Philharmonia Orchestra PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA 2009/ The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the world s great orchestras. Acknowledged as the UK

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1 香港文化中心音樂廳 Concert Hall Hong Kong Cultural Centre Please switch off all sound-making devices. Unauthorised photography or recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Thank you for your co-operation. Cover photograph Richard Haughton / Terry O Neill 08 Philharmonia Orchestra 10 Christoph von Dohnányi Programme 15 Programme Notes 21 Soloists Programme 29 Programme Notes 34 Orchestra Members This programme is printed on environmentally friendly paper. Richard Haughton

2 Philharmonia Orchestra PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA 2009/ The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the world s great orchestras. Acknowledged as the UK s foremost musical pioneer, with an extraordinary recording legacy, the Philharmonia leads the field in the quality of its playing, and in its innovative approach to audience development, residencies, music education and the use of new technologies to reach global audiences. All this, together with its relationships with the world s most sought-after artists most importantly its Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Esa-Pekka Salonen place the Philharmonia Orchestra at the heart of British musical life. Of all the orchestras in Britain today, the Philharmonia has the greatest right to proclaim itself the UK s National Orchestra. It is committed to presenting throughout the country the same high quality, live performances that it presents in

3 Richard Haughton /10 13 London and the great concert halls of the world. During the 2009/10 season the Orchestra will perform more than 150 concerts, with additional chamber performances by its soloists, as well as record scores for films, CDs and computer games. For almost 15 years now the Orchestra s work has been underpinned by its much admired UK and International Residency Programme, which began in 1995 with the launch of its residencies at the Bedford Corn Exchange and London s Southbank Centre. During the 2009/10 season the Orchestra will not only perform more than 50 concerts at Southbank Centre s refurbished Royal Festival Hall, but will also celebrate its 13th year as Resident Orchestra of De Montfort Hall in Leicester and its ninth year as Orchestra in Partnership at the Anvil in Basingstoke. The Orchestra s extensive touring schedule this season also includes performances in more than 30 of the finest international concert halls in Europe, China and Japan, with conductors including Esa- Pekka Salonen, Christoph von Dohnányi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Riccardo Muti and Lorin Maazel. 9

4 Conductor Terry O Neill CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI On graduating from the Munich Academy of Music, Berlin-born Christoph von Dohnányi was awarded the Richard Strauss Prize for conducting by the City of Munich. He continued his studies with his grandfather, Ernst von Dohnányi, at Florida State University. In 1953 Dohnányi was hired by Sir Georg Solti of the Frankfurt Opera. At age 27 he became Germany's youngest General Music Director, before becoming Chief Conductor in Kassel and then of Cologne s Westdeutsche Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra. From 1968 to 1984, Dohnányi worked with the Frankfurt Opera and the Hamburg Opera. Dohnányi first conducted the Cleveland Orchestra in He became its Music Director in 1984

5 / and in 2002, he was honoured as its first Music Director Laureate. During Dohnányi's tenure, the orchestra was in residence at New York s Carnegie Hall, and also toured the world extensively, performing in China for the first time in Dohnányi's many recordings with the orchestra include the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, and Wagner's Die Walküre and Das Rheingold. Dohnányi has also made many recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra including Fidelio, Wozzeck, Erwartung, Salome, and symphonic works by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky. He also recorded with Gidon Kremer and András Schiff. Apart from leading the Vienna Philharmonic as a regular guest during the Salzburg Festival, Dohnányi has also been guest conductor for the major orchestras and opera houses of many US and European cities, including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Zürich Tonhalle and Zürich Opera House, where he led new productions of a number of operas. In 1994 Dohnányi was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonia and in 1997, he was made Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, becoming Honorary Conductor of the Philharmonia at the start of the 2008/09 season. Under him, the orchestra performed around the UK, gave a three-concert residency in Vienna's prestigious Musikverein, toured Germany and did a tour of the US. They also collaborated with the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In addition, Dohnányi has been Chief Conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra since Apart from giving concerts throughout Europe, in 2005 Dohnányi and the orchestra toured South America, where they were voted Best Orchestra and Best Conductor by the Association of Critics of Buenos Aires for that year. In 2007 they toured Europe and Japan, and played in Carnegie Hall in the US. In October 2008 they gave a series of concerts in China and Taiwan. 11

6 Programme March 2010 (Thursday) ( ) 43 Ludwig van Beethoven ( ) Overture from The Creatures of Prometheus, Op 43 ( ) E K364 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( ) Sinfonia Concertante in E flat, K364 Allegro maestoso Andante Presto Violin Benjamin Schmid Viola Maxim Rysanov Interval ( ) C D944 Franz Schubert ( ) Symphony No 9 in C, D944, The Great Andante Allegro ma non troppo Piu Moto Andante con moto Scherzo. Allegro vivace Finale. Allegro vivace Allegro vivace Running time: approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes with one interval

7 Programme Notes G C C Ludwig van Beethoven Overture from The Creatures of Prometheus, Op 43 Beethoven completed his incidental music for the ballet The Creature of Prometheus in the spring of This production, which he collaborated on with the Italian dancer-choreographer Salvatore Viganó, drew on several Greek myths, including that of Prometheus, the titan who steals fire for humanity and suffers Zeus s wrath. The production opened at the Burgtheater in March 1801 and was a smashing success, although critics did not find the music to be Beethoven s best effort. Still, the subject undoubtedly inspired him, and the music found its way into his Eroica Variations, Op 35 (1802) and Third Symphony, Op 55 (1803), and marked a turning point in his musical language. He published a piano arrangement of the Prometheus score in 1801 and the overture itself, as his opus 43, three years later. The overture opens with a slow introduction. A dramatic series of full, staccato chords leads to a sustained dominant chord (G major) preparing for the arrival in the home key of a solemn theme in the oboes and horns, with string accompaniment. A crescendo and return to the dominant bring the introduction to a close. Now back in C major, the Allegro begins quietly but with a blisteringly fast melody in the first violins. The woodwinds then present a contrasting theme, again in the dominant. The Allegro material is heard again, this time with the woodwind theme in C major, and the overture closes with a fiery coda. 15

8 E K364 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sinfonia Concertante in E flat, K K364 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a master of the sinfonia concertante. This concerto-like form emerged while he was a teenager and continued to flourish for about 60 years. The French version of the name, sinfonie concertante, was more common throughout Europe. More than half these works were composed for performance in Paris, where this genre appealed to the growing concertgoing public and their delight in virtuosic light music. Almost any combination of two or more solo instruments was possible, with the soloists almost always prominent. Extended cadenzas were common, and the orchestra was usually relegated to an accompanying role. Although many of the early sinfonie concertante were composed for Paris, the genre also flowered in Mannheim under such composers as Cannabich and Danzi. It was in his native Salzburg in 1779, that the 23-year-old Mozart composed his Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, K364. It is likely that the work was first heard at the Archbishop s chapel in Salzburg, with Mozart himself playing the solo viola part. Mozart scored the work for the standard Salzburg orchestra, with pairs of oboes and horns, together with strings. He may, nevertheless, have had Mannheim in mind, where he hoped to land a position at the court of the Elector Karl Theodor. In his use of the crescendo rare in orchestral works of that time we hear Mannheim s great orchestra s influence on Mozart. In many ways Mozart s Sinfonia Concertante breaks with convention. The composer draws extraordinary richness from the small orchestra. Oboes and horns are nearly soloists themselves, interacting vigorously with the violin and viola. In the opening chord of the first movement, with 16

9 C divided violas playing double stops as high as the violins, the oboes in their lowest register and the horns doubling oboes and cellos, Mozart creates a sonority that tells us this is no trivial display piece. In the tragic middle movement in C minor, the soloists trade phrases before the polyphonic interplay of the closing theme, the tension rising as the phrases grow shorter. In the Presto the orchestra takes the lead. It presents the main theme, followed by the soloists who continue the exposition with new themes modulating from the tonic to the dominant, before both soloists and orchestra return to the opening theme in the tonic. The recapitulation follows with a form lying somewhere between sonata and rondo, a movement full of surprises, and a fitting conclusion to one of Mozart s most remarkable compositions of the period. 17

10 C D944 Franz Schubert Symphony No 9 in C, D944, The Great C D944 C E G Franz Schubert s Symphony in C major, D 944, is perhaps best known by Sir George Grove s designation: The Great Symphony in C major. Schubert dated the manuscript of The Great Symphony March 1828, but had composed much of it in early 1825, while visiting Austrian spa towns. The 28-year-old composer completed the symphony in the spring of There was probably no public performance during his lifetime. The Vienna Society of Friends of Music (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien) played it at a rehearsal, some time in A decade later, in 1838, Robert Schumann discovered the manuscript at the home of Schubert s brother. He sent it to Felix Mendelssohn who, as leader of Leipzig s Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted a poorly received performance in It would be decades before it earned a place in the repertoire. The symphony s opening movement aspires to greatness in scale and overall conception. Marked Andante, it begins with a pair of horns playing in unison a charming and deceptively simple melody. In the variations that follow, the melody appears first in the woodwinds, then fortissimo in the trombones, then back to the woodwinds with running string accompaniment, and building to a climax that signals the arrival of the exposition (Allegro). The opening theme, hardly more than a vigorous motive in the strings, bounds along briskly and straight into the folk-like second theme. Presented first in the oboes and bassoons, this second theme makes its way from E minor to the expected dominant (G major). As it falls into the background, the trombones present a series of stern re-statements from the movement s 18

11 opening melody, building the exposition to a climactic conclusion. After the development, which opens with material from the second theme, the exposition returns transformed. The first theme is now subdued; the second theme returns with a combination of mystery and vigour balanced by an extended coda echoing the opening horn theme, now triumphant. Following the monumental opening movement is a march, marked Andante con moto, with a mood that shifts between sternness and introspection, and a solo oboe that is at once seductive and mournful. Although sometimes stormy, the overall tone of the Scherzo is cheerful. Listen especially for the trio section, where the main tune sounds much like For He s a Jolly Good Fellow. The symphony closes in grand and exuberant style. After a silence, the attention grabbing opening theme is followed by a more lyrical, dance-like melody played by the wind instruments with swirling accompaniment from the strings. Programme notes by Brian C Thompson 19

12 Soloists BENJAMIN SCHMID /09 Born in Vienna in 1968, Benjamin Schmid studied in Salzburg, Vienna and at the Curtis Institute in the US. He won a number of international competitions, amongst them the Leopold Mozart Competition and the Carl Flesch Competition, where he won the Mozart, Beethoven and Audience Prizes. Schmid has appeared regularly in orchestral concerts, recitals, chamber music and jazz recitals at the Salzburg Festival since 1986, where he debuted with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Sir Yehudi Menuhin. In 2004, he debuted at the festival with the Vienna Philharmonic, which led to an invitation in 2007 to perform the Korngold violin concerto in three concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic and Seiji Ozawa at the Vienna Musikverein. Current highlights include engagements with leading orchestras such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Gulbenkian Orchestra and the Philharmonia. In the 2008/09 season, some of the orchestras Schmid performed with include the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra and David Zinman, Mozarteum Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Zürich and Bern Chamber Orchestras, and the Tampere Philharmonic. He also performed as soloist in the Salzburg Bach Festival, and went on a chamber music tour of Europe with clarinettist Sabine Meyer. Schmid is artist-in-residence to the Rheinische Philharmonie State Orchestra. In Asia he worked with the Malaysian Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and performed with his jazz trio on tour in Japan. 21

13 MAXIM RYSANOV itunes Ukraine-born and Londonbased, Maxim Rysanov is undoubtedly one of the world s best and most charismatic viola players. Rysanov is regularly invited to perform as a soloist and chamber musician in the UK and abroad, and has been a guest at many prestigious festivals including Lockenhaus, Cheltenham and Spitalfields. He has worked with artists such as Piotr Anderszewski, Leif Ove Andsnes, Janine Jansen, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, and many others. Rysanov s interest in new music is strong. He premiered a new BBC commission by Dobrinka Tabakova at Manchester s Bridgewater Hall, and concertos dedicated to him include works by Tabakova, Artyom Vassiliev and Elena Langer. A worldwide tour is planned for the posthumous premiere of Valentin Bibik s Viola Concerto. Rysanov s last three solo recording projects have all won Gramophone Editor s Choice awards, and a disc of Bach Inventions with Janine Jansen and Torleif Thedéen on Decca reached number one in the itunes charts in the US. This season he was invited to conduct the Sinfonieorchester Basel for a second time and conducted the Swedish premiere of a cello concerto by Dobrinka Tabakova with Kristine Blaumane and the Dala Sinfonietta. Some of the orchestras that have recently invited Rysanov to play as a soloist include the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Guangzhou Symphony. In addition, Rysanov is the current recipient of the Classic FM Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award and is a current member of the BBC New Generation programme. Pavel Kozhevnikov 23

14 Programme March 2010 (Friday) ( ) 26 Felix Mendelssohn ( ) The Hebrides Overture, Op 26 ( ) F 90 Johannes Brahms ( ) Symphony No 3 in F, Op 90 Allegro con brio Andante Poco allegretto Allegro Interval ( ) C 61 Robert Schumann ( ) Symphony No 2 in C, Op 61 Sostenuto assai Allegro, ma non troppo Scherzo: Allegro vivace Adagio espressivo Allegro molto vivace Running time: approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes with one interval

15 Programme Notes Felix Mendelssohn The Hebrides, Overture, Op 26 In true Romantic fashion, the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn found inspiration in the rugged Scottish landscape while visiting the British Isles in After a brief meeting with the novelist Sir Walter Scott, he travelled to the west coast of Scotland, making sketches of the Hebrides islands, including Staffa, with its now famous Fingal s Cave. Back in Rome, in the fall of 1830, he composed the first version of his overture, completing it on 16 December. Dissatisfied with both the score and the title, he continued to revise both, publishing a piano duet version with the title Fingal s Cave an image that many publishers have since used for marketing the music. He completed the second orchestral version of the overture in London s Philharmonic Society gave the first performance on 14 May that same year. The Hebrides is in sonata form and as with many concert overtures of that era it is programmatic without actually telling a story. Rather, it depicts the Scottish landscape musically. A repeated motif in the bassoons, violas and cellos provides much of the material that creates the overture. Beginning softly, the music rises to a crescendo before the violins take up and vary the motif. From the start, Mendelssohn evokes a sense of grandeur by pairing this simple, rhythmic motif with static chords. In quieter passages that follow, one may imagine the sounds of birds. Great climaxes may evoke the image of crashing of waves. A second theme, played first by bassoon and cellos, provides lyrical contrast before the music grows increasingly stormy. On its return, this time introduced by a solo clarinet, the lyrical theme may suggest an isolation or solitude not heard the first time. Again giving way to a tempest. 29

16 F F D A F Johannes Brahms Symphony No 3 in F, Op 90 Brahms completed his third symphony in the spa town of Wiesbaden in the summer of 1883, at the age of 50. At this point in his career, he was among Vienna s most celebrated musicians and a leading figure among conservative Romantics. The Vienna Philharmonic gave the Symphony s premiere on 2 December 1883 led by Hans Richter, an advocate of both Wagner and Brahms. While the Wagnerians on hand that evening hissed the symphony, the overall reception was so positive that it embarrassed Brahms. After an early performance, the critic (and anti-wagnerian) Eduard Hanslick described the work as artistically the most perfect of Brahms symphonies, balancing formal clarity and poetic inspiration. No 3 is the most compact of Brahms s four symphonies, but as Hanslick claimed, rich in orchestral and harmonic invention. With an ambiguous or contradictory character, it has also been described as anti-heroic, owning to expected comparisons with Beethoven s 3rd Symphony. Here, the first movement opens with a grand gesture but it quickly quiets. The Symphony s large-scale harmonic design raises further questions about the overall effect of the work. In the first movement, the exposition is based on thirds moving from F major to D flat, and closing in the unexpected key of A minor (equal to a third below). Despite this and later unexpected turns, the recapitulation will eventually set everything firmly back where it belongs, in the key of F major. After the second movement, which remains largely within the major mode, minor tonalities prevail, bringing with them frequent mood swings and a good deal of melancholy. The third movement opens with one of Brahms finest and saddest melodies. The cellos play it first, followed by the violins, and then a combination 30

17 F C 61 of wind instruments. Episodic material brings us to another tonality but the melody returns like a distant memory, first played by a solo horn and finally by the violins. While the finale will close in F major, it does so with less a sense of triumph than a sense of perseverance. Robert Schumann Symphony No 2 in C, Op D D 1850 C C Schumann composed his Symphony No 1, Spring, very quickly in 1841 and followed it late the same year with a Symphony in D minor. After a failed first performance, he set this latter work aside (he revised it in the 1850s to become his Symphony No 4). Thus the Symphony in C major became his Symphony No 2. He began work on it in 1845, but health problems delayed completion until October 1846, by which time the composer was in a state of mental exhaustion. Its premiere, with Felix Mendelssohn conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on 5 November 1846, was not a success, quite possibly because it came late on a full programme. Schumann then made some changes and at a second performance on 16 November it was very well received. It has since become widely acknowledged as his finest symphony and indeed a masterpiece. The mental strain Schumann was suffering may have been in part a result of an intense effort to create something that was entirely new. The musicologist John Daverio described Schumann s effort as [transporting] the genre from a profane into a quasi-religious realm. While it is clear that Schumann was influenced by Schubert s Great C Major Symphony, the works of Bach and Beethoven, and others, it is a work of great originality. The first movement begins with a long, slow introduction. When the Allegro arrives, the exposition is quite short and, as in Beethoven s 31

18 B A C B C C C C 3rd Symphony, the development far exceeds it in scale, as does the coda. The Scherzo contains plenty of challenges for the musicians. The second of its two trios presents the notes B flat/a/c/b naturally spelling Bach. The only large-scale deviation from C major comes in the Adagio which is in C minor. At its climax, the melody climbs from gentle lyricism into the realm of anguish. A fugue then appears briefly but dissipates back into the main melody. The finale begins with an attention-grabbing C major scale rising to a series of four chords. The opening melody, exuberant and joyful, presents no surprises. The second theme is none other than that of the Adagio, now accelerated. The development hints at material from the first and third movements. Then everything comes to a stop on C minor. From the silence, a solo oboe plays a new melody derived from the movement s opening gesture. This now becomes the focus of development and a grand and very satisfying conclusion. Schumann had, in Daverio s words, traced a path from the mundane to the divine, the secular to the sacred. Programme notes by Brian C Thompson 33

19 Orchestra Members Patron HRH The Prince of Wales KG KT GCB OM President Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Honorary Conductor for Life Principal Guest Conductor Conductor Emeritus Conductor Laureate Artistic Director, Music of Today Concert Masters Vincent Meyer Esa-Pekka Salonen Christoph von Dohnányi Sir Charles Mackerras Kurt Sanderling Vladimir Ashkenazy Julian Anderson James Clark, Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay First Violin Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay Maya Iwabuchi Clare Thompson Imogen East Eleanor Wilkinson Timothy Birchall Alan Brind Soong Choo Laura Dixon Victoria Irish Stuart James Justin Jones Grace Lee Miriam Teppich Adrian Varela Emma Wragg Second Violin Annabelle Meare Samantha Reagan Gillian Costello Susan Hedger Sophie Appleton Helen Cochrane Timothy Colman Fiona Cornall Franziska Mattishent Julian Milone Brian Moyes Teresa Pople Gideon Robinson Helena Roques 34

20 Viola Catherine Bullock Rebecca Chambers Nicholas Bootiman Michael Turner Ellen Blythe Samuel Burstin Pamela Ferriman Gwendolyn Fisher Cheremie Hamilton-Miller Gijs Kramers Peter Norriss Rebecca Wade Cello Timothy Walden Anne Baker Ann Barber Simon Cobcroft Deirdre Cooper Judith Fleet Vanessa Park Avis Perthen Victoria Simonsen Philipp Wiede Double Bass Neil Tarlton Christian Geldsetzer Simon Oliver Catherine Colwell Ian Hall Graham Mitchell Gareth Sheppard Jeremy Watt Oboe Gordon Hunt Michael O Donnell Rachel Ingleton Clarinet Mark van de Wiel Laurent Ben Slimane Bassoon Meyrick Alexander Graham Hobbs Contrabassoon Luke Whitehead Horn Philip Eastop Carsten Williams Timothy Jackson Kira Doherty James Handy Trumpet Mark David Mark Calder Trombone Donal Bannister Philip White Bass Trombone Christian Jones Timpani Andrew Smith Flute Paul Edmund-Davies June Scott Managing Director David Whelton Deputy Managing Director Fiona Martin Tours and Projects Manager Rosemary Low Concerts and Tours Assistant Elizabeth Assmann Personnel Manager Per Hedberg Stage and Transport Manager Roy Davies Assistant Stage and Transport Manager Steven Brown 35