THE LARK ASCENDING
WITH ANDREW MANZE AND SCO ACADEMY
2-3 May 2024
THE LARK ASCENDING WITH ANDREW MANZE AND SCO ACADEMY
Thursday 2 May, 7.30pm, The Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Friday 3 May, 7.30pm, City Halls, Glasgow*
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Concerto Grosso ‡
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending†
Interval of 20 minutes
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No 5
Andrew Manze Conductor
Stephanie Gonley Violin†
SCO Academy‡
* This performance will be recorded for the BBC ‘Radio 3 in Concert’ series, due for broadcast on 11 July 2024.
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“A crack musical team at the top of its game.”
HRH The Former Duke of Rothesay
Patron
Donald MacDonald CBE
Life President
Joanna Baker CBE
Chair
Gavin Reid LVO
Chief Executive
Maxim Emelyanychev
Principal Conductor
Andrew Manze
Principal Guest Conductor
Joseph Swensen
Conductor Emeritus
Gregory Batsleer
Chorus Director
Jay Capperauld
Associate Composer
Our Musicians
YOUR ORCHESTRA
Information correct at the time of going to print
First Violin
Stephanie Gonley
Afonso Fesch
Mark Derudder
Kana Kawashima
Aisling O’Dea
Siún Milne
Amira Bedrush-McDonald
Sarah Bevan Baker
Catherine James
Carole Howat
Second Violin
Marcus Barcham Stevens
Gordon Bragg
Michelle Dierx
Rachel Smith
Niamh Lyons
Stewart Webster
Kristin Deeken
Amy Cardigan
Viola
Max Mandel
Ana Dunne Sequi
Brian Schiele
Steve King
Rebecca Wexler
Kathryn Jourdan
Cello
Philip Higham
Su-a Lee
Donald Gillan
Eric de Wit
Niamh Molloy
Bass
Nikita Naumov
Jamie Kenny
Stewart Wilson
Flute
André Cebrián
Alba Vinti López
Piccolo
Alba Vinti López
Oboe
Robin Williams
Katherine Bryer
Cor Anglais
Katherine Bryer
Clarinet
Kate McDermott
William Stafford
Bassoon
Cerys Ambrose-Evans
Alison Green
Horn
Máté Börszönyi
Jamie Shield
Trumpet
Peter Frank
Shaun Harrold
Trombone
Duncan Wilson
Cillian Ó’Ceallacháin
Alan Adams
Timpani/ Percussion
Louise Lewis Goodwin
Donald Gillan CelloSCO
ACADEMY
Our current SCO Academy programme, delivered in partnership with the City of Edinburgh Council Instrumental Music Service, Glasgow CREATE and St Mary’s Music School has provided a unique opportunity for 39 aspiring young string musicians to rehearse and perform Vaughan Williams’ Concerto Grosso side-by-side with the Orchestra under the guidance of SCO musicians and conductor Andrew Manze himself.
The Concerto Grosso, is uniquely composed for all skill levels with the orchestra divided into three sections based on skill: Concertino (Advanced), Tutti (Intermediate), and Ad Lib (Novice, open strings only).
The SCO Academy ran over two consecutive rehearsal weekends in April. SCO musicians and staff from St Mary’s Music School tutored sectionals and played alongside participants in tutti rehearsals, led by both SCO violinist/conductor Gordon Bragg and Andrew Manze. This has been a unique opportunity for young string musicians of all abilities to develop their musicianship in a fun and inclusive environment, to experience playing as part of a group, and hone essential skills such as listening, teamwork and following a conductor.
Further information at sco.org.uk
This SCO Academy is delivered in partnership with St Mary’s Music School, City of Edinburgh Council Instrumental Music Service and Glasgow CREATE.
Kindly supported by the Penpont Charitable Trust, the Radcliffe Trust, and the Vaughan Williams Foundation. With special thanks to the generous individuals who supported the SCO Christmas Give 2023.
SCO ACADEMY
PLAYERS
VIOLIN 1
Austin Vincent Agarwal
Charlotte Yeaman
Daniel Snee
Dara Omoya
Eilidh Campbell
Emily Win
India Reilly
Joshua Gill
Martha Johnson
Olwen Dimbleby Weber
Theo Arkinstall
Vanessa Zupnik
William Guo
Yeva Hutsul
Zac Nedumpully
VIOLIN 2
Audrey Shea
Constance Qian Bei Cho
Elizabeth McColl
Emma Pantel
Hannah Easdale
Juliette Hood
Michael Park
Niamh Clark
Nikita Bubulchuk
Shreya Saul
ADDITIONAL TUTORS FROM ST MARY’S MUSIC SCHOOL:
Valerie Pearson
Philip Bartai
Ruth Beauchamp
VIOLA
Callum Cook
Charlotte Walker
Emma Zheng
Kathy Ross
Merryn Stephenson
Sandy Reilly
CELLO
Amelie Hartley
Amy Thacker
Dougie Easdale
Freddy Beeston
Laudika Monaghan
Paul Oggier
Trish Strain
BASS
Alexander Kwon
Ava Griffith
Erin Nixon
Sam McInnes
WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
Concerto Grosso (1950)
I. Intrada
II. Burlesca Ostinata
III. Sarabande
IV. Scherzo
V. March and Reprise
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
The Lark Ascending (1914, rev. 1920)
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
Symphony No 5 in D major (1938-43)
I. Preludio
II. Scherzo
III. Romanza
IV. Passacaglia
Musical visionary, even mystic; champion of Britain’s age-old musical heritage, and of England’s pastoral beauties. It’s perhaps no surprise that the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams is among our country’s most popular – indeed, one of tonight’s pieces regularly tops charts for the best-loved classical piece ever written. But for all its comforting reassurance, Vaughan Williams was also a deeply progressive, questing composer, one profoundly aware of the context and purpose of his music, as well as who was listening to it and who was playing it.
In the case of this evening’s first piece, those players were the young musicians of the Rural Schools Music Association, performing in London’s Royal Albert Hall in November 1950 under conductor Adrian Boult. Vaughan Williams had been approached by the Association earlier that year with the suggestion that he might write something for an orchestra of string players of decidedly mixed abilities – some would be accomplished young musicians about to head off to music college, but others would almost be complete beginners, only able to play on open strings.
Vaughan Williams was intrigued, and inspired – and he quickly launched into work on what became his Concerto Grosso. And he developed a novel solution to the question of those mixed abilities. He already had form in subdividing his musical ensembles into different subgroups with contrasting roles – just think of the quartet, chamber group and larger ensemble that conjure the threedimensional sonic perspectives of his luminous Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis , which he’d written back in 1910.
For his Concerto Grosso, Vaughan Williams came up with something similar. A ‘concertino’ group of advanced players would get the most challenging material; a ‘tutti’ group of intermediate musicians would play slightly more straightforward parts; and an ‘ad lib’ group for beginners would receive the simplest music of all, with the option of playing even just open strings.
The implications of this way of thinking are, when you think about it, quite profound. Vaughan Williams’ Concerto Grosso is in no way music for children –at least not in the manner of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf or Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra . Instead, it’s music for children themselves to play – and complex, sophisticated music aimed at knowledgeable listeners, but cunningly conceived so that those with little experience can take part in the performance. Instead of challenging
It’s music for children themselves to play – and complex, sophisticated music aimed at knowledgeable listeners, but cunningly conceived so that those with little experience can take part in the performance.
young players to rise to the difficulties of my musical language, Vaughan Williams seems to be saying, I’ll challenge myself to express my musical ideas in a way that matches their capabilities.
Like the 1950 Royal Albert Hall premiere – which reportedly involved getting on for 400 young players – tonight’s performance brings together players of many different levels of experience. Joining the SCO’s professional musicians are players from the SCO Academy, a project delivered by the Orchestra in partnership with City of Edinburgh Council Instrumental Music Service, Glasgow CREATE and students and staff from St Mary’s Music School. The SCO Academy, which has been running since 2019, provides opportunities for young musicians to rehearse and perform alongside professional musicians, free of charge. You’ll hear the results of those rehearsals in tonight’s performance.
Ralph Vaughan WilliamsVaughan Williams’ title is particularly apt, and in his music, he draws substantially on the Baroque concerto grosso form, with its contrasts between a more showy ‘concertino’ group of soloists and an accompanying ‘ripieno’ ensemble (though, in fairness, those roles were often largely merged). Swaggering, swirling harmonies launch the grand opening ‘Intrada’, richly scored across all three orchestral subgroups, and the movement ends with a sense of luminosity similar to that of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis . The angular main theme of Vaughan Williams’ second movement, ‘Burlesca ostinata’, is itself based around the instruments’ open strings, allowing less experienced players their time in the spotlight, though quieter, most ghostly music emerges to close the movement quietly.
After the slow, sombre waltz of the third-movement ‘Sarabande’, Vaughan Williams set off his lively ‘Scherzo’ with a spiky theme, contrasting it with a quieter section with a rocking violin melody. A gentle violin march kicks off his concluding ‘March and Reprise’, but just as it appears to be gathering steam for a grand climax, Vaughan Williams moves us back into the pomp and grandiosity of the opening ‘Intrada’, ending the piece as it began.
From the multi-level, multi-layered Concerto Grosso, we hop back in time a few decades for what’s surely the composer’s best-loved and best-known piece of all. Indeed, the nostalgic and very English rural idyll of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending regularly tops polls as the UK’s best-loved piece of classical music – but with its quiet introspection, and the complete absence of a ‘big tune’
to stir the spirits, it’s an unusual work to receive such adulation.
It’s surprising, too, that such a calm, serene piece can have been created during a time of war. Vaughan Williams completed The Lark Ascending in its original version for violin and piano in 1914, then set it aside for the duration of the First World War, during which time he served as an ambulance driver in France and Greece. Upon his return to Britain, he finished the work’s orchestration, and The Lark Ascending was premiered by its dedicatee Marie Hall in June 1921 at London’s Queen’s Hall.
The composer had been inspired by the 1881 poem by George Meredith of the same name, and included these lines from it in his score:
He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound, Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake. For singing till his heaven fills, ’Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup And he the wine which overflows to lift us with him as he goes. Till lost on his aerial rings In light, and then the fancy sings.
Meredith’s imagery, and the natural wonders of England that he evokes, are a world away from the brutal reality of conflict into which Vaughan Williams found himself thrown. We can only wonder at the ways in which the bloody destruction of the battlefield that the composer witnessed might have set his nostalgic idyll into stark relief – or, indeed,
served to re-emphasise its vision and values in the composer’s mind.
As his violin soloist takes on the role of the eponymous lark, easing us gently into the piece’s subtly perfumed harmonies, and soaring ever higher at the work’s conclusion to sing its bewitching song, what Vaughan Williams offers us is a space for reflection. There’s a gentle sense of spirituality, too, even a feeling of mysticism, and an underlying sense of sadness – perhaps for the rural world that Vaughan Williams loved so much, and which even in 1914 he could see disappearing.
From one catastrophic 20th-century conflict to another. Like our opening Concerto Grosso, Vaughan Williams’ Fifth Symphony received its premiere in London’s Royal Albert Hall. But the Symphony’s first performance took place
Still today, it’s a piece with deep personal associations for many listeners, one that brings a sense of comfort and solace, even hope, during difficult times.
seven years earlier, on 24 June 1943, at the height of the Second World War.
Eight years previously, certain listeners had been shocked by the same composer’s violent, thorny Fourth Symphony, completed in 1935 as Europe seemed to be heading inexorably ever closer to cataclysmic conflict. ‘I’m not at all sure that I like it myself now,’ the composer later famously admitted. ‘All I know is that it's what I wanted to do at the time.’
For the Symphony that he wrote and unveiled during that conflict itself, however, Vaughan Williams shocked some listeners again. This time it wasn’t because of violence, but because of his wartime Fifth Symphony’s sense of calm, reflection and deep spirituality. Even today, it’s a piece with deep personal associations for many listeners, one that brings a sense
Vaughan Williams at about the time of the composition of The Lark Ascendingof comfort and solace, even hope, during difficult times.
The Symphony is indeed one of Vaughan Williams’ most deeply loved pieces, right up there in many ways with The Lark Ascending. Fellow composer Aaron Copland rather acidly commented on certain similarities with Vaughan Williams’ earlier pastoral works, pronouncing: ‘Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.’ But surely that’s missing the point. If anything, the Fifth Symphony has more in common with the hushed spirituality of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. And in many ways, it’s just as intricate, sophisticated and complex a work as its uncompromising symphonic predecessor, even if its language is one of tenderness and contemplation.
Vaughan Williams began sketches for the Fifth Symphony in 1936, but worked in earnest on it between 1938 and 1943. And in it, he explained, he also reworked material from his (at that time unfinished) opera The Pilgrim’s Progress , which wouldn’t be seen on stage until its Covent Garden premiere in 1951.
But as well as being a transcendental response to war, Vaughan Williams’ Fifth is also possibly a response to love. The composer had married Adeline Fisher in 1897, and devoted more and more time to her care as she grew increasingly debilitated by arthritis, until her death in 1951. In 1938, however, he met the poet Ursula Wood, an encounter that both remembered as love at first sight – despite the composer being almost 40 years her senior, and despite both of them being married. They went on
to maintain a secret affair for almost a decade, finally marrying in 1953. While she lived, however, Vaughan Williams’ commitment to his first wife Adeline remained undiminished. It’s certainly at least possible that Vaughan Williams’ feeling of new love – however difficult the three individuals’ circumstances – may have injected a fresh sense of hope and optimism into his music.
To war, love and opera, we can add yet another element into the Symphony’s genesis: this time, a fellow composer. On the opening page of the score, Vaughan Williams wrote: ‘Dedicated without permission to Jean Sibelius’. Or at least that was his final version. Earlier, his dedication had read: ‘Dedicated without permission, with the sincerest flattery, to Jean Sibelius, whose great example is worthy of imitation.’ The lack of permission is perhaps simply explained by tricky wartime communications, and the difficulty of relaying messages between Britain and Finland. More importantly, Vaughan Williams held the music of Sibelius in high esteem, and it’s even been suggested that he consciously used the Finnish composer’s thorny Fourth Symphony as a template for his own Fifth – exactly the same notes open both pieces, for example. It might feel, however, like Sibelius’ Sixth Symphony – written in 1923, two decades before the premiere of Vaughan Williams’ Fifth – is closer in spirit to the later work. It’s the Symphony that Sibelius famously referred to in a memorable observation: ‘whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public pure cold water.’ That sounds like an apt description of certain sections of Vaughan Williams’ Fifth, too.
A lot of the Symphony’s feeling of purity, consolation and contemplation is conveyed through its musical construction. And it’s with a musical conundrum that Vaughan Williams launches his opening ‘Preludio’. A gently rocking melodic idea from the horns offers a clear sense of key (D major), but the drone in the lower strings is on an alien note (C). Which key are we actually in? It’s the question – left unresolved at the end of the opening movement – that drives the Symphony forward, and which is only answered in the concluding moments of the final movement.
After that initial two-key conflict, violins add an elegant rising and falling melodic idea that seems to form a bridge between both, later moving on to a more demonstrative melody, as though demanding to be heard. A faster-moving central section pits ominous, lamenting figures in the woodwind against sinister running ideas in
Earlier, his dedication had read: ‘Dedicated without permission, with the sincerest flattery, to Jean Sibelius, whose great example is worthy of imitation.’
the strings, but we eventually return to the opening music – ending with the same clash of two unrelated ideas that we heard at the beginning.
Swirling strands of sound dart back and forth across the orchestra in the second movement ‘Scherzo’, as though we’re glimpsing half-seen characters in the murk, though a more folk-like, dancing main melody quickly emerges from flutes and clarinets. Vaughan Williams’ first contrasting section plays rhythmic games with unsettling syncopations, and his second develops into an outspoken march. The swirling opening music barely has a chance to make a return before the movement vanishes in a puff of smoke.
If the Symphony’s first and last movements mark the work’s journey from conflict to resolution, the third movement ‘Romanza’ stands as the piece’s emotional heart.
Jean SibeliusThe music simply moves into a radiant D major, as if that sense of home had been waiting for us there all along. Vaughan Williams’s quiet, slow-moving conclusion – as string lines soar ever higher against a long-held note in the double basses – can only be described as transcendent.
Quietly radiant string harmonies introduce a long, reflective melody from the cor anglais, ultimately leading to a rising, yearning melody in the strings that forms the movement’s most overtly emotional material. Louder, more urgent materal in the centre of the movement develops into the Symphony’s only moments of anguish, before the yearning string melody returns, and a solo violin, Lark Ascending-style, leads the movement to a contemplative close.
For his final movement, Vaughan Williams offers not a victorious finale, but a thoughtful ‘Passacaglia’ built on top of a repeating bassline, heard in the cellos right at the start of the movement. And though the composer treats that bassline with considerable freedom as it returns again and again, there’s an undeniable sense of comfort and security provided by its presence. There’s a feeling, too, of light, air and gentle movement after the emotional
intensity of the preceding movement, and of quiet celebration as the music moves through many moods and textures.
But there are bigger questions to answer. A surging timpani roll throws us back into the conflicted, two-key music that opened the Symphony, now forcefully delivered by the full orchestra (and artfully combined with the passacaglia bassline). Ultimately, it’s the calm, beatific harmonies of the horns that win the day. The first movement’s conflict is ultimately resolved, but without any grand battles, struggles, triumphs of victories. The music simply moves into a radiant D major, as if that sense of home had been waiting for us there all along. Vaughan Williams’ quiet, slow-moving conclusion – as string lines soar ever higher against a long-held note in the double basses – can only be described as transcendent.
© David Kettle
Conductor ANDREW
MANZE
Andrew Manze is widely celebrated as one of the most stimulating and inspirational conductors of his generation. His extensive and scholarly knowledge of the repertoire, together with his boundless energy and warmth, mark him out. He held the position of Chief Conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hannover from 2014 until 2023. Since 2018, he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; he has just been announced as Principal Guest Conductor of the SCO from the 24/5 Season.
In great demand as a guest conductor across the globe, Manze has long-standing relationships with many leading orchestras, and in the 23/24 season will return to the Royal Concertgebouworkest, the Munich Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphoniker, Oslo Philharmonic, Finnish Radio, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, RSB Berlin, and the Dresden Philharmonic among others, and will lead the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in their tour of Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin and Eisenstadt.
From 2006 to 2014, Manze was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2008 to 2011, and held the title of Associate Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for four seasons.
After reading Classics at Cambridge University, Manze studied the violin and rapidly became a leading specialist in the world of historical performance practice. He became Associate Director of the Academy of Ancient Music in 1996, and then Artistic Director of the English Concert from 2003 to 2007. As a violinist, Manze released an astonishing variety of recordings, many of them awardwinning.
Manze is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, Visiting Professor at the Oslo Academy, and has contributed to new editions of sonatas and concerti by Bach and Mozart, published by Bärenreiter, Breitkopf and Härtel. He also teaches, writes about, and edits music, as well as broadcasting regularly on radio and television. In November 2011 Andrew Manze received the prestigious ‘Rolf Schock Prize’ in Stockholm. For full biography please
STEPHANIE GONLEY
Stephanie has a wide-ranging career as concerto soloist, soloist/director of chamber orchestras, recitalist and a chamber musician. She has appeared as soloist with many of UK’s foremost orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia and BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Stephanie is leader of the English Chamber Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and has performed as Director/Soloist with both. Stephanie has also appeared as Director/ Soloist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony, and the Oriol Ensemble Berlin to name but a few.
She has enjoyed overseas concerto performances with everyone from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Hannover Radio Symphony, to Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Norwegian Radio Symphony Orchestra, while her recordings include Dvorák Romance with the ECO and Sir Charles Mackerras for EMI, and the Sibelius Violin Concerto for BMG/ Conifer.
Stephanie is currently Professor of Violin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She was a winner of the prestigious Shell-LSO National Scholarship.
SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) is one of Scotland’s five National Performing Companies and has been a galvanizing force in Scotland’s music scene since its inception in 1974. The SCO believes that access to world-class music is not a luxury but something that everyone should have the opportunity to participate in, helping individuals and communities everywhere to thrive. Funded by the Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council and a community of philanthropic supporters, the SCO has an international reputation for exceptional, idiomatic performances: from mainstream classical music to newly commissioned works, each year its wide-ranging programme of work is presented across the length and breadth of Scotland, overseas and increasingly online.
Equally at home on and off the concert stage, each one of the SCO’s highly talented and creative musicians and staff is passionate about transforming and enhancing lives through the power of music. The SCO’s Creative Learning programme engages people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse range of projects, concerts, participatory workshops and resources. The SCO’s current five-year Residency in Edinburgh’s Craigmillar builds on the area’s extraordinary history of Community Arts, connecting the local community with a national cultural resource.
An exciting new chapter for the SCO began in September 2019 with the arrival of dynamic young conductor Maxim Emelyanychev as the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor. His tenure has recently been extended until 2028. The SCO and Emelyanychev released their first album together (Linn Records) in November 2019 to widespread critical acclaim. Their second recording together, of Mendelssohn symphonies, was released in November 2023.
The SCO also has long-standing associations with many eminent guest conductors and directors including Andrew Manze, Pekka Kuusisto, François Leleux, Nicola Benedetti, Isabelle van Keulen, Anthony Marwood, Richard Egarr, Mark Wigglesworth, Lorenza Borrani and Conductor Emeritus Joseph Swensen.
The Orchestra’s current Associate Composer is Jay Capperauld. The SCO enjoys close relationships with numerous leading composers and has commissioned around 200 new works, including pieces by the late Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir James MacMillan, Anna Clyne, Sally Beamish, Martin Suckling, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Karin Rehnqvist, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Nico Muhly.
Host Jay Capperauld
DJ Dolphin Boy
Creators Daniel Abrahams, naafi and Emily Scott-Moncrieff
UN:TITLED
Music by Capperauld, Connesson, Soundbox Live and Adams
Saturday 15 June 7.30pm Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh Sunday 16 June 7.30pm St Luke’s, Glasgow
WORKING IN HARMONY
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From world-class music-making to pioneering creative learning and community work, we are passionate about transforming lives through the power of music and we could not do it without regular donations from our valued supporters.
If you are passionate about music, and want to contribute to the SCO’s continued success, please consider making a monthly or annual donation today. Each and every contribution is crucial, and your support is truly appreciated.
For more information on how you can become a regular donor, please get in touch with Hannah Wilkinson on 0131 478 8364 or hannah.wilkinson@sco.org.uk