Programme 1 | Mar-Apr 2017
HAMILTON | TAURANGA | ROTORUA
Welcome from the Music Director
Prokofiev’s First Symphony is an affectionate, witty and brilliant homage to the classical period – a statement about the way in which anyone writing a symphony has a debt to Haydn and Mozart. Tchaikovsky, too, had enormous respect for Mozart. The two little dances that he arranged as part of his Mozartiana Suite are exquisite. The Gigue sparkles and the Menuet has an interesting melancholy tinge. His “Rococo” Variations are on an original theme, but one that is redolent of nostalgia for the classical period. It seemed only appropriate (as a point of reference almost) to include some real classical repertoire in the programme – so what better than Mozart’s magnificent “Jupiter”. I was thrilled that Matthias Balzat, who has so often played in the cello section of Opus Orchestra, was available to play the virtuoso solo part for the “Rococo” Variations. He is a superb musician. I was reminded of that listening to him as a member of the winning group in the ROSL/Pettman Scholarship last year. But then just three weeks ago, he won the National Concerto Competition in Christchurch. It is our good fortune that we are able to present a triumphant Matthias to the home crowd. I know that you will enjoy this opportunity to hear this brilliant young musician. Ngā mihi nui, Peter Walls MUSIC DIRECTOR
Peter Walls
has been Music Director of Opus Orchestra since 2004. He is currently also Music Director of Nota Bene, a Wellington chamber choir. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the NZSO National Youth Orchestra, Orchestra Wellington after the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, and various other choirs including the Civic Choirs in Hamilton, Tauranga and Rotorua. Peter was Music Director of The Tudor Consort from 1993-1999, a position he resigned to take up a Visiting Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford. His CD with that choir of motets by Peter Philips was listed by Neue Musik Zeitung as one of the top early music CDs released in 2002 and received a CHOC award from Le Monde de la Musique (the highest award from one of the leading French magazines for Classical music). Classics Today wrote “Conductor Peter Walls understands the overall period style and he obviously cares a lot about ensemble balance and uniformity of tone and colour.” He has conducted many opera productions including Jack Body’s Alley in the New Zealand Arts Festival in 1998, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi for Southern Opera in 2009, Verdi’s La Traviata for the Gisborne Opera Festival and Leoncavallo’s Cavalleria Rusticana for Opera Wanganui (these last two productions with a young Simon O’Neill as Alfredo and Turridu respectively). Peter is Emeritus Professor of Music at Victoria University of Wellington. He was Chief Executive of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra from 2002 until 2011 and now holds that same role with Chamber Music New Zealand. He was made an Officer of the New
Photo Credit: Ashley Hopkins
Kia ora tatou Mozart and the Russians might seem poles apart. Most of us associate Russian music with the weighty and overtly passionate music of Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev (most of the time) and Tchaikovsky (in works like the “Pathétique” Symphony). But there is another – delightful – dimension to this.
Matthias Balzat
Soloist
Matthias started learning the cello at the age of 3 and is the youngest of 7 children. Being surrounded by musical siblings, he has had a variety of performance experiences from a very young age, both as soloist and as part of the family ensemble who has toured overseas to the USA, Germany, Austria, Australia and Fiji. He began his lessons with Sally-Anne Brown who taught him for 9 years, and at the age of 11 he began his studies with James Tennant. In 2013 he entered the NZCT Chamber Music Contest with “Sollertinsky”, performing Shostakovich’s 2nd Piano Trio. His group were winners of the both the Auckland District as well as the overall National Prize. In 2014 he gained First Equal Prize for the National Concerto Competition and was consequently accepted into the Music Performance Soloist Specialization Course at Waikato University at the age of 14. In 2015 he won First Prize at the PACANZ Competition and was also guest soloist with the New Zealand Secondary Schools Symphony Orchestra (NZSSSO). He performed with the Turnovsky Ensemble in the same year and also with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra at the Summer Sparks Concert in the Park. He won 2nd Prize at the 2015 Gisborne International Competition, and was awarded a Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarship and a Blues Award in 2014, 2015 and 2016. In 2016 he won First Prize in the inaugural Wallace International Cello Competition and also won the Royal Over-Seas League (ROSL) Chamber Music Competition with the Trio “Aurelian”. He is currently completing his Honours Degree under James Tennant.
Elena Abramova Concertmaster Russian-born violinist, Elena Abramova, holds a Masters Degree from the State Conservatory of St. Petersburg, Russia, and a Doctorate in Violin Performance from the University of Auckland. Elena has lived in Auckland since 2003 where she is a sought after freelance violinist, chamber musician and teacher. She has played with the NZSO, APO, ACO, NZ Trio and other professional orchestras and ensembles. Elena has been a Concertmaster of Waitakere Orchestra for 10 years, and has led a number of other orchestras, such as Aorangi Symphony, Opus Orchestra, Chinese Orchestra of NZ, NZ Concerto Orchestra, and St-Petersburg University Orchestra, having performed with some of these groups as a soloist. Elena’s most recent special interest is in a fusion of a classical violin school with non-classical virtuosic violin music, such as Gypsy, Irish and American fiddling.
Symphony No. 1 Op.25 (“Classical”) Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) Allegro Larghetto Gavotta: Non troppo allegro Finale: Molto vivace ‘[Neoclassicism]: A movement of style in the works of certain 20th-century composers, who, particularly during the period between the two world wars, revived the balanced forms and clearly perceptible thematic processes of earlier styles to replace what were, to them, the increasingly exaggerated gestures and formlessness of late Romanticism.’
Prokofiev’s experiment with neoclassicism in his ‘Classical’ Symphony – a piece he composed in the years 1916-1917 – does not fit exactly this dictionary definition of neoclassicism, but dates from a time of international conflict and local cataclysm, making it unsurprising that Prokofiev consciously or subconsciously embedded his Symphony in a distant time and aesthetic. His role model was Haydn, a composer Mozart revered. Haydn’s music had great significance for Prokofiev, who wrote in his autobiography that, ‘I thought that if Haydn were alive today he would compose just as he did before, but at the same time would include something new in his manner of composition. I wanted to compose such a symphony: a symphony in the classical style.’ Prokofiev’s treatment of his Haydnesque ideal does something similar: the composer whose aggressively modernist (albeit classically structured) Scythian Suite caused a scandal in 1916, retained his own aesthetic, while synthesising the old and new. Prokofiev also experimented with a new way of working: he noticed that ‘thematic material composed without the piano was often better in quality … I was intrigued with the idea of writing an entire symphonic piece without the piano … so this was how the project of writing a symphony in the style of Haydn came about … it seemed easier to dive into the deep waters of writing without the piano if I worked in a familiar setting’. The premiere of the ‘Classical’ Symphony took place in April 1918, played by the former Court Orchestra in the newly-renamed city of Petrograd. The structure of the Symphony conforms to many conventions of ‘Viennese classicism’: an opening Allegro in first-movement sonata form, with a delicate second subject, followed by a lyrical Larghetto. The Larghetto’s high, delicate melody played by the first violins and prescient of Prokofiev’s later ballet music, is later joined by the flute. Meanwhile, pulsing quavers in the second violin and viola sections suggest the ghost of Haydn. A trace of Haydn’s wit manifests also in the semiquaver exchanges between violins and bassoon in the middle of the Larghetto. Prokofiev substituted a bucolic Gavotta, complete with musette-like drones, for Haydn’s more typical minuet and trio. The main melody of the Gavotta recurs in Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet. For the finale, Prokofiev returned to sonata form. Although the harmonic colours, technical demands, and melodic shapes are all Prokofiev’s, the dynamic drive and quirks comes from Haydn. Prokofiev sought to flood the movement with major harmonies, rendering a conventional development section difficult, but moving rapidly between diverse keys – D major, A-flat major, C major – to disorientate the listener. Prokofiev also used figurations reminiscent of the classical ‘Alberti bass’, particularly in the inner string parts, providing harmonic support and motoric drive. As an example of intellectual and emotional neoclassicism, Prokofiev’s first Symphony remains unsurpassed, an eighteenth-century spirit tempered by Russian fire.
Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op.33 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Moderato assai quasi Andante – Thema: Moderato semplice Variation 1: Tempo della Thema Variation 2: Tempo della Thema Variation 3: Andante sostenuto (C major) Variation 4: Andante grazioso Variation 5: Allegro moderato Variation 6: Andante Variation 7: Coda: Allegro vivo
Tchaikovsky dedicated his ‘Rococo’ variations to the German cellist, Wilhelm Fitzhagen (18481890), the cello professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Born in Lower Saxony, Fitzhagan radiated musical proficiency as a child and took up the cello aged 8; supported by the Duke of Braunschweig, he eventually studied in Dresden with the great cello pedagogue Friedrich Grützmacher. Fitzhagen became a soloist with the Dresden Hofkapelle from 1868, and although Liszt offered him a position with the Weimar Court Orchestra, Fitzhagen decided instead to accept the post of professor at the Moscow Conservatory. With his Conservatory colleagues, Fitzhagen would play the premieres of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio and String Quartets. He performed the premiere of the ‘Rococo’ Variations on 30 November 1877. However, Fitzhagen decided to alter Tchaikovsky’s piece to serve his virtuoso intuitions. He made a dramatic rearrangement of the movement order, even cutting Tchaikovsky’s eighth movement, and moving the original fourth movement to the end of the work. Although Fitzhagen, and his student Anatoly Brandukov, both championed the Variations, Brandukov noted that Fitzhagen’s reworking bothered Tchaikovsky. Seeing him agitated, Brandukov asked ‘“What’s the matter with you?” Pyotr Ilyich, pointing to my writing table, said “That idiot Fitzhagen … Look what he’s done to my piece – he’s altered everything!” When I asked what action he was going to take, Pyotr Ilyich replied: “The devil take it! Let it stand as it is.”’
For his ‘Rococo’ theme, Tchaikovsky did not borrow an existing eighteenth-century tune, but created his own. Among the main features of the piece flourish the ingenious ways in which Tchaikovsky integrated the theme and solo instrument into the orchestral texture, especially the many dialogues with individual orchestral instruments. We hear this in Variation 3, between the solo cello and first clarinet, and in Variation 4 with the solo cello, flute, and strings. In Variation 5, the cello and entire woodwind section engage in thrilling ascending figures. Tchaikovsky approached his Variations not just as a form of cello concerto, but also as an exercise in creating an array of sound and colour effects that simultaneously foreground the virtuosity of the cellist, and highlight the artistry of individual orchestral musicians.
Dances from “Mozartiana” (Suite No. 4, Op. 61) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Minuet Gigue In his preface to the score of Mozartiana, Tchaikovsky wrote that ‘A large number of the most beautiful of Mozart’s smaller works are, for some reason, little known, not only to the public, but to musicians. The composer’s object in arranging this suite, was to bring more frequently before the public works which, however, modest in form, are gems of musical literature.’ This preface tells only half the story: in his diaries and letters, Tchaikovsky often wrote about his profound devotion to Mozart’s music, believing that Don Giovanni was the piece that really taught him what music can do. In October 1886 Tchaikovsky noted in his diary, ‘It is my profound conviction that Mozart is the highest, the culminating point which beauty has reached in the sphere of music.’ He worked on Mozartiana in June and July of 1887, while on holiday with his brother Anatoly at the Georgian spa town of Bozhom (now Brjomi). Each of the four movements of Mozartiana is an orchestration of a piece by Mozart, although the third movement, Preghiera, orchestrates a transcription by Liszt of the motet Ave verum corpus, and the Thème et variations finale derives from Mozart’s own piano variations on a theme from Gluck’s 1763 opera La Recontre imprévue. Today we hear only the first and second movements. Tchaikovsky used Mozart’s Gigue in G (K. 574, dated 16 May, 1789), a piece he wrote on a trip to Leipzig. The Minuet is the elaborate K. 355, dating from 1789/90. Tchaikovsky’s Mozartiana orchestrations are careful and faithful, but exemplify his characteristic command of brilliant instrumental colours. Tchaikovsky brings us into a curious musical world, where the orchestral style is akin to the one familiar from his symphonies and ballet scores, but the melodic and harmonic content come of another era. Although neoclassicism is an approach associated with the early twentieth century, Tchaikovsky’s Mozartiana, shows how he saw the potential in uniting the old and new, to create a sensitive and imaginative illumination of the composer he loved
Symphony No. 41 in C major, K551 (“Jupiter”) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) 1. 2. 3. 4.
Allegro vivace Andante cantabile Menuetto and Trio Molto allegro
Mozart completed his Symphony in C major on 10 August 1788, following closely his E-flat major (K. 543) and G minor (K. 550) Symphonies, finished in June and July. These three works
mark the apotheosis of Mozart’s symphonic writing: daring pieces that unite the Emfindsamer Stil (‘Style of sensibility’) of the mid-eighteenth century with vivid manifestations of the Sturm und Drang (‘Storm and Stress’) aesthetic that propelled symphonic music into the Romantic era. The nickname ‘Jupiter’ is not Mozart’s, but the early nineteenth-century appellation fits a Symphony afire with celestial brilliance. Mozart scored his 41st Symphony opulently, including flute, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets, timpani, and strings, but more significant is the sumptuous composition style, and especially his daring use of ‘archaic’ techniques, including fugue. However, the Symphony is full of other revelations. Lyricism dominates the Andante cantabile, in which long sinuous melodic lines cross between strings and woodwinds; its F major tonality suggests translucence, but Mozart constantly introduces sources of tension, especially in the metrical pull between triplet figurations overlaid with syncopations, and by opening the second half of the movement in D minor. The contrasting grandiose gestures and wryly humorous figurations in the Minuetto show Mozart using the minuet and trio as infrastructure for great musical eloquence. Mozart fills the fourth movement with small melodic fragments or formulae, manipulated and inverted, expanded and diminished, in a variety of ways. The drama and concentration of this finale results from its intricately-wrought motivic integration. Musicologist Ian Woodfield has argued that the inspiration for Mozart’s apparent departure in the 41st Symphony from his own symphonic methods resulted from his exposure to Handel’s oratorios through Gottfried van Swieten. Baron van Swieten commissioned Mozart to make arrangements of Handel’s works (notably Acis and Galatea, and Messiah) in the late 1780s (after the Handel centenary of 1785), so Mozart became deeply involved in studying and playing Handel. Woodfield posits that the five themes of the finale of the C major Symphony come from the aria ‘Father of heav’n’, in Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus. Bestowing the title ‘Jupiter’ on the Symphony, in the nineteenth century, simply replaced the Old Testament ‘Father of heav’n’ of Judas Maccabaeus with Jove, the omnipotent heavenly father of Roman mythology. Programme note © Corrina Connor 2016.
GOVERNING TRUST: PATRON
James Judd
Opus Orchestra Life Members Doug Arcus
Bob Hudson
Sharon Stephens
Robert Blair
Kathryn Orbell
Bill Taylor
Andrew Buchanan-Smart
Rita Paczian
Marion Townend
Brigid Eady
Christine Polglase
Michele Wahrlich
Peter Walls
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
Opus Orchestra Conductor
Peter Walls
C-master
Elena Abramova * + P. Walls, H. Fairburn
Violin 1
Trudi Miles + A & N Hooper Melody Gumbley Sharon Stephens + A & N Hooper Rachel Twyman Patricia Nagle Emily Allen Grace Kim
Violin 2
Kerry Langdon *+ H Fairburn Lucy Gardiner Luana Leupolu Beverley Oliver Shelby Maples Rebecka Beetz Brigid Eady + A & N Hooper Michele Wahrlich + M & M Carr Violas
Greg McGarity* Chris Nation Jill Wilson Annette Milson Michael Slatter Susan Case
Cellos
Martin Griffiths * Roz Oliver Yotam Levy Judith Williams Anna-Marie Alloway Jack Hobbs
Db Bass
Marija Dimitrijevic*
Robbie Brown
Flutes
Adrianna Lis* Anita Macdonald
Oboes
Joy Liu* Felicity Hanlon
Clarinets
Ashley Hopkins* Justus Rozemond
Bassoons
Ben Hoadley* Jacqui Hopkins
Horns
John Ure* Jill Ferrabee
Trumpets
Bill Stoneham* Hiro Kobayashi
Timpani
Yoshiko Tsuruta*
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