INTERNATIONAL CONCERT SERIES 2019/2020
London Mozart Players Howard Shelley piano/conductor WEDNESDAY 16 OCTOBER 2019
Christian Tetzlaff
Justin Doyle
Natalie Clein
International Concert Series 2019/2020 NEXT CONCERT Sun. 10 Nov. 2019, 8pm Christian Tetzlaff violin Lars Vogt piano Programme: Beethoven, Shostakovich, Kurtág and Frank
Sat. 23 Nov. 2019, 8pm RIAS Kammerchor Justin Doyle chief conductor Bahar & Ufuk Dördüncü pianos Mon. 9 Dec. 2019, 8pm Joseph Calleja tenor Claudia Boyle soprano RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Proinnsías Ó Duinn conductor
Wed. 22 Jan. 2020, 8pm English Chamber Orchestra José Serebrier conductor Natalie Clein cello Thurs. 20 Feb. 2020, 8pm Simon Trpčeski piano Mon. 9 Mar. 2020, 8pm Bach Collegium Japan Masaaki Suzuki conductor Sat. 4 Apr. 2020, 8pm Tenebrae Aurora Orchestra Mon. 20 Apr. 2020, 8pm Emanuel Ax piano Thurs. 30 Apr. 2020, 8pm Vienna Chamber Orchestra Paul Lewis piano
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Wed. 13 May 2020, 8pm Camerata Ireland Barry Douglas piano/ conductor Lynn Harrell cello Dmitry Sitkovetsky violin Sat. 23 May 2020, 8pm Joyce DiDonato mezzo-soprano Il pomo d’oro Maxim Emelyanychev conductor/harpsichord Tue. 2 June 2020, 8pm The Hallé Sir Mark Elder conductor Benjamin Grosvenor piano
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Welcome You are very welcome to the second concert of our International Concert Series for 2019/20. This evening we are delighted to host esteemed pianist and conductor Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players who are celebrating their 70th birthday. The orchestra is the UK’s longest established chamber orchestra. Over the decades it has developed an enviable reputation for ambitious programming from Baroque through to the Postmodern era. In addition to Howard Shelley, the LMP has distinguished associations with artists such as Sir James Galway, who celebrates his 80th birthday with a concert at the NCH next month, Dame Felicity Lott, Nicola Benedetti, John Suchet and Simon Callow.
London Mozart Players
We are delighted to welcome Howard Shelley back to the NCH in the dual role of conductor and pianist. Since making his debut in 1985 he has conducted widely and internationally mostly in his preferred dual role of conductor and soloist. As pianist he has performed with Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pierre Boulez, Sir Adrian Boult, Mariss Jansons and more. This evening’s programme features late masterpieces by Mozart and Haydn along with Prokofiev’s witty tribute to the classical style: Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25 ‘Classical’. In addition, we will be treated to Delius’s On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, in which the sounds of the bird are conveyed by the oboe, strings and clarinet. Our third instalment of the International Concert Series on November 10th will see violinist Christian Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt take to the stage for a programme to include Beethoven, Shostakovich, György Kurtág and Franck. Our thanks to our media partner The Irish Times for its ongoing support of the International Concert Series and to all our Friends, Corporate Associates, Patrons, sponsors and you, our audience. We hope you enjoy tonight’s performance and we look forward to welcoming you back to many more wonderful concerts in the season.
Maura McGrath Simon Taylor Chairman CEO Board Of Directors Maura McGrath Chair • James Cavanagh • Rebecca Gageby Gerard Gillen • Eleanor McEvoy • Máire O’Connor John Reynolds • Don Thornhill Patron Michael D. Higgins President of Ireland 1
“Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players, where classical refinement and ebullience go hand in hand� Financial Times
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Programme
Prokofiev Mozart
Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25 ‘Classical’ Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K503
INTERVAL
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring Symphony No. 104 in D major, ‘London’
London Mozart Players
Delius Haydn
REMINDERS Mobile Devices Please ensure all mobile devices are switched off during the performance. Camera, Video and Recording Equipment Camera, video and recording equipment are NOT permitted in the auditorium. Intervals and Timings Interval will be 20 minutes. Latecomers will not be admitted until there is a suitable break in the performance. 3
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International Concert Series 2019/2020
London Mozart Players
ŠOneday Photography
London Mozart Players
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The London Mozart Players, the UK’s longest established chamber orchestra, is thrilled to be celebrating its 70th birthday in 2019. Founded in 1949 by Harry Blech to delight audiences with the works of Mozart and Haydn, over the last seventy years the LMP has developed an outstanding reputation for adventurous, ambitious programming from Baroque through to genre-crossing contemporary music, and continues to build on its long history of association with many of the world’s finest artists including Sir James Galway, Dame Felicity Lott, Jane Glover, Howard Shelley, Nicola Benedetti, John Suchet and Simon Callow. The orchestra enjoys an international reputation, touring extensively throughout Europe and the Far East, most recently Dubai and Hong Kong, and records frequently for Naxos, Chandos, Convivium, Signum and Hyperion Records.
International Concert Series 2019/2020
The London Mozart Players regularly performs on London’s premier concert platforms as well as in cathedrals and other concert venues across the UK. The 2019/20 season sees the orchestra performing at the Southbank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smiths Square and King’s Place in London as well as in Chelmsford, Portsmouth and Winchester Cathedrals. Tours to Hong Kong and Korea are planned. LMP is the resident orchestra at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls and celebrated this venue’s reopening after refurbishment in September 2019 with a gala concert, which also marked the orchestra’s 70th birthday. The 2019/20 Fairfield season includes concerts with Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Craig Ogden and Jess Gillam. While their home venue, Fairfield Halls, was closed for refurbishment, the orchestra embedded itself in the community of St John the Evangelist church in Upper Norwood, bringing world class classical music performances to a leafy London suburb. The LMP also took classical music to new and unusual venues across their home borough of Croydon in south London. The orchestra’s award-winning series #LMPOnTheMove saw the ensemble pushing the perceived boundaries of classical music performance, reaching diverse audiences and making new partnerships. Events included a live film score played on top of a shopping mall car park, events for children in local libraries and a house music set at Boxpark with young DJ/ producer Shift K3Y.
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As one of the original pioneers of orchestral outreach work, LMP has enjoyed a host of relationships with schools and music hubs across the UK (and recently in Dubai and Hong Kong), working with many teachers and heads of music to inspire the next generation of musicians and music lovers. As well as working with schools, LMP continues its 70-year tradition of promoting young up-and-coming musicians. Nicola Benedetti, Jacqueline du PrĂŠ and Jan Pascal Tortelier are just three of many young musical virtuosi championed early in their careers by the orchestra. LMP is the only professional orchestra in the UK to be managed both operationally and artistically by the players. The orchestra has enjoyed the patronage of HRH The Earl of Wessex since 1988.
ŠOneday Photography
London Mozart Players
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Howard Shelley PIANO/CONDUCTOR
Since winning the premier prize at the Royal College of Music at the end of his first year, making his recital debut in 1971 and giving a televised Prom the same season with the London Symphony Orchestra, Howard Shelley has enjoyed a distinguished career, regularly touring on all continents including over 30 consecutive years to Australia.
International Concert Series 2019/2020
As pianist he has performed with leading orchestras and conductors including Ashkenazy, Boulez, Boult, Davis, Jansons, Rozhdestvensky and Sanderling. In 1983 he gave a unique series of five London recitals, broadcast by the BBC, of Rachmaninov’s complete solo piano music. Since his conducting debut with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1985, Shelley has conducted all four London symphony orchestras, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra, as well as the RTÉ National Symphony in Dublin. His engagements are now mostly in the dual role of conductor/soloist with particularly close relationships with a number of chamber orchestras around the world. He is Conductor Laureate of the London Mozart Players and has toured with them in Europe and Asia. Their many recordings together have received critical acclaim. Shelley has also been Principal Conductor of Sweden’s Uppsala Chamber Orchestra. In addition to other close relationships with the English Chamber Orchestra, Västerås Sinfonietta, Poland’s Sinfonia Varsovia, the Sinfonieorchester St Gallen and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra with most of whom he also records, other orchestras with whom he has worked include the Adelaide Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Melbourne Symphony, Muencher Symphoniker, Naples Philharmonic, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, Nuernberger Symphoniker, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Orchestra 8
©Matthias Creutziger
di Padova et del Veneto, Orchestre de Picardie, Seattle Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Zürcher Kammerorchester.
Howard Shelley
Television highlights include the 100th anniversary of the BBC Proms, a broadcast on Swiss-Italian television of Vaughan Williams’s London Symphony and a documentary on Ravel made in 1998 by the ABC which won the Gold Medal for the best arts biography of the year at the New York Festivals Awards. Shelley’s discography now exceeds well over 160 CDs in the Chandos, Hyperion and EMI catalogues and includes the complete Rachmaninov piano music and concertos, series of Mozart, Hummel, and Mendelssohn concertos, Gershwin’s works for piano and orchestra and many British concertos for Chandos. World première contributions to Hyperion’s Romantic Piano series include concertos by Moscheles, Herz, Hiller, Kalkbrenner and many others. Recent issues feature boxed sets of Haydn’s ‘London’ symphonies and a 14-CD survey of Clementi for Hyperion, and Beethoven’s complete works for piano and orchestra for Chandos as well as discs of Chopin’s sonatas and piano concertos by Dobryznski and Lessel for the Chopin Institute in Warsaw. He is currently recording a survey of Mendelssohn solo piano music for Hyperion. Howard Shelley is married to Dubliner Hilary Macnamara and they have two sons. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Music, he was awarded an OBE for services to classical music in 2009. 9
Ana Sokolovic
International Concert Series 2019/2020
Navarra String Quartet
Garrett Sholdice
Zoran Dukic
Amy Gillen
Chamber Music Series 2019/2020 Highlights • Fifty New Irish Art Songs to be premiered as part of Irish Language Art Song Project • Resound: NCH/Sounding the Feminist Series featuring work of female composers • International Guitar Series featuring six recitals by leading International and Irish musicians • Young Artist Series: four concerts by young Irish prize-winners • Sunday String Quartet Series: eight recitals by leading ensembles • Beethoven 250th Anniversary: two distinct series by The Degani Piano Trio and Irish pianist Hugh Tinney And lots more.
Tickets from €15 Concert Packages Available See full schedule on www.nch.ie 10
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“impressive” THE FINANCIAL TIMES
“stunning” T H E S U N D AY T I M E
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I M A G E : Jack B. Yeats, The Flapping Meeting, 1926, © Estate of Jack B. Yeats, DACS London / IVARO Dublin, 2019. Private Collection. Photo: Denis Mortell. 11
Programme Notes
International Concert Series 2019/2020
The 70th birthday of the foundation in 1949 of the London Mozart Players by the legendary musician, Harry Blech (1910-1999), is marked by a series of concerts throughout 2019. Coincidentally Howard Shelley, Conductor Laureate, has a landmark birthday next year. Tonight’s concert will celebrate these dual events with hallmark works from the orchestral repertoire, bookending two symphonies in D major by Prokofiev and Haydn.
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25 ‘Classical’ (1917) Allegro Larghetto Gavotta: Non troppo allegro Finale: Molto vivace Prokofiev had no hesitation in defining the model for his first symphony as ‘a symphony in the style of Haydn…if Haydn were writing today, I thought, he would keep to his way of writing, whilst at the same time incorporating new ideas. I wanted to compose such a symphony’. Prokofiev had been a student in Petrograd Conservatory from 1904-1914 and was inspired by the enthusiasm of his teacher, the conductor Nikolai Tcherepnin (1873-1943), for the music of Haydn and Mozart. In 1913 Prokofiev had conducted a Haydn symphony and had composed a Gavotte movement. During the February Revolution in 1917 he moved to a small town outside Petrograd where he walked in the fields and continued to compose the symphony without using a piano. The ‘Classical Symphony’ was premiered on 21 April 1918 in the hall of the former Court Chapel in Petrograd and was enthusiastically received. 12
The symphony exudes good humour, wit and joie de vivre throughout the four movements, from the text book sonata form of the opening Allegro to the carefree Finale. There is not a hair astray in the graceful melody of the Larghetto until the pizzicato middle section and woodwind twists and turns provide a bucolic contrast. The Gavotta brings a pastoral flavour to the eighteenth-century dance while the players race to the winning post in the breathless Finale. Prokofiev said that he rewrote the final movement because he thought it too ponderous for a classical symphony: ‘I was hugging myself with delight all the time I was writing it’. The combination of classical forms with impeccable craftmanship, piquant melodies, flawless orchestration and quixotic musical language ensures that the symphony is truly a classic.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major K503 (1786) Programme Notes
Allegro maestoso Andante Allegretto During the last ten years of his life Mozart settled in Vienna where he earned his living as a composer, conductor and pianist. During that time he composed seventeen concertos for piano and orchestra, for which there was a popular demand from audiences at public concerts. During the winter of 1785-86, when he was at work on The Marriage of Figaro, he completed three piano concertos, two of which were premiered in the Burgtheater, Vienna, on 2 and 4 March 1786. On 4 December of the same year he completed a fourth concerto, No. 25 in C major K 503, followed on 6 December by the symphony later known as the ‘Prague’. In the words of the musicologist Alfred Einstein: ‘No other work of Mozart’s has such dimensions, and the dimensions correspond to the power of the symphonic construction and the drastic nature of the modulations’. The regal orchestral opening with trumpets and drums sets the scene for the expansive first movement, Allegro maestoso, with its inexhaustible supply of new ideas and rippling scale and 13
arpeggio piano passages. The orchestral introduction to the Andante second movement presents two deceptively simple melodies which provide magical exchanges between soloist and woodwind. The Rondo theme of the Allegretto is reminiscent of the Gavotte from the ballet music in Idomeneo and although some of the episodes throw caution to the wind there is no loss of decorum and the serious character of the concerto is maintained.
Frederick Delius (1862-1934) On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (1912)
International Concert Series 2019/2020
Since medieval times composers in every century have been drawn to imitating birdsong in their music. The tone poem, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, was composed by Delius around the same time as two other works featuring birdsong - Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé (1912) and The Lark Ascending (1914) by Vaughan Williams. It was first performed in Leipzig on 23 October 1913 by the Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Arthur Nikisch. The work was paired with a second piece, Summer Night on the River, as ‘Two Pieces for Small Orchestra’. After the premiere Delius wrote to his wife: ‘The public seemed to like the first piece [Cuckoo] best, although I like the second one best’. It was first performed in London on 20 January 1914 by the conductor Willem Mengelberg at his concert for the Royal Philharmonic Society. On 14 September 1914 it was played at the Proms by the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra, conducted by Sir Henry Wood. It has become a regular favourite since with audiences at the BBC Proms, most recently on 24 July 2017 at a concert of British music recreating a celebration of Malcolm Sargent’s 70th birthday in 1965. The atmospheric evocation of an early spring morning opens with a sleepy 3-bar sequence as the mellow countryside gradually awakens. The yearning second theme, introduced by flute and continued by violins with enchanting woodwind solos, is the Norwegian folk song, ‘In Ola valley’, which had been given to Delius by his friend Percy Grainger. The same tune had been arranged by Grieg as No. 14 of ‘19 Norwegian Folk Songs for Piano’ Op. 66 (1896). The repeated cuckoo calls on clarinet are unobtrusive at first but become more insistent 14
near the end, blending into the tranquil landscape. The work is harmonically conventional, communicating the composer’s heartfelt love of nature.
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) Symphony No. 104 in D major, ‘London’ (1795) Adagio – Allegro Andante Menuet. Allegro –Trio – Menuet Finale. Spiritoso
Meanwhile the German-born impresario, Johann Peter Salomon, who was on a mission in Europe trying to book artists for the forthcoming London concert season at the Hanover Square Rooms, hurried to Vienna. He had previously tried unsuccessfully to engage Haydn but this time the timing was right. It was an offer that Haydn could not refuse; the contract was signed overnight and Haydn travelled to England soon afterwards for the first of two visits in 1791-2 and 1794-5, which were life-changing experiences for him. London was a very important musical centre and Haydn was treated as a celebrity. Soon after his arrival he wrote: ‘Everyone wants to know me. I had to dine out six times up to now, and if I wanted I could have an invitation every day; but first I must consider my health, and second my work. Except for the nobility I admit no callers till 2 in the afternoon’. The large orchestras for Salomon’s concerts were twice the size of the those in the Esterházy court, numerous and elegant audiences flocked to hear the new symphonies, he was invited to private parties and was patronised by the Prince of Wales.
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Programme Notes
In 1761 Haydn entered the service of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy who was an influential member of the Hungarian nobility. He remained as Kapellmeister at the princely court, first at Eisenstadt, and, from 1765, at a new palace called Eszterháza until 1790 when his patron died. Esterhazy’s successor, Prince Anton, was not a music enthusiast. He disbanded the orchestra, leaving Haydn free to return to Vienna where he initially declined other posts on offer.
The last twelve of Haydn’s symphonies, known as the ‘London’ symphonies, were composed for the two visits. They included No. 94 the ‘Surprise’, No. 100 the ‘Military’, No. 101 the ‘Clock’, No. 103 the ‘Drumroll’ and No. 104, the ‘London’. In February 1795 Salomon’s concerts were moved to the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, where the Italian violinist and composer, Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824), was manager. The concert room in the theatre had a capacity of 800 and there were 60 players in the orchestra. On 4 May the ‘London’, the last of Haydn’s over 100 symphonies, was premiered at Haydn’s benefit concert. It was a very successful event: ‘The whole company was thoroughly pleased and so was I. I made 400 gulden on this evening: such a thing is possible only in England’. An adulatory newspaper review reported that the symphony ‘is thought by some of the best judges to surpass all his other compositions’.
International Concert Series 2019/2020
There is no evidence that Haydn intended No. 104 to be his final symphony but the grandeur and nobility of the opening introduction in the minor key are significant portents of the serious nature of the work. The stately first subject of the Allegro dominates the first movement while variations on a single subject are explored in the wide-ranging Andante. The third movement presents an energetic Menuet incorporating two unconventional silent bars before re-entering piano; the flowing Trio arrives in the distant key of B flat major. The spirited folk-tune in the Finale is succeeded by a contrasting second subject, which is treated with humour and harmonic dexterity, until the radiant coda completes Haydn’s inscription on the manuscript: ‘the 12th which I have composed in England’.
Programe Notes by Ita Beausang
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BARRY DOUGLAS & CAMERATA IRELAND THURSDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2019, 8PM NATIONAL CONCERT HALL FRIENDS GALA CONCERT Mairead Hickey violin | Ed Creedon viola | Killian White cello Tom Myles clarinet | Kevin Jansson piano Haydn Cello Concerto in C Mozart Sinfonia Concertante in E flat for violin & viola Mozart Clarinet Concerto Mozart Double Piano Concerto in E flat
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London Mozart Players
International Concert Series 2019/2020
Conductor Howard Shelley Violin 1 Ruth Rogers Sijie Chen Victoria Sayles Nicoline Kraamwinkel Ann Criscuolo Nemanja Ljubinkovic Alison Strange Jens Lynen Violin 2 Antonia Kesel Maria Mazzarini Jayne Spencer Caroline Bishop Hazel Correa Lucy Waterhouse Viola
Horn Jonathan Williams Martin Grainger
Judith Busbridge Sophie Renshaw Michael Posner Christopher Beckett
Trumpet Paul Archibald Peter Wright
Cello Sebastian Comberti Julia Desbruslais Ben Chappell Ben Rogerson Double Bass Ben Russell Alice Kent
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Flute Michael Cox Rebecca Larsen Oboe Christopher O’Neal Olivia Fraser Clarinet Andrew Webster Emma Canavan Bassoon Sarah Burnett Connie Tanner
Timpani Benedict Hoffnung
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