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MACMILLAN, SIBELIUS & RAUTAVAARA Thursday 20 May 2021, Perth Concert Hall –––––
SCO.ORG.UK
PROGRAMME
Season 2020/21
MACMILLAN, SIBELIUS & RAUTAVAARA
Proudly sponsored and match funded by:
Thursday 20 May 2021, 7.30pm Perth Concert Hall Sir James MacMillan Ein Lämplein verlosch (Scottish Premiere) Sibelius The Tempest Suite II Rautavaara Percussion Concerto 'Incantations' (Scottish Premiere) Sir James MacMillan Conductor Colin Currie Percussion Introduced by Colin Currie and Sir James MacMillan
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Our Musicians
YOUR ORCHESTRA FIRST VIOLIN Maria Włoszczowska Ruth Crouch Kana Kawashima Aisling O’Dea Amira Bedrush-McDonald Sarah Bevan-Baker SECOND VIOLIN Marcus Barcham Stevens Gordon Bragg Rachel Spencer Rachel Smith Niamh Lyons Wen Wang VIOLA Fiona Winning Felix Tanner Brian Schiele Steve King CELLO Philip Higham Su-a Lee Donald Gillan Niamh Molloy BASS Nikita Naumov Adrian Bornet
FLUTE Daniel Pailthorpe Lee Holland PICCOLO Lee Holland OBOE Robin Williams Rachel Harwood-White CLARINET Maximiliano Martín William Stafford BASS CLARINET William Stafford BASSOON Cerys Ambrose-Evans Alison Green
HORN Huw Evans Jamie Shield Fergus Kerr Harry Johnstone TRUMPET Peter Franks Shaun Harrold Simon Bird TROMBONE Cillian Ó’Ceallacháin Chris Mansfield TIMPANI/PERCUSSION Louise Goodwin PERCUSSION Tom Hunter HARP Eleanor Hudson
WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR MacMillan (b. 1959) Ein Lämplein verlosch (Scottish Premiere) (2018)
Sibelius (1865-1957) The Tempest Suite II (1925-6) 1. Chorus of the Winds 2. Intermezzo 3. Dance of Nymphs 4. Prospero 5. Song I 6. Song II 7. Miranda 8. The Naiads 9. Dance Episode
Rautavaara (1928-2016) Percussion Concerto 'Incantations' (Scottish Premiere) (2008) Pesante Espressivo Animato
––––– Music by two 20th-century (and partly 21st-century) Finns dominates today’s programme. But we start closer to home, with a short, personal, memorial tribute by Scotland’s most eminent contemporary composer, who also happens to be the concert’s conductor. Sir James MacMillan’s Ein Lamplein verlösch began life in 2018 as a work for string quartet, but was later arranged by the composer for string orchestra. Its title (meaning literally ‘A little lamp went out’) is taken from the short poem Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n (‘Now the sun wants to rise as brightly’) by Friedrich Rückert, the first poem set by Gustav Mahler in his orchestral song cycle Kindertotenlieder. In Rückert’s poem, the title’s words are mentioned in these lines: Ein Lämplein verlosch in meinem Zelt, Heil sei dem Freudenlicht der Welt. A little lamp went out in my firmament, Greetings to the joyful light of the world. The full poem refers to an unnamed loss that has happened during the night, despite which the sun continues to shine, prompting the poet to reflect on the need to enter into its light, rather than remaining in the dark. The harmonics and sliding glissandos of MacMillan’s brief work manage to reflect both the grief of loss and the return to brightness. The incidental music that Jean Sibelius wrote for Shakespeare’s The Tempest in 1925-6 formed his penultimate large-scale work, followed only by the brooding, forest-themed tone poem
The harmonics and sliding glissandos of MacMillan’s brief work manage to reflect both the grief of loss and the return to brightness. Sir James MacMillan
Tapiola, and then silence for the final three decades of his life. So crippling had the effects of self-criticism become to Finland’s most celebrated
This was hardly the first time that Sibelius had composed for the stage. Though he had been somewhat frustrated with his early attempts
and respected composer, that he even notoriously burnt the unfinished manuscript of his part-composed Eighth Symphony, providing musical history with one of its most enduring what-ifs.
at opera – the unfinished opera The Building of the Boat was later transformed into his Lemminkäinen Suite, and his only completed opera, the one-act The Maiden in the Tower, was withdrawn following its 1895 premiere – he had scored several earlier plays. A suite from his 1905 music for Maeterlinck’s Pelléas and Mélisande is a staple of the concert repertoire, for example, and his much-loved Valse triste started life as part of his 1903 score for Kuolema (‘Death’) by Arvid Järnefelt.
The suggestion of writing music for Shakespeare’s final play was first put to Sibelius as far back as 1901, by his friend and patron Axel Carpelan (another of whose ideas would go on to become Tapiola). But it took more definite form in 1925, when Sibelius was approached by his Copenhagen publisher, Wilhelm Hansen, with news that the Danish capital’s Royal Theatre was planning a production of The Tempest for the following year, and that its producer would like Sibelius to write the music for it.
The Copenhagen production of The Tempest was an enormous success, gathering very warm reviews, one of which observed: “Shakespeare and Sibelius, these two geniuses, have
So crippling had the effects of self-criticism become to Finland’s most celebrated and respected composer, that he even notoriously burnt the unfinished manuscript of his part-composed Eighth Symphony, providing musical history with one of its most enduring what-ifs. Jean Sibelius
finally found one another.” Sibelius’s original score – consisting of 34 separate numbers, running to more than an hour of music, and written for vocal soloists,
harp, the instrument that Sibelius used to symbolise Prospero, the sorcerer (and rightful Duke of Milan) who is exiled on the island and acts as puppetmaster to
chorus, harmonium and large orchestra – was of an opulence that might surprise modern-day theatregoers. He derived two suites from the incidental music – the first keeping its lavish forces, but the second, heard today, for a more modest orchestra – and combined and condensed several of his original numbers in the suites’ individual movements, aiming for musical effectiveness rather than necessarily narrative sense.
the play’s other characters. The graceful but sorrowful ‘Intermezzo’ originally formed a bridge between Acts III and IV, and symbolises Alonso, King of Naples, repenting for his misdeeds in the (mistaken) belief that Prospero has caused the death of his son, Ferdinand (and Prospero’s harp is never far away). In the tripping minuet of the ‘Dance of the Nymphs’, mermaids celebrate Miranda and Ferdinand’s engagement in Act IV, while ‘Prospero’ is a portrait of the play’s central character from Act II, undeniably Baroque in its majesty, but with slippering, shifting harmonies that reflect his ambiguous motives.
The Second Suite’s opening ‘Chorus of the Winds’ comes from near the play’s beginning, depicting the gentle breezes that remain once The Tempest’s opening storm, whipped up by the spirit Ariel, has subsided. Listen out for the prominent
The rather melancholy ‘Song I’ is an instrumental version of the song sung by
When I heard recorded performances by Colin Currie, I was impressed by the virtuosity and musicality in handling the various kinds of percussion instruments. Einojuhani Rautavaara
Ariel at Miranda and Ferdinand’s union in Act IV, while the hint of Iberian energy in ‘Song II’ reflects Ariel’s joy at being released from his bonds in Act V. The
Einojuhani Rautavaara is probably Finland’s leading composer after Sibelius, and died as recently as 2016 at the age of 87. He was a prolific
gossamer textures and unpredictable melody of ‘Miranda’ capture the elusive character of Prospero’s daughter, in music originally planned to introduce Act III of the play, and ‘The Naiads’ takes us right back to the beginning, when Ariel plays in the water following the play’s opening storm – a distant memory of which can be heard about halfway through. Sibelius’s closing ‘Dance Episode’ is a portrait of Prospero’s villainous brother Antonio, who organised the magician’s exile from Milan in The Tempest’s backstory. The movement pulls the classic Sibelian trick of transforming what was originally a melody into an accompaniment figure simply by speeding it up. It builds to the Suite’s only truly loud music before
composer across many styles and genres, including nine operas and a wealth of orchestral music that included eight symphonies and 12 concertos. His most famous work is probably the 1972 Cantus arcticus, performed by the SCO in 2017, which combines birdsong recorded near the Arctic Circle with orchestra, and his Symphony No 7, Angel of Light, is just one of several works with mystical themes inspired by heavenly beings.
melting away magically into silence.
virtuosity and musicality in handling
Rautavaara wrote of his 2008 percussion concerto Incantations: “When I heard recorded performances by Colin Currie, I was impressed by the
the various kinds of percussion instruments. When asked, I was willing to compose a concerto for him to
approached this composer with the following in mind, that the end result would be a work of great drama,
play, and when he visited Helsinki in late 2007 I could already show him sketches for the work.
mystery and power, such was my experience hearing previous works of his. Also, I was thinking that the piece would most likely trace the structure of the familiar romantic concerto: employ bold sweeping themes, recapitulation of material at key moments, a haunting and beautiful slow movement perhaps, a cadenza… and indeed it proved to be so, and how! What excited me immediately about this was that as a percussionist, I had never had a chance to partake in this kind of musical structure in the pieces I play, as they are often housed in more abstract architecture. So – finally, a ‘classic’ for my repertoire. One of the things that so thrilled and moved me about getting this concerto off the ground was the initial trip to Helsinki to meet the great man at his apartment. Rather frail due to a very difficult health condition,
“The title Incantations came to my mind early during the composing process – but to avoid too much conventional and monotonous ‘shamanism’ I made use of rhythm in varying ways: 7/8, 3+2+3/8, 11/8 etc. As melodic line is always important for me, marimba and vibraphone are often in the foreground in all three movements. The orchestra opens the work with a powerful motive. Then marimba takes over with fast ornamental passages. Variations follow each other until the movement closes with the opening motive. In the second movement the vibraphone dominates, and the atmosphere is brooding, expressive and poetic. The third movement could be a shaman’s dance in a jerky rhytm. A free cadenza gives the soloist an opportunity to improvise. It leads to a ‘grandioso’ end based on the opening motive from the first movement.”
“Incantations holds a special place in my repertoire, and is best described perhaps as the truly great ‘romantic
he greeted me warmly at the front door, and I shook the hand that in turn shook that of Jean Sibelius. No sooner had I crossed the threshold, however, than Mr Rautavaara proceeded to seat himself at the grand piano in the lounge area and launch into the searing opening theme from his latest work – a concerto for me! And this meeting was scheduled as a ‘meetand-greet’! I was humbled down to my shoes. Following this, we corresponded often, tweaking notes and percussion instrumentation, and I worked hard for about three weeks myself in the summer of 2009 to compose the cadenza, a task that I both relished and enjoyed.”
concerto’ for the solo percussionist. I
© David Kettle
Incantations was premiered by its dedicatee, Colin Currie, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, in London in 2009. Currie later wrote on his own website in preparation for the CD release of the concerto:
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