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Director and Conductor, Dr Steven Stanke says, “Delving into the music of Sibelius is always rewarding because there is both the personal satisfaction of preparing and presenting his music as an aural performing experience plus we can learn a lot about how others have lived through oppression and struggle, the search for respect and independence. The music of Nielsen, particularly the symphonies, also has the power and universal message of a national composer. ”
Despite our warming weather, Symphony Central Coast continues its 2022 season with a trip to Scandinavia, through the music of Jean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen, Finland’s and Denmark’s most prominent musical voices. With rich and long histories, these two countries have long stood proud of their cultural heritage, whatever the political
SPECIAL THANKS TO Rotary Club of Gosford North Leica French and the staff of Central Coast Grammar School Central Coast Conservatorium of Music Country Women’s Association Greater Bank We acknowledge all First Peoples of this land and celebrate their enduring connections to Country, through knowledge and stories. We pay our respects to Elders and Ancestors who watch over us and guide our communities.
Symphony no. 2 in D major (1902) • Allegretto • Tempo Andante, ma rubato • Vivacissimo • Finale. Allegro moderato Finlandia Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (1926) Soloist Bridget Bolliger • Allegro moderato • Allegretto, un poco Jean SIBELIUS Jean SIBELIUS Carl NIELSEN
Either way, the experience is one of awakening, despair, hopelessness, struggle and, ultimately, exhilaration and wonderment as we finally stand on the symphonic summit, surveying the landscape and reflecting on the blood, sweat and tears thus expended. Or we stand tall singing his hymn to the country as Finland, the nation, awakes. And, finally, we can soak in the remarkable drama and humour of Nielsen’s Flute Concerto, today taking the role of a worthy and trusted companion. Happy listening, Steven
Sibelius’ Finlandia and Second Symphony come from a time of national examination and desire for freedom and are always well received in the concert hall. Perhaps the listener has read of Sibelius’ travails and attached a political narrative, experiencing musical tellings of a struggle for independence, as many others have done. Or perhaps they might just take Sibelius at his word when he tells them that the symphony, at least, is just “a confession of the soul.” 4
As orchestral musicians we draw comfort from both the familiar; works that we have known and performed possibly many times over many years, and the new; unfamiliar works that require examination, dissection and reconstruction. Like a well balanced meal, today’s concert features a little from both camps – the familiar and reassuring sounds of Sibelius and something new, a flute concerto from a lesser known but still extremely accomplished composer.
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Jean SIBELIUS From an early age, Jean Sibelius (1865 1957) showed an interest in nature, frequently walking around the countryside when his family moved from Hämeenlinna in Finland to Loviisa on the coast for the summer months. “For me Loviisa represented sun and happiness. Hämeenlinna was where I went to school; Loviisa was freedom” He started lessons on the piano when he was seven, later turning to violin, often playing chamber music with neighbouring families. He studied at the Helsinki Music Academy (now the Sibelius Academy), then in Berlin and Vienna. An interest in Finnish mythology served as an inspiration for En Saga (A Saga), several orchestral works based on the Lemminkäinen legends and the Karelia suite, establishing his reputation and career as a particularly ‘Finnish’ composer.
SYMPHONY no. 2
The Symphony no. 2 in D major, op. 43, was started in winter 1901 in Rapallo, Italy while Sibelius was on a vacation, recovering from a particularly busy period which included the premiere of his wildly successful tone poem Finlandia, and his first Whilesymphony.theSecond Symphony is generally admired by the public, there is often some criticism by reviewers, one calling it “vulgar, self indulgent, and provincial beyond all description.”
Tying in with Sibelius’ philosophy that through ‘profound logic’ inner connections between all the motives can be created, the first movement grows out of a rising three note motive at first pastoral, then unstable, and then appearing in many guises throughout the entire symphony. The second movement is based on a short idea concerning a visit from a stranger, who turns out to be Death, while the third is a bristling, angry, restless scherzo. Its trio section, played twice, features a lyrical oboe solo, the second time bridging to the final Themovement.finalmovement, toward which the rest of the symphony seems to be heading, conductor Robert Kajanus describes, “develops towards a triumphant conclusion intended to rouse in the listener a picture of lighter and confident prospects for the future.”
Carl NIELSEN Born in 1865 on the island of Funen, south of Odense, the third largest city in Denmark, Carl Nielsen is now recognised as that country’s most prominent composer. He initially played in a military band before studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. He then obtained work as a violinist in the Royal Danish Orchestra, later teaching composition at the Academy. His main works are six symphonies, a wind quintet and concertos for violin, flute and clarinet. In Denmark, his opera ‘Maskarade’ and many of his songs have become an integral part of the national heritage. In 2006, four of his works were listed by the Danish Ministry of Culture as among the greatest works of Danish classical music.
CONCERTO FOR FLUTE AND ORCHESTRA
The flute concerto was composed in 1926. During the preceding ten years, Carl Nielsen had composed many of his central works: the music for ‘Aladdin’, the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, as well as a number of works for smaller Althoughensembles.thefluteconcerto was composed relatively late in Nielsen’s life (he was 61), it was the first time he used the flute as a solo instrument in a major work. Part of the concerto was composed on a journey abroad from August 1926 until the middle of October 1926 and during the last months before his trip he had the idea of composing “a largish thing for clarinet and small orchestra” later changing the instrument to flute. In a September letter, he wrote “The flute concerto is going well and just today I have finished the first movement, which has come out very well; but it is very difficult for the soloist, so there will be something to study for the good Gilbert (the premiere performer). This movement will be by far the most important… it plays 10 minutes and in fact could stand alone.”
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Bridget BOLLIGER Born in Sydney, Bridget travelled to Switzerland to study with Peter Lukas Graf at the Basel Music Academy. For four consecutive years she was awarded the coveted Study Grant of the Migros/Ernst Göhner Stiftung, while also winning the UBS Flute Competition in Zürich, the Kiefer Hablitzel Award in Bern and a prize at the Swiss Woodwind Competition in St Gallen. She attended masterclasses with Alain Marion, Jean Pierre Rampal and William Bennett, and played Principal Flute with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Claudio Abbado and Vaclav Neumann, the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach and the European Community Youth Chamber Orchestra under James Judd. Bridget spent three years in Brazil as Principal Flute of the 7 Sinfonica de São Paulo, before returning to Australia where she has played with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, The Queensland Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, under conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy and Patrick BridgetSummers.Bolligerhas appeared as concerto soloist with the St Gallen Symphony Orchestra, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Basel Radio Orchestra, Collegium Musicum Basel, Gruppo Concertistico della Svizzera Italiana (Lugano), Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar al Teatro Massimo (Palermo), Orquestra Sinfonica do Norte (Porto, Portugal) and the Sinfonica de São Paulo. She has performed the Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto with harpists Elena Zaniboni, Marielle Nordmann and Sarah O’Brien. As a chamber musician, Ms Bolliger has appeared at the Ainey International Music Festival in Burgundy, the Curitiba International Music Festival in Brazil, the Huntington Estate Music Festival in New South Wales and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Queensland. She has collaborated with many distinguished Australian and British musicians, and with members of the Chicago and Montreal Symphony Orchestras.
Sibelius and Independencetheof
The first is that his significance in his own country, as the most famous Finnish name in history, has had a far-reaching impact independent of his status as a composer in the Western classical tradition, and should never be confused with any estimation of the quality of his music as such.
Still, Sibelius did not become Finland’s national composer because he wrote piquant, folksy musical bonbons, or even more imposing pieces such as Finlandia. Nor was he the first Finnish composer in his day to find inspiration in Finnish ethnic
Finland did not declare independence from Russia until 1917, by which time the work of establishing national schools 8 of music, art, and literature was well under way, but this was almost exclusively a modern phenomenon. Finland is very much a new country having had no prior tradition of self Thisdetermination.facthastwo profoundly important implications for any understanding of Sibelius’ music.
Second, when it came to defining the parameters of a national style, Sibelius had a wide open field. He was not bound by any pre existing rules, customs, or traditions, and as he composed great music in personal idiom, it was almost inevitable that some of its more unusual characteristics, simply by virtue of being different, would be perceived both home and abroad as uniquely Finnish.
Finland Jean Sibelius was not just Finland’s first great composer. He was a great composer by any standard, a genius of courage and independent mind. Although his reputation among the scholarly community at large has had its ups and downs, he has always been popular with audiences for the same reason that he is loved in his native country: because he wrote lots of colourful, attractive music that bears repetition and speaks a universal language of feelings and emotions. Born in a small town north of Helsinki, his family was ethnically Swedish and his first official name was Johan. He adopted the French ‘Jean’ in his adolescence, inspired by his deceased seafaring uncle. Sweden had lost the Finland region to Russia in 1809 but a large number of Swedishspeaking population remained, and Swedish was the language used by the educated elite and upper classes. This bears directly on the question of “Finnishness” of Sibelius’ music, and it’s important to realise that the creation of modern Finnish culture, of which he remains the most telling symbol, was an entirely self willed process.
music or mythology. Sibelius’ stature rests primarily on his achievement as a symphonist, as one who successfully conquered the largest, most serious, and most complex of all musical genres. Without this sovereign accomplishment to his credit, it is entirely possible that he would be viewed today as a sort of pale Finnish imitation of Norway’s Edvard Grieg, and labelled a charming miniaturist of largely local appeal and significance. Music history is not kind to runners-up, and even Grieg’s reputation has suffered, fairly or not, as a result of his unwillingness to tackle large forms. Sibelius, on the other hand, is staging a major comeback. In the 1930s and 40s, he was one of the most beloved of all composers in terms of audience appeal, especially in England and the United States, where his influence on contemporary music was also significant. However, his cachet among academics and scholars dwindled in the decades following his death in After1957.all, no new works had appeared since the late 1920s, and as the atonal, twelve tone ‘modernism’ conquered music at the university level, it was easy to relegate Sibelius to the category of slightly kitschy late nineteenth composersnationalistwhosesuperficial 9
prettiness was only exceeded by their lack of intellectual depth. Two factors have contributed to the contemporary re evaluation of Sibelius’ achievement. The first has been the rediscovery of the joys of melodic, tonal music, and the ofincreasingThetraditions.workingnewcomposersgenerationreconsiderationconsequentoftheofearlytwentiethwhofoundfreshmeansofexpressionwhilewithinacceptedsecondhasbeenanawarenessintheresttheworldoftheeffectthat
Sibelius’ legacy has had on Finland and its musical culture. Over the course of the twentieth century this small land of approximately five million persons has become a veritable powerhouse, producing a rich array of world class singers, conductors, and instrumental soloists, many of whom have used Sibelius as their calling card. From our vantage point in the twenty-first century, it is becoming increasingly clear that it was not the ‘modernists’ who carried the torch of European art music forward but rather the ‘outsiders’, like Sibelius, who adapted the existing tradition to new forms and new means of expression, challenging their audiences without leaving them bewildered. David Hurwitz
Image: Leslie Photography
• Repertoire. Hear new music or old favourites.
10 CONCERT #4 | 27 November | Central Coast Grammar School FAIRY TALES Dvořák The Noon Witch Rimsky Korsakov Scheherazade Offenbach Tales of Hoffman Ravel Mother Goose Liadov Baba Yaga Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker Williams Harry Potter Narrator Tim Page FAMILY CONCERT All children’s tickets $10
• Performance. Community orchestras support emerging and local musicians. • Ambassadors. A community with an orchestra shows that a thriving music scene promotes well-being and pride.
Why a community orchestra is important • Great Value. There is nothing like the experience of getting all dressed up to a Symphony Orchestra at the Opera House but there is nothing like the ticket price and travel either.
Violin 1 Yuko ElissaFaithElizabethChaylahNatalieHughesAdbyChivasBlajetMcLeodMcGregor Violin 2 Sarah RegRachelFisher-DobbinMontalbanoLear Lauraine Fullbrook Inge Courtney Haentjes Marina Hopcroft Viola Amba SuzieJillHelenaRosemaryMercuriLovellHatumaleRobinsonKim* Cello Natalie Lambert Hilary Day Keiko Clements Zoe HeatherBamberHeinrichs Bass Ian VhairiEsplinTodd Darryl Neve Flute Nicole Wyatt * Rose Priest Oboe Ashley Hanson Robyn Crowley^ Clarinet Helen Hamlin Suzanne Pinter Bassoon Hayden Bruge Joe Wolfe Horn Chris BethDominicArthurHunt^WebsterTynanBeech Trumpet Darren JacintaMichaelJonesTierneyBoyd Trombone David Markham* Phillip Rutherford* Riley Smith Tuba Richard Bull Ian Currer Timpani Stephan Muehr Percussion John Alley Stage Manager Melissa Urquhart Front of House Philip Stroud Jude Hudson Calvert Eddie RobynCalvertWand Artwork Steven Stanke * Central ConservatoriumCoast teacher ~ Central Coast Grammar School student ^ Central Coast Grammar School tutor
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