Vivaldi and Bach being my favourite composers. I was a member of the Capriol Consort for many years, a group formed by the amazing flute teacher, Doris Keogh. It was a Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music and dance group where we performed in period costumes and with period instruments.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not playing with the orchestra?
I really, really love growing vegetables. I’m literally counting down the days till I can put down my first early potatoes.
If you weren’t a musician, what would you most like to be?
I worked in pubs for many years and absolutely loved it. I’d love to have my own bar or a really good whiskey and wine shop.
Who is your musical idol?
My Dad, Tom Briggs, played Third Horn in the NSO for 43 years. He adored making music. He retired from the NSO when he was 65 but freelanced for many years after.
You’re stranded on a desert island. You’re allowed 3 CDs and 1 book. What would they be, and why?
I would like to have a mix of styles of music depending on my mood. The Vivaldi Album by Cecelia Bartoli; My 21st Century Blues by Raye; and any album by Rammstein. I’m a fan of Formula One, so my book would be Driving to Survive by Gunther Steiner.
National Symphony Orchestra
The National Symphony Orchestra has been at the centre of Ireland’s cultural life for over 75 years. Formerly the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, it was founded in 1948 as the Raidió Éireann Symphony Orchestra. In 2022, the Orchestra transferred from RTÉ to the remit of the National Concert Hall.
Resident orchestra of the National Concert Hall since its opening in 1981, it is a leading force in Irish musical life through year-long programmes of live music –ranging from symphonic, choral and operatic to music from stage and screen, popular and traditional music, and new commissions – alongside recordings, broadcasts on RTÉ and internationally through the European Broadcasting Union. Schools concerts, family events, initiatives for emerging artists and composers, collaborations with partner promoters and organisations extend the orchestra’s reach.
As a central part of the National Concert Hall’s 2024-2025 Season, the NSO presents more than 55 performances shared between Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Cork. They include collaborations with international and Irish artists, ensembles and conductors – including a number of events with the National Concert Hall’s Artists-in-Residence: the renowned American musician and composer Bryce Dessner, the internationally acclaimed Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught, and the dynamic musician and presenter Jessie Grimes. The programme is rich and varied, presenting repertoire from across the centuries to the present day including world and Irish premieres, choral masterpieces, birthday and anniversary celebrations, family concerts and screenings, schools concerts, and professional initiatives for emerging singers and composers. A focus on nature and the environment is a central part of the season’s programming.
Highlights with the Artists-in-Residence are many. They include three Irish premieres by Bryce Dessner: Mari, his Violin Concerto performed by its dedicatee, Pekka Kuusisto, and his Concerto for Two Pianos performed by Katia and Marielle Labèque, for whom it was written. Tara Erraught performs virtuosic works by Mozart, Haydn and Marianne von Martínez, with historical performance specialist Laurence Cummings conducting, and arias by Mozart, Puccini, Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini, with Clelia Cafiero conducting. Tara is also the driving force behind Celebrating the Voice, a week-long professional development programme for young singers which culminates in an opera gala with the NSO conducted by Anu
Tali. Jessie Grimes leads immersive, family-friendly concerts including Our Precious Planet and explorations of iconic works: Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique as part of the ASD-friendly Symphony Shorts, as well as Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, featuring new and specially commissioned shadow puppetry, and Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
Other exciting highlights include Dame Sarah Connolly joining conductor Mihhail Gerts for Alma Mahler’s Six Songs; an 80th birthday celebration for conductor Leonard Slatkin which includes the world premiere of his son Daniel’ s cosmic journey, Voyager 130; Hugh Tinney performing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto; Speranza Scappucci conducting a Ravel Birthday Celebration; John Storgårds conducting Rachmaninov and Shostakovich; Anja Bihlmaier conducting Mahler’s Ninth Symphony; and Ryan McAdams conducting the First Violin Concerto by Philip Glass with NSO Leader Elaine Clark as soloist; and John Luther Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Become Ocean. Jaime Martín returns to conduct Chopin’s Second Concerto with Yeol Eum Son as the soloist, and former Principal Conductor Gerhard Markson returns for Stanford’s Requiem featuring the National Symphony Chorus and soloists including Máire Flavin and Sharon Carty.
World premieres by Deirdre McKay and Ailís Ní Ríain and, as part of Composer Lab, by Amelia Clarkson, Finola Merivale, Barry O’Halpin, and Yue Song all feature. Irish premieres include a new orchestral setting of Philip Glass’s film score Naqoyqatsi with the Philip Glass Ensemble; Stephen McNeff’s The Celestial Stranger with Gavan Ring as soloist; James MacMillan’s St. John Passion with the National Symphony Chorus and Chamber Choir Ireland; and Ukrainian Victoria Vita Polevá’s Third Symphony.
Additional family events include popular screenings of classic children’s stories by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler – Stick Man and The Snail and the Whale – and Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. Music in the Classroom returns with Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate Music Guide events, and Musical Adventures for Primary School children.
National Symphony Orchestra
1st Violin
Carmine Lauri
Joanne Quigley McParland
Sebastian Liebig †
Orla Ní Bhraoin °
Catherine McCarthy
Ting Zhong Deng
David Clark
Anne Harte
Bróna Fitzgerald
Claudie Driesen
Karl Sweeney
Molly O’Shea
Cliodhna Ryan
Erin Hennessey
Cillian O’Breachain
Anna Kolby-Sonstad
2nd Violin
Emily Mowbray
Elizabeth McLaren ‡
Anita Vedres
Rosalind Brown
Paul Fanning
Dara O’Connell
Melanie Cull
Evelyn McGrory
Elena Quinn
Magda Kowalska
Hannah Choi
Lucia Mac Partlin
Emma Masterson
Jisun Min
Viola
Ben Newton
Francis Harte °
Ruth Bebb
Neil Martin
Cliona O’Riordan
Margarete Clark
Anthony Mulholland
Carla Vedres
Róisín Ní Dhúill
Jenny Ames
Samantha Hutchins
Jane Tyler
Cello
Martin Johnson *
Polly Ballard (Associate Principal)
Violetta-Valerie Muth °
Úna Ní Chanainn
Filip Szkopek
Maria Kolby-Sonstad
Matthew Lowe
David McCann
Eva Richards
Benjamin Carnell
Double Bass
Benjamin Russell
Mark Jenkins ‡
Lowri Estell
Waldemar Kozak
Helen Morgan
Jenni Meade
Maeve Sheil
Alex Felle
Flute
Catriona Ryan •
Ríona Ó Duinnín ‡
Oboe
Matthew Manning •
Sylvain Gnemmi ‡
Clarinet
Emídio André Costa
Fintan Sutton †
Bassoon
Greg Crowley °
Hilary Sheil †
Horn
John Ryan
Thomas Bettley
Mark Bennett
Joseph Ryan
Dewi Jones
Tenor Wagner Tuba
Bethan Watkeys †
Peter Ryan
Bass Wagner Tuba
Ian Dakin
David Atcheler ◊
Trumpet
Richard Blake
Gabriel Diaz
David Collins
Jonathan Corry
Trombone
Jason Sinclair •
Gavin Roche ‡
Bass Trombone
Josiah Walters †
Tuba
Francis Magee •
Timpani
Niels Verbeek
Percussion
Bernard Reilly ◊
Richard O’Donnell
• S ection Leader
† Principal
‡ A ssociate Principal
° S tring Sub Principal
◊ S ub Principal 1
Go spreaga an ceol tú. Bain sult as ceol binn sa Cheoláras Náisiúnta. Is leatsa an Ceol. Is leatsa an Ceoláras Náisiúnta. nch.ie
