François Leleux – Season 2122 – Programme Note by Scottish Chamber Orchestra

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Thursday 3 March, 7.30pm The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh Friday 4 March, 7.30pm City Halls, Glasgow Bizet L'Arlésienne, Suite No 1 Petitgirard Oboe Concerto 'SOUEN WOU K'ONG' (World Premiere – Swedish Chamber Orchestra commission) Interval of 20 minutes

Beethoven Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op 36 François Leleux Conductor / Oboe François Leleux

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W H AT YO U ARE ABOUT TO HEAR Bizet (1838–1875) L'Arlésienne, Suite No 1 (1872) Prélude, Allegro deciso Minuet, Allegro giocoso Adagietto Carillon, Allegro moderato

Petitgirard (b 1950) Oboe Concerto 'SOUEN WOU K'ONG' (World Premiere – Swedish Chamber Orchestra commission) (2022)

Beethoven (1770-1827) Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op 36 (1801–1802) Adagio molto – Allegro con brio Larghetto Scherzo: Allegro Allegro molto

––––– There’s a strong sense of storytelling to the three contrasting pieces in tonight’s concert. For Georges Bizet, it was a case of quite literal scene-setting and character description in the incidental music he wrote for Alphonse Daudet’s 1872 play L’Arlésienne. The project was something of a rush job, put together at short notice to replace a production that had fallen foul of Parisian censors. It even attempted an unusually egalitarian mingling of music and drama, hence the extensive 27 musical numbers that Bizet put together for the show. Following its unveiling at Paris’s Théâtre du Vaudeville on 1 October 1872, however, audiences found its melding of the two art forms somewhat unconvincing, and it only survived for 21 performances. One reason cited was the distracting prominence of Bizet’s music in what was supposed to be a theatrical show. It’s all the more ironic, then, that Bizet’s musical numbers flourished so successfully in concert. He extracted four sections for what became the Suite No 1 quickly after the show’s opening (Suite No 2 was put together by fellow composer Ernest Guiraud in 1879, four years after Bizet’s death), and the First Suite got its own premiere in Paris on 10 November that same year. In a plotline drawn from Daudet’s folk-inspired short story collection Lettres de mon moulin, L’Arlésienne of the play’s title is a beautiful girl from Arles in Provence, and the object of obsessive love from protagonist Frédéri. He’s shocked to discover

One reason cited was the distracting prominence of Bizet’s music in what was supposed to be a theatrical show. It’s all the more ironic, then, that Bizet’s musical numbers flourished so successfully in concert. Georges Bizet

that she’s become the mistress of the reprobate Mitifio and, when he’s encouraged to marry another, cannot bear the burden of his unrequited desire and takes his own life. Bizet’s ‘Prélude’ serves immediately to indicate the play’s Provençal setting with its many semi-variations on the earworm of the regional folk tune ‘March of the Kings’, which begins as a strutting unison across the whole orchestra before leaping around the ensemble in several different moods and characters. The long, slow melody that later emerges on the saxophone (making its first orchestral appearance following its 1844 invention by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax) represents the innocence of Frédéri’s naive brother, and we get to experience Frédéri’s own smouldering passions in the surging emotions of the movement’s closing section.

Bizet’s second movement ‘Minuet’ feels more like a brittle waltz than a stately court dance, and originally connected the play’s second and third acts. There’s a hushed, veiled quality to the brief ‘Adagietto’, with a soaring violin melody, and his closing ‘Carillon’ (an expanded version of the entr’acte that came before Act III of the play) derives all its energy from the urgent pealing of church bells, evoked by the orchestral horns. We leap to the other side of the world, and back in time five centuries, for one of the world’s earliest novels in tonight’s second piece of musical storytelling. Born in Paris in 1950, Laurent Petitgirard has been prolific as a conductor and a composer, writing across a wide range of concert works as well as a bulging portfolio of movie soundtracks. His first opera, Joseph Merrick: The Elephant Man,

His brand new oboe concerto, written for tonight’s conductor and soloist François Leleux, takes its inspiration from the remarkable 16thcentury Chinese novel Journey to the West, which recounts the travels of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang and his three companions Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy Laurent Petitgirard

was an enormous success at its Prague premiere in 2002, and he’s been awarded many accolades and prizes in his native France and beyond, as, for example, an Officier de la Légion

Laurent Petitgirard writes:

d’Honneur and a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.

a disciple of Buddha, once arrived late for celestial meditation and was duly punished. He has now been reincarnated as a simple monk named Xuanzang.

His brand new oboe concerto, written for tonight’s conductor and soloist François Leleux, takes its inspiration from the remarkable 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, which recounts the travels of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang and his three companions Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy from China to Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent in search of sacred Buddhist scriptures. Audience members of a certain age may even distantly recall the novel’s cult reimagining in Japanese TV series Monkey, which entertained many young viewers in its BBC broadcasts in the late 1970s.

"In the SI YEOU KI (The Journey to the West) book written by Wou Tch’eng Ngen in the 16th century, Fou Kin Chen,

The goddess Guanyin (Kouan Yin) urges him to cross China to reach India and seek out the Scriptures of Truth in the Land of Buddha. This will be a journey of redemption, for the monk and for the three disciples travelling with him. The first of his three companions on the perilous journey of initiation is the Monkey King, Souen Wou K’ong (the monkey Awakened to Emptiness), the most unruly of the three disciples. While he has the power to cover the distance of 108,000 li in one bound, going directly

Painted mural depicting Sun Wukong (in yellow) and other main characters of the novel

to the Land of the Celestial Bamboo, he must learn the virtue of patience. He is also able to recognise monsters. In the first part of the book, Souen Wou K’ong had rebelled against the gods. A ring of gold, controlled by Xuanzang, symbolises and endows intelligence on the wearer. By the end of the journey, which involves many trials and tribulations and monsters to be vanquished, they manage, with the help of the goddess Guanyin, to obtain the Scriptures, but they are blank, for the Truth has been acquired in the course of their journey. They return with scriptures, having been given others of lesser import, so that those expecting scriptures to be brought back are not disappointed.

for a very large orchestra the oboe was essential with many solos, he suggested that I make an oboe concerto out of it. It was an amazing experience to work on the composition but in a much smaller orchestration and in a concerto perspective. To hear a world premiere with François Leleux and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is a dream." If you’re hoping for a literal story behind tonight’s final piece, Beethoven’s Second Symphony, you might be disappointed. But it nonetheless tells a tale, one of determination, resilience and optimism.

As I explained to the wonderful artist

Beethoven wrote the Symphony in 1802, while staying in the Viennese village (now suburb) of Heiligenstadt, where he’d been sent by his doctor in

François Leleux that in this score written

the hope of relieving his alarmingly

It could have been that Beethoven was consciously attempting to distract himself by writing thoroughly jolly music. More likely, perhaps, is that the Second Symphony may be the embodiment of Beethoven’s renewed sense of determined optimism, of belief in his pioneering perspectives on music – something that can surely be sensed not only in its eagerness and energy, but also in its rather gritted-teeth determination, its urgency and its restless power.

increasing deafness, away from the noise and bustle of the capital. Beethoven’s stay, however, had the opposite effect. He noticed no improvement in his condition, and,

into which it had thrown his hopes and ambitions, even admitting that he’d contemplated suicide. But, he explained, he’d resolved to put what he felt to be his artistic destiny before the difficulties of

isolated from distractions, had far more time to reflect on it, and what it might mean for the career as a performer and composer he’d envisioned for himself.

his personal circumstances, and vowed to overcome whatever obstacles fate decided to throw in his path.

At the start of his stay, he wrote to childhood friend Franz Wegeler: "That jealous demon, my wretched health, has put a nasty spoke in my wheel; and it amounts to this, that for the past three years my hearing has become weaker and weaker." By the end of his time away, however, and nearing the Second Symphony’s completion, he’d written a letter to his two brothers, Carl and Johann, one that he’d never send. In what’s become known as Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, he set out his

Considering the personal turmoil in which he composed it, many commentators have expressed surprise at just how sunny, carefree and upbeat the Second Symphony is (Berlioz wrote that "this Symphony is smiling throughout"). That astonishment is entirely legitimate, of course, but it rests on the assumption that a creator’s personal circumstances will necessarily permeate and influence the work they’re producing. It could have been that Beethoven was consciously attempting to distract himself by writing thoroughly

predicament, and explained the turmoil

jolly music. More likely, perhaps, is

wounded dragon that refuses to die, but writhing in its last agonies and, in the fourth movement, bleeding to death".

that the Second Symphony may be the embodiment of Beethoven’s renewed sense of determined optimism, of belief in his pioneering perspectives on music – something that can surely be sensed not

Though we think of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, 'Eroica', as his great breakthrough work, he sows the seeds that will later blossom there in the Second. The slow introduction to the Second’s first movement, for example, is weighty enough almost to feel like a movement in its own right, and leads to a faster section full of extreme dynamic contrasts, abrupt shifts between major and minor, and plenty of timpani strokes to add to its resounding climaxes. After his gently flowing second movement, the Second Symphony marks Beethoven’s first use of a playful scherzo as his third movement, instead of the then customary elegant refinement of a minuet. And Beethoven’s inaugural symphonic scherzo finds him in particularly mischievous mood, with unexpected accents, stomping rhythms,

only in its eagerness and energy, but also in its rather gritted-teeth determination, its urgency and its restless power.

and sudden swerves into unexpectedly different material, though never without a knowing smile on its face.

The Symphony got its premiere on 3 April 1803 in a lengthy concert at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, in the same performance as the unveiling of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, as well as a repeat performance of his First Symphony. The First went down far better than the Second, inevitably, mainly because its simpler style would have been far more familiar to its Viennese audience. Indeed, one critic in the Zeitung für die elegante Welt went as far as describing the Second

It’s in his hurtling, breakneck finale, however, that Beethoven really showcases his brilliant, forward-thinking creativity, with a main theme that’s barely more than a high-pitched flick and a low-down grumble, and an extended coda where he lets his innovative, comic juices flow. If there’s a story behind the Symphony, it’s one of perseverance and stoicism in the face of apparently insurmountable difficulties – something we can all learn from, surely, amid our continuing pandemic uncertainties.

Symphony as "a hideously writhing,

Ludwig van Beethoven

Conductor / Oboe FRANÇOIS LELEUX

––––– François Leleux – conductor and oboist – is renowned for his irrepressible energy and exuberance. He is currently Artistic Partner of Camerata Salzburg. Leleux was previously Artist-in-Association with Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and has featured as Artist-in-Residence with orchestras such as hr-Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Berner Symphonieorchester, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife. In the 2021/22 season, Leleux returns as conductor to Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, BBC Scottish Symphony, Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Chamber Orchestra Europe, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Nederlands Chamber Orkest and Orchestre de Chambre de Paris. He has previously conducted orchestras such as Oslo Philharmonic, HR and WDR Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre National de Lille, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and the Sydney, Gulbenkian, Swedish Radio and Tonkünstler orchestras. As an oboist Leleux has performed as soloist with orchestras such as New York Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, and the Swedish Radio and the NHK symphony orchestras. A dedicated chamber musician, he regularly performs worldwide with sextet Les Vents Français and with recital partners Lisa Batiashvili, Eric Le Sage and Emmanuel Strosser. Committed to expanding the oboe’s repertoire, Leleux has commissioned many new works from composers such as Nicolas Bacri, Michael Jarrell, Giya Kancheli, Thierry Pécou, Gilles Silvestrini and Eric Tanguy. As a conductor, Leleux and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra released an album of works by Bizet and Gounod for Linn Records in 2019. François Leleux is a Professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. For full biography please visit sco.org.uk

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