CHIEF CONDUCTOR: DONALD RUNNICLES LEADER: ELIZABETH LAYTON

THE THURSDAY NIGHT SERIES

City Halls, Glasgow Thursday, 19 November 2009 at 7.00pm

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODIES 2

JANÁCˇEK THE FIDDLER’S CHILD MARTINU˚ PIANO CONCERTO NO.1 interval DVORˇ ÁK SYMPHONY NO.8

Piers Lane piano Petr Altrichter conductor

Tonight’s concert is being broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

PLEASE ENSURE ALL MOBILE TELEPHONES AND DIGITAL ALARMS ARE SWITCHED OFF.

Please keep coughs and sneezes well muffl ed ~ thank you. The use of cameras, video or sound-recording equipment is prohibited. Latecomers will be admitted at a suitable break in performance. Welcome to City Halls and More than half of BBC Radio 3’s music output is live or specially recorded. The station broadcasts a huge range to the second concert in the of classical, jazz and world music from festivals and events including the Edinburgh International Festival, BBC SSO’s four-concert series the BBC Proms and WOMAD, bringing the excitement Bohemian Rhapsodies, featuring of live music-making into homes throughout the UK every day. Radio 3 also shapes the country’s cultural the piano concertos of Bohuslav activity, being the most signifi cant commissioner of Martinu˚ – all the concerts will be new music in the world and regularly commissioning new drama. broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. For classical music, tune in weekdays and enjoy The presenter this evening is programmes like our Breakfast Show with Rob CoCowan,wan, Petroc Trelawny. In Tune, keeping you informed with news, interviews and live performance, or Performance on 3 for classical concerts in the evenings at 7.00pm. In the afternoon you will regularly be able to hear the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

I hope you can join over two million listeners who tune in to Radio 3 every week for the very best of the UK’s live music-making and culture.

Roger Wright, Controller BBC Radio 3 and Director BBC Proms

bbc.co.uk/radio3

TONIGHT’S POST-CONCERT CODA (beginning approximately 10 minutes after the end of the main concert)

Why not stay on to hear pianist Piers Lane and Elizabeth Layton, the BBC SSO’s leader, perform the Allegro moderato from Dvorˇák’s Four Romantic Pieces, Op.75 and the Andantino from Smetana’s Aus der Heimat (From the Native Country).

2 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODIES

The rich vein of Czech music that fl owered with Smetana In this series we’ll encounter all the main phases of Martinu˚’s and Dvorˇák in the mid 19th century and continued into musical development through the fi ve piano concertos, from the early 20th century with Leoš Janácˇek came to an end the early First Concerto (1925) to the Fifth, one of his last 50 years ago with the death of Bohuslav Martinu˚. At least major works. Alongside Martinu˚’s absorbing adventures in three of Martinu˚’s most talented contemporaries – Viktor sound, we’ll delve into some of the enduring masterpieces Ullmann, Pavel Haas and Ervin Schulhoff – perished in the of his predecessors, headed by the fi gure whose music holocaust, and so far no successor of comparable stature towers over Czech culture – Antonín Dvorˇák. seems to have emerged. So Martinu˚, this fascinating and original musical thinker, most of whose huge output of operas, orchestral and chamber music is hardly known to To the best of our knowledge, the BBC SSO’s most modern listeners, was the last representative of the presentation of all fi ve of Martinu˚’s piano concertos great Czech tradition. He deserves to be celebrated. in this Glasgow series is the fi rst time the concertos have been performed in the UK as a complete set. The great Czech composers, all proudly steeped in the traditional folk culture of their Bohemian and Moravian roots, were equally proudly individualistic. In Martinu˚’s case, his unusual upbringing undoubtedly had an infl uence on his artistic outlook. Born high up in a church tower from which THE FIDDLER’S CHILD – BALLAD FOR SOLO he seldom ventured until his teenage years, he grew up used VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA (C.12’) to seeing the world laid out beneath him like a living map – a LEOŠ JANÁCˇEK (1854–1928) great, rolling, open landscape with distant horizons and men and women toiling small and insignifi cant on the ground below. And indeed, he himself said that a sense of “vast and Elizabeth Layton solo violin boundless space” was what he was always trying to recreate in his music. That exhilarating, almost ecstatically uplifting Czech peasant culture and the rolling Bohemian landscape sense of the open air is one of the defi ning characteristics were an abiding artistic stimulus for Dvorˇák and his successors,successors, of Martinu˚’s best music, rather as it is with the music of as we’ll see in his Eighth Symphony at the end of tonight’s Janácˇek. As well as that, his music has a restless energy built programme. For him, though, they represented much more on a rhythmic style that owes much to the jazz-infl ected than a bucolic idyll, especially in his folktale-inspired late culture of 1920s Paris. Martinu˚ was indeed a restless man tone poems, where the harshly uncompromising morality who chose to live most of his life away from his beloved of these age-old stories led him to write some strikingly homeland. Had he been of the previous generation of Czech radical music. Leoš Janácˇek carcarriedried on where Dvorˇák left artists, he might have gravitated naturally to Vienna, but after off. Like Sibelius, whose music conjures up the bleak, often the 1914–18 War Paris was the great creative powerhouse violent world of ancient Northern mythology, Janácˇek’s of Europe and it was there that he chose to study and immersion in the history and culture of his native country live, revelling in its intoxicating atmosphere of experiment inspires not a comfortable nostalgia for some golden age, and iconoclasm. The soft-centred romanticism of his early but a powerful music of extremes that can be disturbing works gave way to a harder-edged, more purposeful neo- and exalted in equal measure. classical sound, albeit tinged with the many-coloured palette of French impressionism. As the thirties came to a close The Fiddler’s Child is as radicalradical a piece of orchestralorchestral musicmusic and war began to overwhelm Europe, Martinu˚ moved to as anything he wrote. Based on a folktale-like poem by the United States and lived there until the last six years of the Czech nationalist writer, Svatopluk Cˇech, this ‘ballad his life, not very happily or healthily but still crowning his for orchestra’ describes the tragic story of a poor itinerant career with all six of his symphonies. Towards the end, back fi ddler whose child’s death in his arms is followed by his in Europe at last, his musical language was still developing, own. The sinister, all-powerful mayor of the fi ddler’s village absorbing new infl uences, embracing a world of fantasy looms over the whole episode like a harbinger of death and with ever greater freedom. oppressor of the innocent. In the music, the fi ddler and his love for his child are expressed in the passionately rhapsodic

3 solo violin writing. The mayor is represented by a four-note infl uence, as was the jazz and ragtime that was by now all motive that begins in the bass and seems increasingly to the rage in the French capital. overwhelm the lyricism of the violin as the work moves to its denouement. And from the beginning the music is The fi rst fruit of Martinu˚’s new-found confi dence as he punctuated (punctured, actually) by jagged interventions began to fi nd his compositional feet was a short orchestral from the strings, setting the human warmth of the fi ddler’s piece called Half-time which depicts the atmosphere of music against a backdrop of menacing, disruptive violence. In a hard-fought soccer match. With its jagged, syncopated the world of The Fiddler’s Child, beauty and tender humanity rhythms and clashing polyphonic lines, it’s clearly modelled have little hope of survival. Completed in 1913, The Fiddler’s on the lean, neo-classical scores that Stravinsky had been Child, was premiered by the Czech Philharmonic in 1917. producing over the last few years. For Martinu˚ it was a break with his previous romantic-impressionist style, and he soon programme note by Hugh Macdonald, © BBC 2009 followed it up with the fi rst of his fi ve piano concertos.

+ First performed in Prague in 1926, the First Piano Concerto, scored for chamber-sized orchestra, is very much in the fashionable neo-classical or neo-baroque manner of the PIANO CONCERTO NO.1 (C.28’) 1920s. Typically, in the outer movements the piano’s role BOHUSLAV MARTINU˚ (1890–1959) is mainly rhythmic and percussive rather than lyrical, the prime source of Martinu˚’s characteristic forward-moving energy. Already in the toccata-like fi rst movement we hear 1. Allegro moderato his instantly recognisable harmonic style, with its piquant 2. Andante juxtaposition of major and minor chords which are also 3. Allegro sometimes combined in clashing dissonance. The grave second movement allows the piano a wider variety of Piers Lane piano expression, building from its deceptively simple, baroque concerto-like opening to a powerful climax topped by a “Paris enchanted Martinu˚. At night, instead of sleeping, he virtuosic solo cadenza. The fi nale romps along, in chattering wandered all over the city, completely fascinated by the bright Stravinskyan semiquavers, and after another cadenza, piano lights and the gay night life of the boulevards. Pre-eminently and orchestra bring the concerto to a barnstorming fi nish. an observer ever since his days in the Policˇka tower he loved to stroll by himself along the quais of the Seine…. This new programme note by Hugh Macdonald, © BBC 2009 life seemed to be the answer to all his questions. The very air breathed liberty. Suddenly Martinu˚ felt himself free” (Miloš + Šafránek: Bohuslav Martinu˚). Interval (c.20 minutes – as tonight’s concert is being Martinu˚’s arrival in Paris in 1923 transformed his artistic broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, please be sure to return to outlook too. After a sheltered, comparatively provincial your seat in good time) existence, fi rst in his home village of Policˇka (where he had indeed been brought up at the top of a church tower) then + some years in Prague, latterly as a member of the Czech Philharmonic, Paris must have been a revelation. In fact he seems to have been so overwhelmed by the scintillating SYMPHONY NO.8 IN G MAJOR, OP.88 (C.38’) vibrancy of its musical life that he wrote very little to start ANTONÍN DVORˇÁK (1841–1904) with – solitary, speaking little French, observing and listening but not participating. The shy and introverted Martinu˚ later admitted that it was the peace and quiet of his isolation 1. Allegro con brio that he liked about Paris, but eventually he plucked up the 2. Adagio courage to ask the eminent composer Albert Roussel for 3. Allegretto grazioso – Molto vivace lessons. Roussel’s benign guidance helped him to focus on 4. Allegro ma non troppo the way forward for his music. The avant-garde of Paris didn’t appeal to him any more than the Second Viennese School Nothing illustrates the uncomfortable status of Czechs of Schoenberg, but Stravinsky – by then well established within the Austro-Hungarian Empire better than Dvorˇák’s as the superstar of Parisian cultural life – was a powerful acrimonious dispute with his Berlin-based publisher Fritz

4 Simrock: “Don’t laugh at my Czech brothers, and you need not The paradox is that, for many years, the Eighth was known feel sorry for me either. What I asked of you was just a personal as Dvorˇák’s ‘English’ symphony. This was because during his wish, and if you cannot grant it I am entitled to regard it as temporary falling-out with Simrock he had had it published a disobliging reaction which I have not met with from either by the London company Novello and submitted it, moreover, English or French publishers.” to Cambridge University in support of his honorary doctorate there. But Czech it is, through and through – in And the reason for the composer’s anger? Simrock insisted the words of an early biographer Karel Hoffmeister that Dvorˇák’s fi rst name be rendered not as ‘Antonín’ but “breaking into fl ower….as the Czech meadows fl ower, in in its German form ‘Anton’ on the score of his Seventh luxuriant garlands of varied charm and colour.” Symphony. To Czechs used to being governed from Vienna, this kind of thing was not unusual, but it rankled with Dvorˇák programme note by Hugh Macdonald, © BBC 2009 that even his own publisher could be so culturally insensitive. Never a political nationalist, Dvorˇák’s pride in his Bohemian heritage always found its most profound expression in his music. The Seventh could be considered his most ‘German’, RECOMMENDED LISTENING most Brahmsian (and also Wagnerian) symphony, but the Eighth, whether or not as a conscious ripost to those who JANÁCˇEK THE FIDDLER’S CHILD would dismiss his nationality, is perhaps his most complete Elizabeth Layton/BBC SSO/Volkov (Hyperion) artistic assertion of his Czech-ness. By the time he came to compose it in 1889, Dvorˇák’s confi dence in his own MARTINU˚ PIANO CONCERTO NO.1 symphonic vision and the total integration of national Emil Leichner/Czech Philharmonic/Belohlávek elements into his musical language had reached the point (Supraphon) where he could create a large scale work that feels quite (this is currently only available as part of a 2-disc set of independent of the German models he so admired. He was all fi ve concertos) quite clear that he wanted to write something “different” to his other symphonies, and to do it he went to his country DVORˇÁK SYMPHONY NO.8 house at Vysoká – partly for peace and quiet, but also to be Berliner Philharmoniker/Raphael Kubelik (DG) as close to the roots of his native culture as possible. London Philharmonic/Charles Mackerras (EMI Classics for Pleasure) The minor key main theme of the ‘slavic waltz’ that is the third movement exemplifi es the symphony’s ‘pastoral’ quality perfectly, its bitter-sweet mixture of bucolic exuberance and wistful melancholy brilliantly evoking the rolling Bohemian landscape and gentle pace of rural life. The major key trio theme, underlain by a hesitant, off-beat rhythmic pattern, adds to this little tone picture of rural bliss, and the charmingly naïveve cheerinesscheeriness of the little coda completes it.

Much of this material is linked to the bird-like fl ute theme, simply framed round the notes of a major chord, that we hear at the beginning of the symphony, after the grave introductory cello theme. The slow movement makes great play with the contrast between rather dark, minor key material and serene, sometimes joyous major key music. This is an intensely dramatic movement, though, and Dvorˇák’s scene-painting is realistic enough to encompass the tragedies as well as the pleasures of country life. The fi nale is heralded by a trumpet fanfare, and then launches into a broad, almost Elgarian cello theme that again harks back to the triadic fl ute theme of the fi rst movement. A series of colourful variations follows, pausing only briefl y for nostalgic refl ection before the symphony ends with an excited gallop to the fi nishing line.

5 BIOGRAPHIES

PIERS LANE PETR ALTRICHTER

Australian pianist Piers Lane has a fl ourishing international Petr Altrichter is one of the Czech Republic’s most career which has taken him to more than forty countries. In distinguished conductors, having made an impressive name the past few years, his engagements have included concerto for himself through his dynamic and insightful interpretations performances at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln of Czech, Russian and German symphonic repertoire. He Center; a three-recital series called ‘Metamorphoses’ at fi rst came to international recognition in 1976 when he London’s Wigmore Hall and the opening recital of the won the special award at the International Competition Sydney International Piano Competition. He has performed for Conductors in Besançon, France. He graduated from with all the major orchestras including the Tasmanian the Conservatory of Music in Ostrava in French Horn and Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, London conducting and continued his studies with the late Vaclav Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hallé. He has also worked Neumann. with many leading conductors including Andrey Boreyko, Sir Andrew Davis, Richard Hickox, Andrew Litton, Sir Charles Petr Altrichter has held posts in the UK, the Czech Republic Mackerras, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Maxim Shostakovich, Vassily and Germany. He is currently the Principal Guest Conductor Sinaisky and Yan Pascal Tortelier. of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, having been Principal Conductor until 2009. He made his UK debut with the Piers Lane is in great demand as a chamber music player and Prague Symphony Orchestra, and fi rst conducted the in 2007 was appointed Artistic Director of the Australian Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 1994 to great Festival of Chamber Music. He collaborates widely and critical acclaim. He was subsequently appointed its Principal has long-standing partnerships with violinist Tasmin Little, Conductor from 1997 until 2001, appearing at the 2000 soprano Cheryl Barker, baritone Peter Coleman-Wright BBC Proms and making several highly-praised recordings and violist/composer Brett Dean. Next summer sees Piers on the orchestra’s own label, RLPO live. Lane touring New Zealand with the Doric String Quartet during his annual trip to Australasia. Future engagements in the UK include a tour with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra next February. He makes his His extensive discography includes the recent release of the BBC SSO debut at tonight’s concert and will appear with Piano Concerto by William Busch on the Lyrita label and, the orchestra again tomorrow night, at The Music Hall in with Hyperion, the Piano Quintet by Bloch with Australia’s Aberdeen. Goldner String Quartet, an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone Magazine and Record of the Month in BBC Music Magazine (2008).

Since 1991 Piers Lane has worked frequently with the BBC SSO, both for public concerts and studio recording sessions for BBC Radio 3. He and the orchestra have also made many CD recordings together for Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto Series (including the very fi rst in that series, concertos by Moszkowski and Paderewski). His most recent concert with the orchestra took place in Glasgow in November 2003 when he gave a performance of the Scherzo by Litolff.

6 BBC SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Chief Conductor: Donald Runnicles First Violins Cellos Contra-Bassoon Principal Guest Conductor: Ilan Volkov Elizabeth Layton Eduardo Vassallo (*) Peter Wesley (++) Associate Guest Conductor: Stefan Solyom (leader) Tom Rathbone (+) Conductor Laureate: Jerzy Maksymiuk Bernard Docherty Alison Lawrance Horns Leader: Elizabeth Layton (co-leader) (+) David Flack (+++) Olivier Lemoine Anthony Sayer Jeremy Bushell The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is widely regarded (+++) Anne Brincourt Etienne Cutajar Peter Cynfryn Harold Harris (++) as one of Europe’s leading orchestras and enjoys an enviable Jones (++) Sharon Molloy Stephanie Jones position as a cultural fl agship for the BBC and for Scotland. Jane Mackenzie Jessica Kerr Patrick Broderick Originally a studio-based orchestra, formed in Edinburgh Jane Hainey in December 1935, the orchestra now appears in venues Marie Brown Double Basses Trumpets across Scotland, is a core part of the BBC Proms, performs Amy Cardigan Nicholas Bayley Mark O’Keeffe regularly at the Edinburgh International Festival and is in Wilson Hainey (+++) (+++) demand at major festivals throughout the world. Peter Isaacs John Van Lierop (+) Eric Dunlea Gent Koço Derek Hill Hedley Benson As befi ts its busy schedule of broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, Emily MacPherson Jeremy Ward (++) BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Television, the orchestra has Alastair Savage Paul Spiers the widest repertory of almost any ensemble in the UK. Joanna Sutherland Lynette Eaton Trombones The only Scottish orchestra to win the Royal Philharmonic Simon Johnson Society Award for best orchestra, its commercial recordings Second Violins Flutes (+++) Dania Alzapiedi (*) Rosemary Eliot Robert Holliday have received a number of prizes, including four Gramophone Christopher (+++) Awards. Latham (++) Ewan Robertson Bass Trombone Elizabeth Flack Alan Mathison (++) Since 2006, the BBC SSO has greatly expanded its Julia Carpenter Piccolo programme of concerts and recordings from its permanent Barbara Downie Rosemary Lock Tuba home base at Glasgow City Halls, and each season it Alex Gascoine (++) Andrew Duncan (*) continues to appear in other Scottish towns and cities. As Laura Ghiro Scotland’s leading supporter of new music the orchestra Alice Rickards Oboes Timpani has established strong links with local communities through Alistair Tasker Stella McCracken Gordon Rigby an innovative learning programme. Abroad, it has appeared Janis Walton (+++) (+++) in many of the great musical centres of Europe and has Cheryl Crockett Timothy Rundle toured the USA, South America and been twice to China, Alan John Percussion most recently in May 2008. Cor Anglais Heather Corbett Violas James Horan (++) (+++) Scott Dickinson Dave Lyons Edinburgh-born Donald Runnicles became the BBC SSO’s (+++) Clarinets Ian Coulter Chief Conductor in September 2009 a post which runs Andrew Berridge Barry Deacon concurrently with his position as General Music Director (++) Joanna Nicholson Harp of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He succeeds Ilan Volkov Jacqui Penfold (+) Helen Thomson (Chief Conductor of the BBC SSO from January 2003– Fiona Robertson Bass Clarinet September 2009) who now holds the post of Principal Cheryl Law Simon Butterworth +++ section Guest Conductor. Alice Batty (++) principal Sarah Chapman ++ principal For further information please visit: bbc.co.uk/bbcsso Rik Evans Bassoons + string sub- Martin Wiggins Julian Roberts principal Alistair Beattie (+++) * guest principal Sarah Andrew orchestra list correct at the time of going to print

7 Do let us know what you thought about tonight’s concert, by posting a comment on the BBC SSO’s blog – or by sending an E-mail, please visit: bbc.co.uk/bbcsso

NEXT CONCERTS IN THE BOHEMIAN RHAPSODIES SERIES AT CITY HALLS

Monday, 23 November at 2.00pm

DISCOVERING MUSIC

MARTINU˚ PIANO CONCERTO NO.2 MARTINU˚ INVENTIONS

In this special studio recording, for broadcast in BBC Radio 3’s Discovering Music on Sunday 6 December, presenter Stephen Johnson will unfold the story of Martinu˚ and his darkly romantic music together with performances of the Second Piano Concerto and Inventions.

Martin Roscoe, piano Tecwyn Evans, conductor

TICKETS: free, from the Candleriggs Box Offi ce: 0141-353 8000 or from the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Box Offi ce (unreserved seating) limited to 2 tickets per application

Thursday, 26 November at 7.00pm

DVORˇÁK THE GOLDEN SPINNING WHEEL MARTINU˚ PIANO CONCERTOCONCERTO NO.5NO.5 ‘FANTASIA CONCERTO’ DVORˇÁK SYMPHONY NO.7

Ivo Kahánek piano Stefan Soloyom, conductor

TICKETS from the Candleriggs Box Offi ce: 0141-353 8000 or from the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Box Offi ce

And don’t forget the Prelude before that concert 6.15pm (Recital Room): Jan Smaczny, Hamilton Harty Professor of Music at Queen’s University Belfast, introduces Dvorˇák’s late tone poem The Golden Spinning Wheel and discusses Martinu˚’s Fifth Piano Concerto.

For further information about The Thursday Night Series and how to obtain tickets please visit: bbc.co.uk/bbcsso

BBC SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BBC SCOTLAND, CITY HALLS, CANDLERIGGS, GLASGOW G1 1NQ DIRECT LINE: 0141-552 0909 BBC.CO.UK/BBCSSO BBC.CO.UK/RADIO3