RCM Symphony Orchestra Friday 13 March 2015, 7.30pm | Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall
RCM Symphony Orchestra Friday 13 March 2015, 7.30pm | Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall
RCM Symphony Orchestra Vladimir Ashkenazy conductor | Alexander Ullman piano Berlioz
Le carnaval romain (8')
Chopin
Piano Concerto no 2 (32’) Interval
Debussy
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (10’)
Debussy
La mer (23’)
An introduction to this evening’s Concert This evening’s programme of predominantly French music is coloured by influences beyond the borders of France in a number of ways. Berlioz’s exuberant overture, Le carnaval romain, draws heavily on his opera on the life of the sixteenth-century Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and musician, Benvenuto Cellini, and mixes episodes from the larger work, including the love theme, ending with a frenetic dance. Chopin’s Piano Concerto no 2, written in 1830 for the composer himself to perform, preceded his permanent move to Paris the following year to the land of his father, Nicolas Chopin, who had emigrated from France at the age of 16. Its classical orchestral style is belied by the imaginative and expressive piano writing, a showcase for the young composer-performer. Two works by Debussy complete the programme. The Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, perhaps one of the most famous orchestral miniatures in the repertoire, evokes in languorous and luxuriant tones the awakening of the faun – a half-man, half-goat creature – to the sensuous memories of the nymphs of the forest. La mer is Debussy’s descriptive symphony of the sea in three contrasting movements. Debussy’s ocean is a turbulent entity, with all the activity on the surface continually driven by deep and powerful forces beneath. It may be a surprise to know that he completed his work on La mer while looking out over the grey English Channel from a hotel in Eastbourne. Stephen Johns RCM Artistic Director
Le carnaval romain
Hector Berlioz (1803–1869)
This piece, composed in 1844, rapidly became a concert favourite in the composer’s lifetime. It stemmed from his opera Benvenuto Cellini written between 1834 and 1837 and in his own catalogue of works it is indicated as a second Overture to that opera, to be played before the Second Act. However, Berlioz himself used it as a concert piece as is clear from an amusing episode in his memoirs concerning a somewhat fraught rehearsal of the opera which was conducted by the violinist François Habeneck: He never managed to get the lively allure of the saltarello danced and sung in the place Colonne in the middle of the second act. The dancers couldn’t get used to his dragging tempo and came to me and complained: “Faster, faster, more lively”, I shouted. Habeneck, clearly irritated, tapped the music-stand with his bow, and it broke. [ … ] “Since we cannot satisfy M Berlioz”, he said. “that will do for today, you’re free to go” And that was the end of the rehearsal. Some years later, after I’d completed the Overture Le Carnaval romain, whose Allegro uses the same saltarello theme which he could never make work, Habeneck appeared in the foyer of the Salle Herz on the day my overture was to be premiered. He’d found out that on the morning of the rehearsal I had to do without the wind players because they had been summoned to play by the National Guard. “Ah good”, he gloated, “the concert will be a catastrophe, I can’t miss that!”. As they came into the pit, all the wind players surrounded me, terrified at playing a new piece which they hadn’t rehearsed. “Don’t worry”, I told them, “the parts are very clear, you’re talented players! Just watch my baton, count the pauses, and it will all be fine”. There wasn’t a single mistake! I set off the overture with the whirlwind movement of the transteverine dancers and the public demanded an encore. So we played the overture a second time, and they played it even better. As I went back to the foyer, I saw Habeneck looking a little disappointed, and I casually uttered just four words: “That’s how it goes”, to which he uttered no reply! As always we need to take Berlioz’s memoirs with more than a few pinches of salt, but it is a nice anecdote which clearly shows the composer’s view of how the piece should sweep us off our feet.
Piano Concerto no 2 Maestoso Larghetto Allegro vivace
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)
This was actually Chopin’s first concerto, written when he was only 19, but published later, after what is now known as the first. Both are early works, composed with the aim of showing off his prowess as a budding pianist. He has already written – and toured – some miscellaneous one-movement pieces for piano and orchestra; now he needed a real concerto. The context of its composition as a showpiece is worth bearing in mind for what is striking about the first movement is its shameless foregrounding of the piano. When the pianist gets going, the orchestra retires, only playing when the piano doesn’t. Some have been critical of this ‘competition’ element: who will win, the orchestra or the piano? Several others have tried to re-orchestrate it. But surely it’s best left alone. It’s a piece with a purpose and what the piano does has a youthful energy. Reading too much of the personal life of a composer into their music is always a dangerous occupation, but in the case of the slow movement of this concerto Chopin wore his heart on his sleeve, confessing that it was a romantic dream of his obsession with the young singer Constantia Gladkowska, although he confessed that ‘Six months has elapsed, and I haven’t yet exchanged a syllable with her of whom I dream every night’. The movement is very much in the style of a Nocturne, with dreamy outer sections framing a more passionate section: a format he was later to rework many times, not only in his piano Nocturnes. In fact, he often played this movement as a piano solo. Polish dance rhythms were never far from the surface in much of Chopin’s music, in the final movement he employs a Mazurka. The piece is appropriately marked to be played ‘simply and gracefully’: it has that charm so often found in the music of young composers.
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
In 1895, Debussy announced a mysterious collaboration with the Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé: he was to write a Prélude, interludes and paraphrase finale for Mallarmé’s early poem L’après-midi d’un faune (The afternoon of a faun). The project, announced on the cover of a luxurious edition of the composer’s setting of Dante Gabriel Rosseti’s The Blessed Damozel, never came to fruition in this tantalising form, which sounds as if musical ‘interludes’ were to be interspersed with a reading of the poem, which itself is in the form of an ‘acte en vers’ – a short rhymed scene. It ended up in the form of the celebrated Prelude, but evidence suggested that the description of a ‘final paraphrase’ may be closer to the mark. For the genesis of the piece, and indeed of Debussy’s attraction to contemporary poetry, we can usefully go back to his formative years, and especially to an important relationship in the young composer’s life when he was employed as a class pianist by a talented singing teacher some ten years his senior: one Marie-Blanche Vasnier. A cultivated woman with a deep interest in poetry, Mme Vasnier awakened an interest in songwriting resulting in a series of youthful settings particularly of the poets Théodore de Banville, Paul Verlaine and Mallarmé himself. Her voice had a particularly high tessitura and she had an impressive agility in her high register. Debussy copied the songs he wrote for her into a bound manuscript book, and prefaced the songs with intimate dedications. Mme Vasnier had become the composer’s lover and while studying in Rome wrote to her at a poste-restante address safe from the eyes of her husband. This aside, the affair was a vital catalyst to the young composer’s response to literature. From the early songs he progressed to a cantata setting a scene from a Comédie Héroïque by Banville, Diane au bois (Diana in the woods). The only major work of the composer still remaining unpublished, the cantata is a duet between Eros and Diana, the goddess both of hunting and of chastity. A close look at this fascinating piece reveals it as the genesis both for Mallarmé’s faun and of Debussy’s setting of it. Mallarmé had greatly admired Banville, and in a wave of enthusiasm for the ‘versed scene’ had modelled his faun on Banville’s versed plays. But it not only shared the form of Banville’s piece, but also the subject matter: that of the faun who fashions a flute from a reed-bed, and by playing it to the nymph Diana, renders her powerless to resist his advances. In both poems, the landscape and the hazy half-light in which it is bathed, is evoked as the background to the faun’s musical and amorous activities. In Banville’s poem, Eros’s flute playing is
echoed by the sound of muted horns, for which Debussy writes a lazy oscillating motive. In musical terms, he carries this idea forward into his Prélude, where the opening clearly has echoing, distant horns after the initial flute solo, now enhanced with a harp arpeggio. The faun – half man, half goat – represents the conflict between unbridled erotic desire and a quest for perfection and purity. Through the various refinements to the poem, Mallarmé gradually deepened the musical references in his poem. In the final version, there is an emphasis on the fashioning of the flute, and on its tuning and the quest for making the perfect sound: maybe the reason why Debussy chose to challenge his player with the open C sharp sounded several times on a long held note – as if the player is tuning up. Unsuccessful in his desire to conquer two nymphs already in each other’s arms, the Pan-like faun plays perpetual variations on his theme in his attempt to ‘anoint the nymphs not with tears, but with less sad liquids’, and the poem refers to a ‘long, slow Prelude’. A climactic, fully-scored, soaring melody is difficult to pin directly on to any section of the poem, but a final, partial statement of the faun’s theme, seems to represent his ultimate failure either to seduce the nymphs, or to recognise whether the episode was a dream or a reality. However vaguely the piece paralleled Mallarmé’s poem, the poet was eulogistic in his praise of the piece whose 110 bars exactly match the number of lines in the poem.
La mer Claude Debussy De l'aube à midi sur la mer (From dawn to midday on the sea) Jeux de vagues (Play of the waves) Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue between the wind and the sea) When Debussy called La mer a set of 'symphonic sketches' rather than a real symphony or a symphonic poem he seems to have been inviting us to draw parallels with painting. If so, he was successful: debates have raged ever since about whether or not he was an Impresssionist, and the seascapes of Monet, above all, have long been used to adorn recordings of the piece. He probably wouldn't have minded: on one occasion when a critic dubbed him 'a pupil of Monet', he wrote back to say how honoured he was. On the other hand, his taste for imaginative sea-pictures went further afield. He chose a Japanese print of a wave by Hokusai for the cover of the first edition of his score, its stylised decorative patterning in blue and white reproducing well. Elsewhere he expressed his imagination for the English painter Turner, whose 'creation of mystery' he saw as supreme. He allowed an early biographer to draw extended comparisons with Impressionism. His love for what called 'our good mother the sea' (punning in French between the words 'la mère' and 'la mer') was deep-rooted: he once confessed to being 'destined for the fine career of a sailor'. On one occasion, working on the score in Burgundy, far from the coast, he defended himself from the accusation the piece would be too much like a studio painting: 'I have countless memories,' he wrote, 'and to my mind they are worth more than reality, whose spell often weighs too much on one's thoughts'. From Jersey, however, he seems to relished the direct contact with nature: writing to his publisher he confessed that 'the sea had been good to him, showing him all her "pretty dresses"'. When he corrected the proofs at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne he preferred the sea to the English ladies beneath whom he thought had complexions resembling ham. Other remarks throw a little more light on the nature of these so-called 'sketches'. Reflecting on the similarities between composers and painters, he once advised a pupil to 'gather impressions without hurrying to note them down' adding that he believed music to be superior to painting in that it can 'bring together all manner of variations of colour and light'. On the one hand he shared with the impressionists a desire to preserve the freshness of the sketch, and on the other he put his finger on the very point that had worried the Impressionists — that music could represent changing light and moods whereas their static art could not. In De l'aube à midi sur la mer Debussy uses virtual time, creating at the outset the open space of the sea. Changing lights, moods and apparitions follow in
succession; sometimes superimposed; sometimes – as in the entry of the chorus of 16 cellos – strikingly dramatic. Jeux de vagues leads the listener more explicitly into Debussy's half-representational world. The colours of the orchestra vividly recreate the breaking of the waves. In Dialogue du vent et de la mer music again challenges painting for supremacy: here there is above all that sense of movement at which visual art could only hint, a developing dialogue between threatening undercurrents and the wind motifs. Debussy was right: music could surpass painting, not only in its moods and lighting effects, but also in its capacity to immerse us in its inexorable tidal flow. Š Richard Langham Smith
Vladimir Ashkenazy One of the few artists to combine a successful career as a pianist and conductor, Russian-born Vladimir Ashkenazy inherited his musical gift from both sides of his family; his father David Ashkenazy was a professional light music pianist and his mother Evstolia (née Plotnova) was daughter of a chorus master in the Russian Orthodox church. Ashkenazy first came to prominence on the world stage in the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw and as first prize -winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1956. Since then he has built an extraordinary career, not only as one of the most outstanding pianists of the 20th century, but as an artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities and continues to offer inspiration to music-lovers across the world. Conducting has formed the larger part of Ashkenazy’s activities for the past 30 years. He continues his longstanding relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra, who appointed him Conductor Laureate in 2000. In addition to his performances with the orchestra in London and around the UK each season, and in countless tours with them worldwide, he has also developed landmark projects such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich Under Stalin (a project which he also took to Cologne, New York, Vienna and Moscow) and Rachmaninoff Revisited (which was also presented in Paris). Last season, Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia undertook a European tour with soloists Evgeny Kissin and Vadim Repin. In September 2014, he leads the orchestra in a groundbreaking tour of Latin America with soloists Nelson Freire and Esther Yoo, including concerts in Mexico City, Lima, Bogotá, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Ashkenazy is also Music Director of the European Union Youth Orchestra, with whom he tours each year, and Conductor Laureate of both the Iceland and NHK Symphony orchestras. He has previously held posts as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2009-13), and Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director of NHK Symphony Orchestra. He maintains strong links with other major orchestras including The Cleveland Orchestra (where he was formerly Principal Guest Conductor) and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Chief Conductor and Music Director 1988-96). He regularly makes guest appearances with many other major orchestras around the world. Ashkenazy maintains his devotion to the piano, these days mostly in the recording studio where he continues to build his extraordinarily comprehensive recording catalogue. This includes the Grammy award-winning Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto no 3 (a work which he commissioned), Bach's Wohltemperierte Klavier, Rachmaninov Transcriptions
and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Spring 2013 saw the release of ‘Ashkenazy: 50 Years on Decca’ - a 50-CD box-set celebrating his long-standing relationship with the label. In 2014, Decca released a milestone collection of Ashkenazy’s vast catalogue of Rachmaninov’s piano music, which also includes all of his recordings as a conductor of the composer’s orchestral music. Beyond his performing schedule, Vladimir Ashkenazy has also been involved in many TV projects, inspired by his passionate drive to ensure that serious music retains a platform in the mainstream media and is available to as broad an audience as possible. He has collaborated extensively with legendary documentary-maker Christopher Nupen, and has been involved in programmes such as Music After Mao (filmed in Shanghai in 1979), and Ashkenazy in Moscow, which followed his first return to Russia since leaving the USSR in the 1960s. More recently he has developed educational programmes with NHK TV including the 1999 Superteachers, working with inner-city London school children, and in 2003-4 a documentary based around his project Prokofiev and Shostakovich Under Stalin. Alexander Ullman Alexander Ullman studied at the Purcell School of Music, the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, and the Fiesole Scuola do Musica, Florence. He is currently completing his Masters in performance at the Royal College of Music with Dmitri Alexeev. In 2014, he was selected for representation by the Young Classical Artists Trust. During his studies Alexander has won awards at international competitions including first prizes at the Lagny-sur-Marne International Competition (2013) and the Tunbridge Wells International Young Concert Artists Competition (2012). Recent engagements include a tour of China and recitals at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Archive Nationales (Paris), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Copenhagen) and La Jolla Arts Festival (California). As a soloist Alexander has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New Jersey and Fort Worth Symphony orchestras, Montréal Symphony Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia and the Budapest Radio Orchestra. He has been broadcast by BBC Radio 3, Radio France and MDR Classic. During the 2014/15 season, Alexander returns to China, Italy and the USA to give a series of recitals. He has been invited to take part in the Montreal Chamber Music Festival and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany, and gives recitals at the Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall and the Bath International Festival. As a soloist he performs Liszt’s Concerto no 1 with the Cardiff Philharmonic at St David’s Hall.
Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra The Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra plays with conductors and musicians of the highest international stature, and is frequently invited to perform in prestigious venues across London and beyond. The orchestra also performs regularly at its home in South Kensington, and its concerts are broadcast live to an international audience via the RCM website. Equally at home in classical, romantic and contemporary repertoire, the RCM Symphony Orchestra enjoys close relationships with some of the world’s most celebrated conductors, including Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Jurowski, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Sir Roger Norrington. Their willingness to return is evidence of the consistently high standards of playing that the RCM orchestral musicians achieve. The members of the RCM Symphony Orchestra are some of the world’s very best young instrumentalists. They have chosen to study at the RCM because of its unrivalled blend of superlative teaching, extensive performance opportunities, and close connections with the orchestral profession. In addition to the many professors who are active professional instrumentalists, the RCM participates in side-by-side and other experience schemes with, amongst others, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of English National Opera and the Philharmonia. This enables students to experience professional conditions and achieve professional standards before they graduate. The RCM’s long tradition of high-quality orchestral training has launched the careers of many distinguished orchestral players over several decades. Founded in 1882, the RCM moved to its present site on Prince Consort Road in 1894. Illustrious alumni include Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Dame Joan Sutherland, Sir Thomas Allen, Sir Colin Davis, John Wilson, Alina Ibragimova and Alfie Boe. In addition to its 750 full time students, the College engages dynamically with a wider and more diverse community of children and adults through a dedicated range of creative activities delivered by RCM Sparks’ education and participation projects, RCM Junior Department programme and the Woodhouse Professional Development Centre. A further development is the growing schedule of live-streamed concerts and masterclasses which can be viewed on www.rcm.ac.uk. The RCM would like to thank the following orchestral coaches: Gaby Lester violins Robert Turner violas Amanda Truelove cellos Stephen Bell tutti and tutti strings Simon Channing woodwind Patrick Harrild brass and tutti woodwind, brass, percussion & harp David Hockings percussion
Violin I Molly Cockburn* Emma Purslow Aischa Guendisch* Eleonora Consta Emma Oldfield Jessica Coleman Francesco Ionascu Julia Liang Ramina Mukusheva Yingqun Cui Ana Nedobora Ivanova Claudia-Sophie Giannotti Calyssa Davidson Miriam Bergset Bethan Allmand Violin II Rebecca Else* Fiona Robertson Ingrid Clement Laura Balboa Garcia* Suein Kang Francina Moll Salord Olivia Francis* Jean-Baptiste Sarrou Felix Backstrom* Paul Milhau Mikael Stoor Laure Massoni Mun Jeong Kim* Viola Natasha Michael Morag Robertson Anastasia Sofina* Elaine Chen Marijke Welch Philippa Bint Cassandra Hutchings* Marsailidh Groat Hardy Lorene Carron James Douglas Naomi Giarraputo
Cello Kristiana Ignatjeva* Deni Teo Jobine Siekman Angela Lobato Clara Berger Yaroslava Trofymchuk* Joseph Davies* Cecilia Chan Matthew Strover Jonathan Dodd Karoline Brevik Bass Alexandre Klein Valentina Ciardelli Lewis Tingey Thea Butterworth* Salvatore La Rosa Christopher Xuereb Anne-Gabriele Douce Mark Lipski Flute Taylor MacLennan* Dakota Martin (pic) Aleksandra Henszel (pic)* Oboe Emma Gibbons* Philip White (cor)* Katie Potts (cor)* Clarinet Alexander Cattell* Benjamin Mellefont* Bassoon Izabela Musial* Emily Newman* Antonia Lazenby Rachel Hurst (cbn)
Horn Florence Rousseau* Elizabeth Tocknell* Christopher McKay* Kaitlyn Lipka Jacob Bagby Trumpet Adam Stockbridge Emily Harding* Elliot Phelps Erika Curbelo (crt)* Kirsty Loosemore (crt) Trombone Jillian Groom Dominic Hales* James Alexander* Tuba Oliver Brooks* Timpani Alun McNeil-Watson* Percussion Fabian Edwards Richard Cartlidge* Kimberley-Anne Foster Cameron Lee Harp Anna Quiroga-Serra* Josephine Salvi* Personnel correct at the time of going to print. Italics denote section principals. * Scholars/Award Holders generously supported by the RCM
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Bach Festival Week – Monday 16 March-Friday 20 March 2015 Bach St John Passion Monday 16 March 2015, 7.30pm | Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall Vittorio Ghielmi director | RCM Baroque Orchestra Salzburg Mozarteum | Collegium Vocale Salzburg Tickets: £10, £15 Bach Solo works Tuesday 17 March, 1.05pm | Inner Parry Room ‘Thinking Outside the Bachs’ – Talk with Richard Tunnicliffe Wednesday 18 March, 1.05pm | Museum Bach Trio Sonatas Thursday 19 March, 1.05pm | Recital Hall Bach’s Violin Partitas & Dances – Talk with Adrian Butterfield & Mary Collins Friday 20 March, 1.05pm | Museum Free but tickets required Bach Cantatas Friday 20 March, 7.30pm | Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall Ashley Solomon director | RCM Baroque Ensemble | RCM Chamber Choir Cantata ‘Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir’ BWV 131 Brandenburg Concerto no 4 in G major BWV 1049 Brandenburg Concerto no 3 in G major BWV 1048 Cantata ‘Jesu, der du meine Seele’ BWV 78 Tickets: £8, £10 RCM Box Office Tel: 020 7591 4314 www.rcm.ac.uk/events In the interests of safety, sitting or standing on the steps, gangways or floors in any part of the auditorium is strictly prohibited Please turn off your mobile phone to avoid any disturbance to the performance All private sound and video recordings are prohibited Photography before and during performances is not permitted You may take photographs only during applause Latecomers will not be allowed into the auditorium until there is a suitable break in the performance Smoking is not permitted in any part of the building Your co-operation is appreciated