Listen to This the Rest Is Noise

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1$7,21$/72853$571(5 NATIONAL TOUR PARTNER On behalf of BNP Paribas, I’m delighted to welcome you to the Listen to This — The Rest is Noise Tour by the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO). 2011 marks an important year for BNP Paribas as we celebrate our 130th anniversary in Australia. We are very proud of our long history in this country, dating back to 1881 as the fi rst major foreign bank in Australia when we commenced operations to fi nance the wool trade between Australia and Europe. Today, BNP Paribas is a leader in global banking and fi nancial services providing Australian corporates, Financial Institutions and multinational companies with customised solutions in Corporate and Investment Banking, Asset Management and Securities Services. This year also marks our 5th year of partnership with the ACO, as a National Tour Partner since 2006. While our client relationships help to grow the Australian economy, we are equally committed to supporting the performing arts locally and around the world. With this tour, the ACO will take you on a journey of a different kind as Alex Ross, music critic to The New Yorker, presents two programs inspired by his best-selling books Listen to This and The Rest is Noise. We are delighted to bring you this ACO tour and we trust that you will enjoy it immensely.

NATIONAL TOUR PARTNER DIDIER MAHOUT CEO, BNP PARIBAS AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND TOUR TWO THE REST IS NOISE RICHARD TOGNETTI Artistic Director and Lead Violin ALEX ROSS Curator and Presenter

TAKEMITSU STRAVINSKY Nostalghia “Apotheosis”, from (Richard Tognetti violin) Apollo

BRITTEN INTERVAL Variations on a Th eme of Frank Bridge WEBERN 1. Introduction and Th eme Five Movements, Op.5 2. Variation I. Adagio 1. Heftig bewegt 3. Variation II. March 2. Sehr langsam 4. Variation III. Romance 3. Sehr lebhaft 5. Variation IV. Aria Italiana 4. Sehr langsam 6. Variation V. 5. In zarter Bewegung Bourrée classique 7. Variation VI. Wiener Walzer XENAKIS 8. Variation VII. Voile Moto Perpetuo 9. Variation VIII. Funeral March STRAUSS 10. Variation IX. Chant Metamorphosen 11. Variation X. Fugue and Finale

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, by Alex Ross, music critic at The New Approximate durations (minutes): Yorker since 1996, was published 13 – 25 – 4 – INTERVAL – 11 – 5 – 26 in 2007. The Rest Is Noise is his fi rst book, and is a captivating Th is concert will last approximately two hours including interval. history of composition in the 20th century. During the writing of the book Ross started blogging CANBERRA PERTH SYDNEY regularly at therestisnoise.com, Llewellyn Hall Concert Hall City Recital Hall a site which remains one of the Sat 5 Mar 8pm Wed 9 Mar 7.30pm Angel Place most widely-read and infl uential Tue 15 Mar 8pm music blogs. More about the MELBOURNE SYDNEY book can be found at Town Hall Opera House WOLLONGONG therestisnoise.com/noise, Mon 7 Mar 8pm Sun 13 Mar 2pm IPAC including a 15-page catalogue Th u 17 Mar 7.30pm of audio samples and an iTunes playlist. This concert, also entitled The Rest Is Noise, takes its lead from the book, charting signifi cant moments in Th e Australian Chamber Orchestra reserves the right to alter scheduled 20th-century music. programs or artists as necessary.

2 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA TOUR TWO LISTEN TO THIS RICHARD TOGNETTI Artistic Director and Lead Violin ALEX ROSS Curator and Presenter FIONA CAMPBELL Mezzo Soprano ARAÑÉS PURCELL (arr. Graham Ross) Dido’s Lament (“When Chacona: I am laid in earth”), a la vida bona from Dido and Aeneas

BACH INTERVAL Chaconne, from Partita for solo violin ADAMS No.2 in D minor, Shaker Loops BWV1004 1. Shaking and Trembling 2. Hymning Slews DOWLAND 3. Loops and Verses (arr. David Bruce) 4. A Final Shaking Two Laments: CLYNE “Go crystal tears” and Within Her Arms “Flow my tears” BARBER

Listen To This is Alex Ross’s PURCELL Adagio for strings second book. Published last year, Chacony in G minor it collects a number of pieces RAMEAU published in his role as music critic for The New Yorker as (arr. Graham Ross) well as new essays – in no way Chaconne, from conﬁ ned only to classical music. Dardanus One of the entirely new chapters is entitled “Chacona, Lamento, Approximate durations (minutes): Walking Blues” — as he puts it, 2 – 13 – 9 – 7 – 4 – INTERVAL – 25 – 12 – 7 – 5 “a history of music told through bass lines”. That’s the leaping- Th is concert will last approximately two hours including interval. off point for this concert which follows various incarnations of the chaconne and lamentation MELBOURNE BRISBANE across several centuries. Town Hall QPAC You can read about the book at Sun 6 Mar 2.30pm Mon 14 Mar 8pm therestisnoise.com/listentothis — there’s an iTunes playlist and ADELAIDE SYDNEY 19 pages of audio samples to Town Hall City Recital Hall accompany reading. Since Tue 8 Mar 8pm Angel Place 2009 Alex Ross has also been Wed 16 Mar 7pm blogging at a site headed Unquiet Sat 19 Mar 7pm Thoughts — more of a companion to or extension of his writing for The New Yorker — which can be found at newyorker.com/online/ Th e Australian Chamber Orchestra reserves the right to alter scheduled blogs/alexross. programs or artists as necessary.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 3 MESSAGE FROM THE GENERAL MANAGER

FREE PROGRAMS To save trees and money, we ask that you share one program between two people where Th rough his regular articles in Th e New Yorker and more possible. recently with the publication of his books Th e Rest Is Noise and Listen To Th is, Alex Ross has won admirers around the PREPARE IN ADVANCE world who have been captivated by his unique ability to Read the program before the concert. A PDF and e-reader write with insight, sensitivity and depth about music, this version of the program are most abstract of arts. available at aco.com.au and on the ACO iPhone app one week Th anks to the support of BNP Paribas, the ACO has been before each tour begins, together with music clips, videos and able to bring Alex Ross to Australia for this extensive podcasts. national tour, and off er audiences around the country the chance to hear him speak about the music which he has HAVE YOUR SAY selected in these fascinating programs. We invite your feedback about this concert at In the week of 14 March, one hundred musicians from aco.com.au/yoursay or by email to [email protected]. around the world and mentors from some of the world’s top orchestras are gathering at the Sydney Opera House to FREE MONTHLY form the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. Richard Tognetti E-NEWSLETTER will be soloist in the fi nale concert, conducted by Michael For news, special offers and to be sent background information Tilson Th omas, on Sunday 20 March, and will also direct about the concerts, sign up a string orchestra concert on Friday 18 March. Details and for the ACO’s enewsletter at bookings at sydneyoperahouse.com. Richard is always the aco.com.au. fi rst with the latest new technology so he was instantly ACO COMMUNITY drawn to this remarkable project in which thousands of For behind the scenes news, hopeful musicians from around the world submitted their become an ACO Facebook fan or audition videos on YouTube to be assessed by a global Twitter follower. panel before being selected to come to Sydney to form this ACO ON THE RADIO truly international ensemble. You’ll be able to watch the ABC Classic FM whole project on YouTube including auditions, master- 11 March 8pm classes, interviews and the fi nal concerts. Girl with the Golden Flute (Sharon Bezaly, Richard Tognetti and the ACO). 16 March 1.05pm TIMOTHY CALNIN Intense (Steven Isserlis, Richard GENERAL MANAGER Tognetti and the ACO perform AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Bartók). 19 March 1pm The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross’ pre-concert talk and music by Richard Tognetti and the ACO). 19 March 1pm Listen to This (Alex Ross’ pre- SUBSCRIBER OFFER concert talk and music by Richard Tognetti, Fiona Campbell and Alex Ross is presenting both The Rest is Noise and Listen to the ACO). This in Sydney and Melbourne. If you would like to see the other program too, quote promotion code ROSS when you NEXT TOUR book at aco.com.au or by phone on 1800 444 444 and THE GLIDE receive a 10% discount. 4 — 8 April

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 5 THE REST IS NOISE

ACO Performance History Alex Ross writes:

There is only one item in this In Germany, the year 1945 is sometimes called Stunde program that has not been played previously in an ACO Null, or Zero Hour – the moment at which history subscription concert — Xenakis’ reverted to a primordial state. Th is concert, a brief survey Voile. Takemitsu’s Nostalghia of twentieth-century musical achievement, pivots around was fi rst performed by the that cataclysmic year. In the early months of 1945, all the ACO in 1999, then again in 2002. Britten’s Variations on composers represented here were alive and acutely aware of a Theme of Frank Bridge has their surroundings, although they resided in very diff erent frequented ACO concerts, worlds. Tōru Takemitsu was a teen-aged soldier barricaded being played in national tours in an underground fortress in the mountains west of Tokyo. in 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996 and 2005. Strauss’ Metamorphosen Benjamin Britten was a conscientious objector preparing to was included in the ACO’s fi rst launch his chilling opera Peter Grimes, a study in violence self-promoted subscription begetting violence. Igor Stravinsky, the long-reigning season in 1985. Subsequently chieftain of modern music, was living in exile in Hollywood, it was played in 1990, 1998, and 2009. Webern’s Five California, his pure aesthetic not untouched by war. Th e Movements were included in young Greek composer Iannis Xenakis was recovering from a 1999 tour and Stravinsky’s a ghastly facial wound that he had suff ered while fi ghting in Apollo was included in its the Communist resistance. Anton Webern, a loyal follower complete form in 1998. This performance also included four of the pioneering Viennese modernist Arnold Schoenberg, members of The Australian had only a few months to live; an occupying American Ballet on stage. soldier would kill him at summer’s end. And the ageing German master Richard Strauss, who had once struck a heroic pose in Ein Heldenleben and Also sprach Zarathustra, was living in fearful seclusion, his reputation tainted by his associations with the Nazis, his spirit shattered by the destruction of German cultural treasures.

Th e twentieth century was the darkest and bloodiest in human history – “the century of death”, Leonard Bernstein once called it. Correspondingly, its music fl irted with sonic chaos, the noise of revolution and destruction. Many listeners still struggle to accept the language that Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and other innovators devised, although it has become familiar in other contexts, notably in Hollywood movies: try to imagine Hitchcock’s fi lms without Bernard Herrmann’s nowhere harmonies, or Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey without the otherworldly soundscapes of György Ligeti. As museumgoers have come to terms with the most radical works of modern painting, perhaps concertgoers are ready to accept this outwardly “diffi cult” music, which bears essential witness to the

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 7 century’s agonies. And it should be remembered that twentieth-century composers were not merely instigators of mayhem; they also immersed themselves in past traditions, drew inspiration from folk and popular genres, and discovered new kinds of beauty, as in the ecstatic chorales of Olivier Messiaen and the austere meditations of Arvo Pärt. In assessing the twentieth century, we must never lose sight of the dizzying diversity of the period: it was a time, as John Cage once said, of “many streams,” intersecting in a vast delta of musical possibility.

We begin with a trio of works that look backward more than they look forward. Takemitsu belonged to a generation of Japanese composers who joined the international avant-garde in the 1950s and 60s; in later years, he often fell into a retrospective mood, savouring bittersweet chords that evoked the years before the age of world war. He had a particular love for Debussy, whose revolutionary musical ideas – he, rather than Schoenberg, might be considered the originator of atonality – unfolded in an atmosphere of dreamlike refi nement. Nostalghia was written in 1987, in memory of the great Russian Toru– TAKEMITSU fi lmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, whose fi lm of the same title (b. Tokyo, 1930 — d. Tokyo, ends with one of the most breathtaking shots in the history 1996) of cinema: the camera pans backward from a farmhouse Nostalghia to reveal a ruined, ghostly abbey enclosing the scene. Th e image suggests the haunting of the present by the past, and Takemitsu’s score has the same tenor. Its richly ambiguous harmonies, which are interspersed with breathy pauses, often consist of triads superimposed – warm tonal chords layered upon each other. Th e yearning, halting melodic phrases may remind some listeners of Tristan und Isolde, and, indeed, the “Tristan chord” smoulders softly in the violas and cellos near the beginning, as the solo violin launches into the fi rst of many slow-moving, upward- tending cadenzas. Th e beginning is marked “calm and mournful”, and that tone persists to the end.

Britten, the dominant ﬁ gure in twentieth-century British music, had an even more ambivalent attitude toward the march of innovation. Although he eagerly studied the Benjamin BRITTEN latest scores of Schoenberg, Berg, and Stravinsky in his (b. Lowestoft, 1913 — d. youth, he also showed deep nostalgia for the musical past, Aldeburgh, 1976) taking particular inspiration from the airs and chaconnes Variations on a Th eme of Purcell. Variously disdainful and fearful of the big urban of Frank Bridge centres, Britten spent most of his life in Aldeburgh, an old

8 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA fi shing village on the east coast of England, and tailored his music to halls and churches in the area. Variations on a Th eme of Frank Bridge (1937), a tribute to his principal teacher, is the work of a twenty-three-old prodigy exulting in his capacity to mimic many styles: they touch on Debussyish impressionism, Rossini-esque comic opera, the Viennese waltz, strenuous Germanic counterpoint (a fi nal fugue in eleven parts), and, at the heart of the piece, a funeral march that hints at a more ambitious, heartfelt kind of writing. Perhaps the most original passage in the score is the short “Chant”, with violas playing halting, muted chords amid an ominous whine of high-register harmonics and scattered pizzicatos. It anticipates those moments in Peter Grimes when the anguished hero stands against the indiff erent vastness of the ocean.

Stravinsky’s ballet Apollo, composed in 1927 and 1928, is magnifi cently at odds with the modern world. Th e Russian master had, of course, acquired celebrity with a very diff erent kind of music: on a legendary night in 1913, the assaultive dissonances and pounding rhythms of Th e Rite of Spring caused a good portion of Paris high society to lose its mind. In the 1920s, though, Stravinsky performed a volte-face, abjuring sonic violence and cultivating a so- called “neoclassical” style that resurrected pre-Romantic Igor STRAVINSKY forms. Although Stravinsky remained unmistakably (b. Oranienbaum, near St himself, rearranging old materials in cubistic collages, the Petersburg, 1882 — d. New transformation was startling, and it had something to do York, 1971) with the composer’s sense of unease in the face of social “Apotheosis”, from upheaval and technological change. Apollo, which was the Apollo occasion for Stravinsky’s fi rst collaboration with George Balanchine, is among the purest, most serenely tonal of Stravinsky’s neoclassical pieces: its steadily pulsing rhythms recall dances at the court of Louis XIV, in particular the ballets of Lully. Th e story tells of the maturation of the young god Apollo, who receives instruction from the muses Calliope, Polyhymnia, and Terpsichore. In the fi nal movement, “Apothéose” (“Apotheosis”), which depicts Apollo’s ascent to Parnassus, hypnotically circling patterns suggest a sublime stasis. As rhythmic values progressively lengthen, from quarter notes (crotchets) to half notes (minims) and fi nally to whole notes (semibreves), the mythic fi gures seem to dissolve into a motionless frieze, their fl esh turning to marble. One thinks of William Butler Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”: “. . . to sing / To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 9 After interval, we plunge into the modernist maelstrom. In a series of works produced between the end of 1907 and the beginning of 1909, Arnold Schoenberg, erstwhile epigone of Wagner and Richard Strauss, set aside the familiar harmonies of Western music and unleashed startling new combinations of tones. Webern, who began studying with Schoenberg in 1904, was only a step or two behind his teacher in this quest into the unknown, and felt immediately at home upon arrival. Th e Five Movements for String Quartet, from which the Five Movements for String Orchestra derive, were written in the fi rst part of Anton WEBERN 1909, and are characteristic of his emergent style: the (b. Vienna, 1883 — d. Mittersill, language is hyper-compressed, super-refi ned, yet explosive 1945) in impact. Th e fi rst movement opens with a fl urry of Five Movements, Op.5 expressionistic eff ects: jagged intervals, snapping pizzicato notes, ghostly tones produced by placing the bow next to the bridge or drawing the wood across the strings. Th en, in a microscopically brief second theme, an otherworldly lyric voice emerges – brief yearning phrases that might have been cut adrift from some Wagner opera or Mahler symphony sunk beneath the waves. Th at lyric vein takes over entirely in the second movement, which is music on the edge of silence, the fi nal phrase marked “scarcely audible”. Th e two succeeding movements replicate the contrasts of the opening. Th e fi nal movement, an eerie scene of cries and whispers, begins and ends with the rising interval F-sharp to B – a shard of tonality that in this context sounds strange and alien.

In the years following the Second World War, music underwent a second upheaval, one that made Schoenberg and his pupils seem like reactionaries by comparison. A young generation scarred by war, genocide, and totalitarian kitsch sought to liberate itself from a compromised tradition. Conventional forms dissolved into splintered sequences of gestures, discernible harmonies gave way to ambient clouds of sound, electronic noise invaded the instrumental sphere. Some composers attempted to organize music along mathematical lines; others, in the spirit of John Cage, let chance take over. Xenakis, who Iannis XENAKIS studied engineering and architecture alongside music, (b. Braila, Romania, 1922 — seemed to belong to the “mathematical” camp, yet his ﬁ rst d. Paris, 2001) characteristic works of the 1950s stand out for their visceral Voile impact, their raw shocks and sensations. Voile (1995), whose title might be read in French as either “sail” or “veil”, begins with a “cluster” chord, a ferociously buzzing pile-up

10 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA of tones across a huge range. As in Webern, but to an even more extreme degree, violent sounds – upper-register shrieks, sirenlike glissandos from one note to another, stamping rhythms, a brutal form of collective chant – give way to moments of trembling repose. From time to time, a simple interval of a ﬁ fth emerges from the seething texture, as if a shaft of sunlight were falling on a battleﬁ eld.

In the ﬁ rst years of the twentieth century, Strauss stood at the head of the musical avant-garde; one paper named him the “leader of the moderns”. History rocketed forward, and amid the jazzy swirl of the 1920s Strauss increasingly had the look of a Romantic relic. He accepted a position in the Nazi cultural machine in part because he hoped to regain his former eminence. He was forced to resign after the Gestapo intercepted a letter in which he spoke contemptuously of Nazi ideology. He nonetheless continued to humiliate himself by seeking favour with one functionary or another. By 1945 he seemed a broken Richard STRAUSS man. Yet his genius had mysteriously reawakened: his late (b. Munich, 1864 — d. works, from the opera Daphne onward, suggest a man Garmisch-Partenkirchen, “lost to the world”, to take a phrase from one of Mahler’s 1949) greatest songs. Metamorphosen was ﬁ nished in the last Metamorphosen weeks of the Nazi nightmare: its title comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which furnished the tale of Daphne. Lush on the surface, the music is peculiarly dense, almost claustrophobic in feeling. At the opening we hear four chords in sequence, pinned on a descending chromatic line. Collectively they spell out eleven of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale; Strauss brushes against the twelve- tone system of the exiled Schoenberg. At the end comes a brooding quotation from the funeral march of Beethoven’s Eroica. It is like a funeral for the entire German musical tradition. Blackest night descends.

Th e Australian Chamber Orchestra will play these works of Webern, Xenakis, and Strauss in unbroken sequence. Together, they tell a story emblematic of the twentieth century in all its terrible intensity – a narrative of foreboding, catastrophe, and lamentation. Strauss should not, however, have the ﬁ nal word. Music has been reborn many times since 1945, and somewhere a young composer is about to fashion the next great metamorphosis of a thousand-year tradition.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 11 LISTEN TO THIS

ACO Performance History Alex Ross writes:

Dido’s Lament was performed “Music … is in the highest degree a universal language,” in national tours by the ACO in 1995 and again in 2008. wrote Arthur Schopenhauer in Th e World as Will and Both the Barber and the Representation. It is, in fact, nothing of the sort. Arguments Rameau have been included rage endlessly over the question of what music is and how in ACO programs only once it should behave. One man’s favourite tune is another in previous years — 2001 and 2005 respectively. All the woman’s noise. Th e grandmother who loves Mozart can’t other items in this program stand her grandson’s hip-hop, and vice versa. In some ways, appear for the ﬁ rst time in an this is as it should be. Just as we would not want to live in ACO series. a world that adhered to one language, one political system, or one mode of religious belief, we would not want to live in a world that imposed a single, ﬁ xed concept of musical sound. Totalitarian regimes have in common an urge to foist such concepts on the population.

All the same, musical history displays profound continuities, suggesting deeper likenesses beneath a variegated surface. We hear patterns recurring across vast stretches of time: you can fi nd essentially the same descending four-note bass line in Monteverdi’s Lamento della ninfa and Ray Charles’s “Hit the Road Jack”, and in each case the insistently repeating ostinato – Italian for “obstinate” – indicates trouble in matters of love. It is possible that certain fi gures carry intrinsic, quasi-universal signifi cance. Certainly, a motif that proceeds slowly downward, step by step, has been linked to feelings of sadness since at least the Renaissance period. Th is program, which spans more than four hundred years, follows a few such threads of sonic DNA – although music is too slippery a medium for anyone to claim defi nitively that it “means” one thing or another.

We begin with the Spanish dance known as the chacona – a seemingly disposable form that has drawn the attention Dancing a chacona of composers in every period of modern musical history. Juan ARAÑÉS Th e dance was ﬁ rst noticed in Peru, at the end of the (b. Catalonia, c. late-1500s — sixteenth century; it quickly spread to Spain and then to d. Seo de Urgel, c. 1649) other European countries. It was a naughty little number, Chacona: a la vida bona its lyrics depicting all manner of sexual shenanigans and Arranged by Graham Ross concomitant social transgressions. One of the liveliest

12 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA written-down chaconas is “Un sarao de la chacona”, also known as “A la vida bona”, published in 1624 by the Spanish musician Juan Arañés: “To the good life, la vida bona, / Let’s all go now to Chacona.” Like most examples of the genre, this chacona is in quick triple time, with a bouncy emphasis on the second beat. We will hear it in an arrangement by the composer Graham Ross.

J.S. Bach’s Ciaccona (commonly called by the French “Chaconne”) in D minor, the ﬁ nal movement of his Second Partita for solo violin (1720), is, on the surface, so far removed from the Spanish chacona that the title seems almost ironic. Th is is evidently the sound of a soul in crisis, with signature ﬁ gures of lament appearing throughout. Following the example of Girolamo Frescobaldi and other early Baroque masters, Bach has transformed the merry repetitions of the chacona into a forbidding tour-de- force of thematic development. Sixty-four times we hear Johann Sebastian variations of the stark four-bar theme that is stated at the BACH outset. A contrasting episode in D major promises an (b. Eisenach, 1685 — d. Leipzig, escape from the prevailing gloom, yet over a descending 1750) four-note motif the original D-minor mood returns. All Chaconne, from Partita the same, traces of the dance remain. Th e Ciaccona is still for solo violin No.2 in in triple metre, with periodic stresses on the second beat. D minor, BWV1004 Th ere is improvisatory wildness in this music, more than a trace of free-spirited fantasy. Bodily pleasure has its place even in the darkest corners of Bach’s world.

A similar paradox characterises the work of John Dowland, the master lutenist-composer of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. A man of innately melancholy temperament, the Hamlet of the musical scene, he named one of his pavans Semper Dowland semper Dolens (“Always Dowland, always dolorous”). Yet there is something oddly seductive in his rituals of sorrow: “Go Crystal Tears” and “Flow My Tears”, from Dowland’s First and Second Books of Songs (1597 and 1600), are luxuriously beautiful spaces in which the daily world recedes and time stops for a while. John DOWLAND “Flow My Tears” pivots on the same four-note falling (b. London, 1563 — d. London, motif that occurs in so many laments across history. David 1626) Bruce has arranged the Dowland songs for voice and string Two Laments: orchestra, interposing brief cadenzas for solo violin and “Go crystal tears” and solo cello to vary the texture. “Flow my tears” Arranged by David Bruce

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 13 Th e ﬁ rst half ends with two pieces by Henry Purcell, Dowland’s successor in the realm of sensuous melancholy: the Chacony in G Minor, a stately dance that echoes the style of the court of Louis XIV (circa 1680); and the monumental lament “When I am laid in earth”, which ends the short opera Dido and Aeneas (circa 1689). In the latter aria, the Queen of Carthage, abandoned by Aeneas, bids farewell over nine grave iterations of a descending chromatic bass line, the chromatic scale long having been associated with emotional distress. (Th ink of consecutive notes on the piano keyboard, both white and black keys.) Henry PURCELL Th is is a chaconne in all but name, and in the gentle (b. London, 1659 — d. London, pulsing of the accompaniment you may sense a swaying 1695) dance of grief. At the same time, the voice audibly tugs Chacony in G minor against the relentless repetition of the bass, pushing Dido’s Lament (“When I toward the top of its range. Once the climactic statement am laid in earth”), from is made – “Remember me, but ah! forget my fate” – Dido is Dido and Aeneas ready to surrender to the ostinato of fate.

In the twentieth century, venerable forms that had faded from view during the Classical and Romantic periods abruptly resurfaced, the chaconne and the lament aria among them. In an age of machines, composers as diverse as Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartók, and Shostakovich found Photo: Margretta Mitchell Margretta Photo: new fascination in mechanisms of musical repetition – ostinatos, ground basses, drones, loops. Th at interest only intensifi ed in the century’s last decades. Steve Reich’s pioneering minimalist pieces of the 1960s were derived from experiments with looping patterns on tape recorders; John Adams, perhaps the most widely beloved of living John ADAMS American composers, followed Reich in assembling (b. Worcester, Massachusetts, large structures from minute repeating patterns. Shaker 1947) Loops, his breakthrough string-ensemble work of 1978 Shaker Loops (revised 1983), grows from microscopic musical cells, which are in constant fl ux and periodically disappear into a haze of trembling, trilling sonorities. Th e title alludes to the American religious sect known as the Shakers, whose worship ceremonies fl irted with wild states of consciousness; in the composer’s words, Shaker Loops evokes an “ecstatic frenzy of a dance that culminated in an epiphany of physical and spiritual transcendence.”

14 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Anna Clyne, a London-born composer who presently lives in Chicago, has imaginatively combined centuries of musical tradition with minimalist methods and electronic elements.Within Her Arms (2009), which Clyne wrote in memory of her mother, is steeped in the ancient language of lament, in particular the ardent melancholy of Dowland; you repeatedly hear a quick falling ﬁ gure that recalls the opening of “Flow My Tears”. Th e atmosphere of grief is increased by weeping glissandos, or slides from one note to another, and by lingering silences. From time to time, the composer asks the players to breathe in and out, in Anna CLYNE audible gasps. Th e title comes from the Zen Buddhist (b. London, 1980) monk Th ich Nhat Hanh: “Earth will keep you within her Within Her Arms arms dear one / So that tomorrow you will be transformed into ﬂ owers…”

Samuel Barber’s Adagio for strings – a string-orchestra version of the slow movement of his String Quartet in B Minor (1936–38) – is almost an oﬃ cial piece of mourning music in the United States: it was heard on the radio with the announcement of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death, and was later played in memory of John F. Kennedy and of the victims of the September 11th attacks. It has also appeared in various movies, most famously in Oliver Stone’s Vietnam-war drama Platoon. Part of its expressive power derives from its archaic touches: the slowly unfurling strings of quarter notes (crotchets) that Samuel BARBER make up so much of its texture are redolent of Renaissance (b. West Chester, polyphony. Unlike so many laments, the Adagio has a Pennsylvania, 1910 — d. New principal line that keeps pressing upward. Th e score is York, 1981) repeatedly marked with the word “cantando” (“singing”). Adagio for strings It’s an open question whether Barber intended the piece to have an explicitly mournful implication; he reportedly disliked the fact that it ﬁ gured so often in funerals, and it was not played at his own.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 15 At the end, we return to the chaconne in its dancing guise – although it is a dance of royal splendour and heft. Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis XIV’s chief court composer, was in the habit of ending his courtly entertainments with a chaconne or passacaille (a related dance); the swinging, circling triplet rhythm represented the reconciliation of warring forces and, metaphorically, the healing eff ect of the Sun King’s majesty. Jean-Philippe Rameau, who departed from Lully’s style in various ways, nonetheless preserved many of Lully’s signature devices, and his tragédie lyrique Dardanus (1739) ends with one of the Jean-Philippe grandest of all chaconnes – a dance celebrating the marriage RAMEAU of a mythical Grecian couple and the end of internecine (b. Dijon, 1683 — d. Paris, 1764) confl ict. Adding depth to the scene is a G-minor middle Chaconne, from Dardanus section which, in a reversal of the structure of Bach’s Arranged by Graham Ross Ciaccona, casts a shadow of remembered sorrow over a mainly joyous fi nale.

16 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ALEX ROSS CURATOR AND PRESENTER

Alex Ross was born in Washington, DC, in 1968. Th e son of two research mineralogists, he studied piano and composition from an early age and majored in English literature at Harvard University. Shortly after graduating from college, in 1990, he began writing on music for various publications, including Th e New Republic and Fanfare. In 1992, he joined the staﬀ of the New York Times, and in 1996 he became the music critic of Th e New Yorker, where he is still happily employed.

Ross began working on his fi rst book, Th e Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, in 1999, and fi nished it only in 2007, after an arduous writing process that involved cutting the manuscript in half. Th e book became an international bestseller and has been translated into sixteen languages. It was selected as one of the New York Times’s ten best books of the year; won a National Book Critics Circle Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and the Premio Napoli; and was a fi nalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His second book, Listen to Th is, appeared in late 2010; it combines essays on classical composers and musicians with profi les of several pop artists, including Björk and Bob Dylan. He is now working on a book entitled Wagnerism, an account of Richard Wagner’s cultural impact.

Ross has taught writing at Princeton University and has received honorary doctorates from the New England Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music. In 2008, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. He is delighted to be collaborating with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and joining them on this tour.

therestisnoise.com

18 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA FIONA CAMPBELL MEZZO SOPRANO

Australian born mezzo soprano Fiona Campbell is an accomplished international performer, recitalist and recording artist. Vocal winner of the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award, and the Opera Awards in the prestigious Australian Singing Competition, Fiona has consistently received wide critical acclaim for her powerful performances and exquisite musicianship.

Fiona has appeared as a principal artist with the major ensembles in Australia as well as the Brodsky Quartet, Tokyo Philharmonic, Soloists of Royal Opera House Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Opera North and Pinchgut Opera.

Career highlights include singing several concerts with the legendary tenor José Carreras in Japan and Korea, and as his special guest artist in Australia. Fiona recently made her debut at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Cadogan Hall in London with renowned soprano Barbara Bonney.

In 2011 her busy concert schedule includes Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire with the Australia Ensemble and appearing as the guest artist with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra in their May concert series. Fiona also has an exciting new collaboration with the Australian String Quartet and her latest album, Baroque Duets, features a world premiere recording of Handel on the innovative new label, Vexations840.

ﬁ onacampbell.com.au

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 19 RICHARD TOGNETTI AO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND LEAD VIOLIN AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Australian violinist and conductor Richard Tognetti has established an international reputation for his compelling performances and artistic individualism. He studied at the Sydney Conservatorium with Alice Waten and in his home town of Wollongong with William Primrose, and at the Bern Conservatory (Switzerland) with Igor Ozim, where he was awarded the Tschumi Prize as the top graduate soloist in 1989. Later that year he led several performances of the ACO, and was appointed Leader. He was subsequently appointed Artistic Director of the Orchestra. Tognetti performs on period, modern and electric instruments. His numerous arrangements, compositions and transcriptions have expanded the chamber orchestra repertoire and have been ‘Richard Tognetti is one performed throughout the world. of the most characterful, Highlights of his career as director, soloist or chamber music incisive and impassioned partner include the Sydney Festival (as conductor of Mozart’s violinists to be heard today.’ Mitridate); and appearances with the Handel & Haydn Society THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK) (Boston), Hong Kong Philharmonic, Camerata Salzburg, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and the Nordic Chamber Orchestra. He is Artistic Director of the Maribor Festival in Slovenia. As soloist Richard Tognetti has appeared with the ACO and the Select Discography major Australian symphonies, including the Australian premiere As soloist: of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto with the Sydney Symphony. He has BACH Sonatas for Violin and collaborated with colleagues from various art forms, including Keyboard Joseph Tawadros, Dawn Upshaw, James Crabb, Emmanuel ABC Classics 476 5942 Pahud, Neil Finn, Tim Freedman, Paul Capsis, Bill Henson and 2008 ARIA Award Winner Michael Leunig. In 2003, Richard was co-composer of the score BACH Violin Concertos ABC Classics 476 5691 for Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: Th e Far Side of the 2007 ARIA Award Winner World; violin tutor for its star, Russell Crowe; and can be heard BACH Solo Violin Sonatas and performing on the award-winning soundtrack. In 2005 he co- Partitas composed the soundtrack to Tom Carroll’s surf fi lm Horrorscopes ABC Classics 476 8051 2006 ARIA Award Winner and, in 2008, created Th e Red Tree. (All three releases available as Richard Tognetti co-created and starred in the 2008 documentary a 5CD Box set: fi lm Musica Surfi ca, which has won best fi lm awards at surf fi lm ABC Classics 476 6168) festivals in the USA, Brazil, France and South Africa. Musica Surfi ca (DVD) Best Feature, New York Surf Film Alongside numerous recordings with the ACO, Richard Festival Tognetti has recorded Bach’s solo violin repertoire, winning As director: three consecutive ARIA Awards for Best Classical Album VIVALDI Flute Concertos, Op.10 (2006–8) and the Dvoˇrák Violin Concerto. Emmanuel Pahud, Flute EMI Classics 0946 3 47212 2 6 Richard Tognetti holds honorary doctorates from three Australian Grammy Nominee universities and, was made a National Living Treasure in 1999 PIAZZOLLA Song of the Angel and in 2010 was awarded an Order of Australia. He performs on Chandos CHAN 10163 a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù, made available exclusively to him by All available from aco.com.au/shop. an anonymous Australian private benefactor.

20 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA RICHARD TOGNETTI AO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

‘You’d have to scour the Australia’s national orchestra is a product of its country’s universe hard to fi nd vibrant, adventurous and enquiring spirit. In performances another band like the ACO.’ around Australia, around the world and on many recordings, the ACO moves hearts and stimulates minds with repertoire THE TIMES, UK spanning six centuries and a vitality and energy unmatched by ‘The energy and vibe other ensembles. of a rock band with the Th e ACO was founded in 1975. Every year, this ensemble ability of a crack classical presents performances of the highest standard to audiences chamber group.’ around the world, including 10,000 subscribers across Australia. WASHINGTON POST Th e ACO’s unique artistic style encompasses not only the masterworks of the classical repertoire, but innovative cross- artform projects and a vigorous commissioning program. Under Richard Tognetti’s inspiring leadership, the ACO has performed as a fl exible and versatile ‘ensemble of soloists’, on modern and period instruments, as a small chamber group, a Select Discography small symphony orchestra, and as an electro-acoustic collective. In a nod to past traditions, only the cellists are seated – the Bach Violin Concertos resulting sense of energy and individuality is one of the most ABC 476 5691 commented-upon elements of an ACO concert experience. Vivaldi Flute Concertos with Emmanuel Pahud Several of the ACO’s principal musicians perform with EMI 3 47212 2 spectacularly fi ne instruments. Tognetti performs on a priceless Bach Keyboard Concertos 1743 Guarneri del Gesù, on loan to him from an anonymous with Angela Hewitt Hyperion SACDA 67307/08 Australian benefactor. Principal Cello Timo-Veikko Valve plays Tango Jam on a 1729 Giuseppe Guarneri fi lius Andreæ cello, also on loan with James Crabb from an anonymous benefactor, and Assistant Leader Satu Mulberry Hill MHR C001 Vänskä plays a 1759 J.B. Guadagnini violin on loan from the Song of the Angel Commonwealth Bank Group. Music of Astor Piazzolla with James Crabb Forty international tours have drawn outstanding reviews at Chandos CHAN 10163 many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including Sculthorpe: works for string Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, New orchestra including Irkanda I, Djilile and Cello Dreaming York’s Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein. Th is year, the Chandos CHAN 10063 ACO tours to the USA, Japan and Europe. Giuliani Guitar Concerto Th e ACO has made acclaimed recordings for labels including with John Williams Sony SK 63385 ABC Classics, Sony, Channel Classics, Hyperion, EMI, Chandos and Orfeo and currently has a recording contract These and more ACO recordings with BIS. A full list of available recordings can be found at are available from our online shop: aco.com.au/shop or by calling aco.com.au/shop. Highlights include the three-time ARIA 1800 444 444. Award-winning Bach recordings and Vivaldi Concertos with Emmanuel Pahud. Th e ACO appears in the television series Classical Destinations II and the award-winning fi lm Musica Surfi ca, both available on DVD and CD.

To be kept up to date with ACO In 2005, the ACO inaugurated an ambitious national education tours and recordings, register program, which includes outreach activities and mentoring of for the free e-newsletter at outstanding young musicians, including the formation of ACO2, aco.com.au. an elite training orchestra which tours regional centres.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 21 MUSICIANS

RICHARD TOGNETTI AO SATU VÄNSKÄ* MADELEINE BOUD ALICE EVANS Artistic Director and Lead Violin Assistant Leader Violin Violin Chair sponsored by Michael Ball AM Violin Chair sponsored by Terry Chair sponsored by Jan Bowen, & Daria Ball, Joan Clemenger, Wendy Chair sponsored by Robert & Campbell AO & Christine Campbell Th e Davies and Th e Sandgropers Edwards, and Prudence MacLeod Kay Bryan

AIKO GOTO MARK INGWERSEN ILYA ISAKOVICH REBECCA CHAN Violin Violin Violin Violin Chair sponsored by Andrew & Chair sponsored by Runge Chair sponsored by Melbourne Hiroko Gwinnett Community Foundation – Connie & Craig Kimberley Fund

KATALIN HERCEGH ALISSA SMITH AXEL RUGE NEAL PERES DA COSTA† Guest Principal 2nd Violin Viola Bass Harpsichord LERIDA DELBRIDGE** SHARON DRAPER** MUHAMED Violin Cello MEHMEDBASIC ** Courtesy of Melbourne Symphony MOLLY KADARAUCH Bass Orchestra Cello † Courtesy of Sydney Conservatorium * Satu Vänskä plays a 1759 J.B. Guadagnini violin on loan from the Commonwealth Bank Group. BEHIND THE SCENES BOARD EXECUTIVE OFFICE FINANCE Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Timothy Calnin Steve Davidson (Chairman) General Manager Chief Financial Oﬃ cer Angus James Jessica Block Shyleja Paul (Deputy Chairman) Deputy General Manager and Assistant Accountant Development Manager Ken Allen AM Michelle Kerr Bill Best DEVELOPMENT Executive Assistant to Kate Bilson Glen Boreham Mr Calnin and Mr Tognetti AO Liz Cacciottolo Events Manager Chris Froggatt Tom Carrig ARTISTIC Janet Holmes à Court AC Senior Development Executive Brendan Hopkins Richard Tognetti AO Vanessa Jenkins Artistic Director Tony Shepherd Senior Development Executive John Taberner Michael Stevens Lillian Armitage Artistic Administrator Peter Yates Patrons Manager Liz D’Olier Development Coordinator

22 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Photos: Tanja Ahola, Helen White

CHRISTOPHER MOORE NICOLE DIVALL STEPHEN KING CAROLINE HENBEST Principal Viola Viola Viola Viola Chair sponsored by Tony Shepherd Chair sponsored by Ian & Nina Chair sponsored by Philip Bacon AM Lansdown

TIMOVEIKKO VALVE MELISSA BARNARD JULIAN THOMPSON MAXIME BIBEAU Principal Cello Cello Cello Principal Bass Chair Ssonsored by Mr Peter Chair sponsored by Th e Bruce & Chair sponsored by the Clayton Chair sponsored by John Taberner Weiss AM Joy Reid Foundation Family & Grant Lang

Players dressed by AKIRA ISOGAWA

OPERATIONS Chris Griffi th AUSTRALIAN Damien Low Box Offi ce Manager CHAMBER Artistic Operations Manager Mary Stielow ORCHESTRA Gabriel van Aalst National Publicist ABN 45 001 335 182 Orchestra Manager Dean Watson Australian Chamber Orchestra Customer Relations Manager Erin McNamara Pty Ltd is a not for profi t Deputy Orchestra Manager Lachlan Wright company registered in NSW. Vicki Stanley Offi ce Administrator & Marketing Education and Emerging Artists Manager Assistant In Person: Opera Quays, Sarah Conolan 2 East Circular Quay, Education and Operations Assistant INFORMATION SYSTEMS Sydney NSW 2000 Jennifer Collins Emmanuel Espinas By Mail: PO Box R21, Librarian Network Infrastructure Engineer Royal Exchange NSW 1225 Telephone: (02) 8274 3800 MARKETING ARCHIVES Facsimile: (02) 8274 3801 Georgia Rivers John Harper Box Offi ce: 1800 444 444 Marketing Manager Archivist Email: [email protected] Rosie Rothery Website: aco.com.au Marketing Executive

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 23 ACO PARTNERS

Th e ACO receives around 50% of its income from the box oﬃ ce, 35% from the business community and private donors and less than 15% from government sources. Th e private sector plays a key role in the continued growth and artistic development of the Orchestra. We are proud of the relationships we have developed with each of our partners and would like to acknowledge their generous support.

C FOUNDING PARTNER A O2 PRINCIPAL PARTNER

NATIONAL TOUR PARTNERS

OFFICIAL PARTNERS

PERTH SERIES PARTNER

QLD/NSW REGIONAL TOUR PARTNER

CONCERT AND SERIES PARTNERS

PREFERRED TRAVEL PARTNER

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT ACCOMMODATION AND EVENT SUPPORT

ACO is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW

BAR CUPOLA SWEENEY RESEARCH

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 33 STACCATO: ACO NEWS

EDUCATION NEWS

On 21 and 23 January, the Parramatta String Players made their Sydney Festival debut alongside the ACO, performing their work, Th inking about Forever… (written with Matthew Hindson) at Parramatta Park and the Sydney International Regatta Centre in Penrith. In February, members of the ACO

facilitated the ﬁ rst workshop of the year ABOVE: Parramatta String Players perform Thinking about Forever… for the Picton Strings. Th is is the ﬁ rst of three visits in 2011 to this South Western Sydney community.

C A O2 travel to regional South Australia and Victoria in April performing concerts in Mt Gambier, Noarlunga, Renmark, Castlemaine, Horsham, Melbourne, Mildura C and Warrnambool. A O2 also present schools concerts in South Australia and combined

C schools workshops in Victoria. ABOVE: A O2 musicians work with regional string students

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CALL 1300 TELSTRA | VISIT TELSTRA.COM/ENTERPRISE 34 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ?02: # STACCATO: ACO NEWS

THE ACO’S VIVALDI DINNER

Presented by Tiffany & Co. On 25 November, the ACO hosted its annual ACO’s Victorian Education Program. We Melbourne Event, an Italian-themed evening would like to especially thank our Vivaldi held in the stunning ballroom of ‘Cranlana’, the Dinner Presenting Partner Tiff any & Co., the Myer family’s historic home. ACO’s Melbourne Development Council, event Celebrity chef and Italian afi cionado Guy sponsors Peter Lehmann Wines, Cellarmasters, Grossi designed a rich Italian feast that was Cox & Kings and Maserati, our prize donors accompanied by Peter Lehmann’s fi nest and the Myer family, for their dedication, wines, and Taittinger champagne, supplied by generosity and support. Cellarmasters. An intimate performance by an ACO quartet, led by Richard Tognetti, featured Vivaldi’s Winter, and the musicians joined guests for dinner and a short live auction. We are pleased to announce that the Vivaldi Dinner raised over $80,000 in support of the

ABOVE: Maserati’s Cathy and Bobbie Zagame

LEFT: Daria Ball, Tanya Searly, Shadda Abercrombie and Michael Ball AM

ACO BABY NEWS Violinist Ilya Isakovich and his wife Tatiana are proud to present the newest member of the ACO family; their ﬁ rst child, Daniela.

RIGHT: Father and daughter, Ilya and Daniela Isakovich.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 35 STACCATO: ACO NEWS NEW CD RELEASE BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.4, with Dejan Lazic´ Th is recording was made live during the ACO’s tour with pianist Dejan Lazić in 2009. It also features Lazić’s recording of Beethoven Piano Sonata No.14 (Moonlight) and Piano Sonata No.31. “In Dejan Lazić, Tognetti has met his match. Born in Zagreb in 1977, this young Croatian composer-pianist has already been highlighted among tomorrow’s superstars. Lazić and Tognetti share a view of Beethoven that is provocative, unorthodox, at times capricious but ultimately persuasive.” Th e Australian Available at aco.com.au/shop or by review of the 2009 performance. phoning 02 8274 3800.

GIFT CERTIFICATES Why not give the music-lover in your life their choice of ACO concerts or recordings? Gift certiﬁ cates can be purchased and redeemed at aco.com.au/gift-certiﬁ cates or by calling 1800 444 444.

PARTNER OFFER

Pre-Concert Dinner Offer from Bar Cupola, Sydney Bar Cupola invites ACO concert patrons to enjoy your choice of main and dessert, plus a glass of house red or white wine for $38 (GST inclusive). Browse the menu at barcupola.com.au. Bar Cupola is open for dinner 2 hours prior to concerts and advises patrons to book early to guarantee a table.

BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL T 02 9221 3377 F 02 9221 1112 E [email protected] W barcupola.com.au

36 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA