Francis POULENC Piano Concerto Concert champêtre Trio for Piano, O boe & Bassoon Sonata for Oboe & Piano

MARK BEBBINGTON piano

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

JAN LATHAM-KOENIG conductor Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) Piano Concerto, Concert champêtre & other works for piano

Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, FP 146 Mark Bebbington piano 1. Allegreo [10:18] 2. Andante con moto [5:11] John Roberts oboe 3. Rondeau à la Française [4:06] Jonathan Davies bassoon Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Trio for Piano, Oboe & Bassoon, FP 43 Jan Latham-Koenig conductor 4. Presto [5:47] 5. Andante [4:02] 6. Rondo [3:39]

Concert champêtre, FP 49 7. Allegro Molto [10:24] 8. Andante [6:32] 9. Finale [8:22]

Sonata for Oboe & Piano, FP 185 10. Élégie [5:39] 11. Scherzo [3:50] 12. Déploraon [4:33]

About Mark Bebbington: Total playing me [72:32]

‘His beaufully culvated sound at the instrument is especially striking’ Gramophone

‘Bebbington’s playing is immaculately clear and accomplished at every point’ BBC Music Magazine Francis Poulenc: Piano Concerto, Concert supplying the orchestral part on a piano), champêtre & other works for piano the premiere was given at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on 3 May 1929, with Landowska Poulenc composed five works for solo accompanied by the Orchestre Symphonique instruments with orchestra, all of them de Paris conducted by Pierre Monteux. featuring the keyboard: the Concert She went on to perform the work on champêtre for harpsichord or piano, many occasions in its harpsichord version, the Aubade for piano and orchestra, while Poulenc himself oen played the the Concerto for Two Pianos, the Organ solo part on the piano: aside from a Concerto and the Piano Concerto. They two-piano performance in February span a period of just over twenty years 1930, his earliest known public in Poulenc’s career, from the 1920s to performance of the piano version was the years aer World War Two. given by Poulenc at the Concerts Colonne, conducted by Paul Paray, on 10 January In June 1923, Poulenc aended the 1937. Poulenc himself was later uneasy stage premiere of Manuel de Falla’s about the piano version, describing it Master Peter’s Puppet Show (El retablo to Claude Rostand in 1954 as a de maese Pedro) given privately at the makeshi or stopgap (his phrase was home of the Princesse de Polignac. One ‘un pis aller’), but his apparent disapproval unusual feature of its instrumentaon was contradicted by the numerous was Falla’s use of a harpsichord, played performances he gave, including a series by Wanda Landowska. Poulenc met her of concerts with the New York aer the performance and she asked Philharmonic in November 1948 him to write a new concerto for the conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos. harpsichord. They quickly struck up a It ended the first half of a programme warm friendship and Poulenc became that also included Mahler’s Seventh a regular visitor to Landowska’s home Symphony. Reviewing the concert in at Saint-Leu-la-Forêt. According to the the New York Times (12 November dates on the manuscript, Poulenc 1948), Olin Downes wrote about his composed the Concert champêtre dislike of Mahler’s music and contrasted between April 1927 and August 1928. this with Poulenc: ‘As the Mahler Following a private performance at symphony went on and on from one Landowska’s home (with Poulenc dreary platude and outworn euphemism to another, one regarded Poulenc with about the work’s musical style, nong that houses drowse among the market in the morning. [...]the Andante is as I had ever-increasing esteem. A composer while an allegiance to French harpsichord gardens the supply Les Halles in Paris.’ expected, the Finale very amusing. The who does not strut and roar and groan composers such as Couperin and Rameau whole bang lot is stunning. The orchestra in moods of psychiatric conceit! A was immediately apparent, ‘the work is The Piano Concerto dates from 1949. It was delighted – thirty Frenchmen among musician who sports wily with an conceived as a homage to the composer’s was a commission from the Boston them.’ The first performance was given idea ll he has used it for what it is musical ancestors, but not as a pasche Symphony Orchestra wrien at the three days later, at Symphony Hall Boston, worth, and then turns to other of their works. Poulenc’s disncve request of the conductor Charles Munch on 6 January, and the same performers engaging maers, and who has features invariably emerge in much the as a piece for Poulenc to play with the repeated the work in New York on precision and style, expresses what he same way as the features of Ravel are orchestra during his second American 14 January. The recepon in both cies desires to express with skill and firmly stamped on Le Tombeau de tour in 1950. Wring to Darius Milhaud was polite but cool: while the American without mannerism. Mr. Poulenc Couperin.’ The Concert champêtre is in on 25 July 1949, Poulenc wrote that public was certainly charmed by the new added materially to the effect of three movements. In the first, aer a ‘I have made some progress with my concerto, they were perhaps hoping for his music by his finished performance short introducon, Poulenc’s pungent Concerto for Boston (first movement something more obviously wrien in the as a virtuoso and the competence instrumentaon gives a sharp edge to completed, second all planned). This grand virtuoso tradion. As Poulenc and modesty of his achievement. its main theme, and the whole movement work fills me with anguish as it would noted in his diary aer the premiere, The audience welcomed him warmly.’ seems propelled by a kind of bucolic not be parcularly fortuitous to begin ‘five curtain calls, but more friendliness A recording survives of the energy. Subtled ‘mouvement de my second tour with a flop.’ By on the part of the audience than genuine performance on 14 November sicilienne’, the central Andante is a September he was feeling more enthusiasm.’ Poulenc’s concerto may which confirms Downes’s view of nostalgic, bier-sweet look back to confident about the piece, telling be unassuming but has moments of Poulenc’s stylish and confident playing, an earlier age, but from a decidedly Pierre Bernac that ‘I only hope I make extraordinary beauty – the opening making a thoroughly convincing case tweneth-century perspecve. Poulenc a success of the finale. At any rate the theme of the first movement (presented for the work as a piano concerto, himself talked about the finale to orchestraon is very good.’ He le in quiet octaves in a mischievous despite his own reservaons about Stéphane Audel in a collecon of with Bernac for the USA on 27 homage to the start of Rachmaninov’s losing the disncve mbre of the interviews first published in 1963: December 1949 and on 3 January he Third Piano Concerto), and the gentle harpsichord for which he conceived ‘A sharp-tongued cric thought to upset wrote from Boston to his niece, serenity of the slow movement – and the work. Poulenc’s biographer me by wring: “In the last movement of Brigie Manceaux: ‘This morning we others of knock-about humour, not Henri Hell wrote that the music of this Concert champêtre we suddenly played through the Concerto for the least the Creole rhythms in the finale, the Concert champêtre followed hear, Heaven knows why, the echoes first me. The orchestraon is where Poulenc introduces a melody the French tradion ‘of an earlier of barrack trumpet calls. A prey sort excellent and Charloton [Charles (derived from an old French folk tune) age in which certain rusc associaons of countryside!” He was absolutely Munch] is delighted, delighted. So that has much in common with ‘Way were discreetly hidden behind a right! For a townsman like me it was a am I. Of course I played like a pig – down upon the Swanee river’. He had characterisc façade of elegance.’ prey sort of countryside, that Parisian my aenon being mainly on the hoped that this ‘musical picture of Paris He also made an important point suburb where so many eighteenth-century orchestraon – but I will recfy that – the Paris of La Baslle rather than of Passy – would amuse them. In fact they range of Poulenc’s musical language were disappointed.’ Poulenc wrote at the me, from the astringent to Munch in February: ‘I want to say harmonies of the opening bars (a once again, thank you, thank you for deliberate recollecon of the Baroque the Concerto. I’d like to have given French Overture, lightly spiced à la you an unclouded success as that Stravinsky) to the song-like elegance would reflect that admiraon and and lyrical restraint of the slow affecon I have for you.’ Sll, it movement and the high spirits of the wasn’t the flop Poulenc had feared finale. Poulenc spent several years while working on the piece. The worrying over the Trio (his earliest plans European premiere at the go back to 1921), and in 1924 he gave Aix-en-Provence Fesval in July a descripon of it to his friend Paul (again played by Poulenc and Munch) Collaer: ‘I've worked on it a lot. It’s was not well received, but any crical in a style new to me yet at the same hoslity was largely eclipsed by the me it’s very Poulenc.’ This neatly premiere the following day of summarises the work’s significance in Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie. Poulenc’s output, as one of the first Poulenc’s Piano Concerto is no longer pieces to reveal the stylisc diversity seen as a problemac piece, but as that later earned him the descripon one notable for its richness of melodic of being both ‘monk and vagabond’: ideas and its delicate handling of seriousness, tenderness and raw good orchestral colours. As Henri Hell humour are to be found side by side remarked in his 1958 biography, here. Poulenc gave the premiere of the ‘it is a concerto of tunes rather than Trio at the Salle des Agriculteurs in Paris themes, which is one of its main merits.’ on 2 May 1926 with Roger Lamorlee (oboe) and Gustave Dhérin (bassoon). Poulenc completed his Trio for oboe, In 1928, the same arsts recorded the bassoon and piano in 1926, wrien work for French Columbia – one of with advice from one friend, Igor Poulenc’s earliest records. Stravinsky, and dedicated to another, Manuel de Falla. Of all his earlier The Oboe Sonata was Poulenc’s last major chamber music, this is the piece that work, wrien in the summer of 1962. most completely demonstrates the The composer himself described the work as follows: ‘the first movement is elegiac, Mark Bebbington (piano) the second scherzando and the third a kind of liturgical chant.’ The form of the Mark Bebbington is fast gaining a reputaon Sonata is slow–fast–slow: the first as one of today’s most strikingly individual movement entled ‘Elégie’ marked Brish pianists. His thirty discs of Brish ‘paisiblement’, the second a ‘Scherzo’ music for Somm have met with internaonal and the third a deeply-felt ‘Déploraon’. acclaim and notably, his recent cycles of Frank This eloquent musical tribute was Bridge, John Ireland and Vaughan Williams inscribed ‘to the memory of Serge have aracted nine consecuve sets of Prokofiev’ and was first performed five-star reviews in BBC Music Magazine. at the Strasbourg Fesval on 8 June 1963, by Pierre Perlot and Jacques Over recent seasons, Mark has toured Février, as a memorial to Poulenc extensively throughout Central and Northern himself: he had died on 30 January Europe, the Far East and North America 1963. and has performed at major UK venues with the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia and © Nigel Simeone, 2020 Royal Philharmonic orchestras and the London Mozart Players. As a recitalist, he makes regular appearances at major UK and internaonal fesvals.

Recently, Mark made his highly successful Carnegie Hall debut with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra in the US premiere of Richard Strauss’s Parergon.

Upcoming projects include connuing releases for the Resonus and Somm labels, performances with the South Florida Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras during 2020 and appearances at major Concert Series and Fesvals both in the UK and throughout Europe.

www.markbebbington.co.uk Jan Latham-Koenig (conductor) William Walton’s violin and viola John Roberts (Oboe) concertos; Donize’s Poliuto Jan Latham-Koenig was born in 1953 in and Elisabea al castello de Kenilworth; Born in Glasgow, John Roberts took up England. He was educated at the Royal Catalani’s Dejanice; Henze’s La cubana; the oboe at the age of eleven under the College of Music in London, where he and Leoncavallo’s La Bohème. tutelage of Stephen West. In 2008 he won numerous prizes as conductor and moved to London, enrolling first at pianist. Since 1981 he has concentrated Jonathan Davies (bassoon) the Royal College of Music, and later on conducng, and conducted most of the Royal Academy of Music, to study the major English orchestras, including Brish bassoonist Jonathan Davies made with Christopher Cowie, Gareth Hulse, the Royal Philharmonic, the London his concerto debut in the Barbican Hall Celia Nicklin and Chrisne Pendrill. Philharmonic, and all the BBC aged 13. Further solo highlights have ensembles as well as his own Koenig included Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante Since 2011, he has been working in Ensemble, which he founded in 1976. alongside Maxim Vengerov, a world various orchestras around the UK Jan Latham-Koenig is frequently premiere by David Fennessy with the and Ireland, including every symphony employed as guest conductor by London Sinfoniea and Knussen’s orchestra in Glasgow and London. leading internaonal orchestras all Study for Metamorphosis for solo Since 2013, he has been Principal over the world. His great interest in bassoon in the BBC Proms 2019. Solo Oboe in the Royal Philharmonic opera has taken him to the Vienna recordings include Mozart’s Bassoon Orchestra. As well as orchestral State Opera, the English Naonal Concerto and Sinfonia Concertante concerts, John Roberts likes to Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, La with the London Philharmonic Orchestra parcipate in music-making on a Fenice (Venice), Deutsche Oper, Berlin, and Vladimir Jurowski and Dulleux’s smaller scale as much as possible, the opera in Verona, the Danish Royal Sarabande et Cortège, orchestrated with projects during the current season Theatre, and to the opera in Rome, by Kenneth Hesketh with the Sinfonia with London Winds and London where he was appointed Principal of London and John Wilson. Sinfoniea. Guest Conductor. To this may be added opera fesvals and radio transmissions Jonathan was appointed principal He recently made his debut concert for the Danish Broadcasng Corporaon, bassoon of the London Philharmonic performance of Vaughan Williams’ West Deutsche Rundfunk and others. Orchestra in 2016, having previously Oboe Concerto at Cadogan Hall with Jan Latham-Koenig’s recordings include held the same posion with the Royal the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. a Weill cycle comprising, Mahagonny, Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a Der Zar läst sich photographieren, bassoon Professor and Associate of Der Lindberghflug, Magna Carta, Der the Royal Academy of Music. Silbersee, Happy End and Der Kuhhandel; More titles from Resonus Classics Royal Philharmonic Orchestra orchestral life aer World War II. Since then, the Orchestra’s principal conductors have Fauré, Chausson & Satie: Piano Trios For more than seven decades the Royal included Rudolf Kempe, Antal Dorá, Walter Fidelio Trio, Darragh Morgan, Mary Dullea, Adi Tal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) has been Weller, André Previn, Vladimir Ashkenazy, RES10232 at the forefront of music-making in the UK. Yuri Temirkanov, Daniele Ga and Charles ‘Delicacy and flow are the watchwords across the Its home base since 2004 at London’s Dutoit. album, as you hear again in the Fauré Trio, whose Cadogan Hall serves as a springboard for first movement’s expertly moulded super-long lines seven principal residencies as well as more The RPO’s commitment to working with the are a study in sustained tension [...] one to savour’ than forty-five concerts per year in finest conductors connues and in July 2018, Gramophone long-term partnership venues across the RPO announced Vasily Petrenko as the the country, oen in areas where access Orchestra’s new Music Director, assuming to live orchestral music is very limited. In the tle of Music Director Designate in Poldowski Reimagined – Ensemble 1904 London, the Orchestra’s regular August 2020 prior to commencing the full Ensemble 1904 performances at Cadogan Hall are role in August 2021. Vasily Petrenko joins RES10196 complemented by a disnguished the RPO’s roster of tled conductors which series at Southbank Centre’s Royal includes Pinchas Zukerman (Principal Guest ‘[...] the arrangements are salon-like, atmospheric Fesval Hall and a hugely popular series Conductor), Alexander Shelley (Principal and sympathetically performed, expanding the at the Royal Albert Hall. With a wider Associate Conductor) and Grzegorz Nowak scale of the music – which is great-hearted enough to take it. [...] More please!’ reach than any other UK large ensemble, (Permanent Associate Conductor). BBC Music Magazine the RPO has truly become Britain’s naonal orchestra. The Orchestra maintains a busy schedule of presgious internaonal touring throughout

Alongside its concert series, the RPO Europe, the Far East and the USA. It appears © 2020 Resonus Limited embraces twenty-first-century opportunies, regularly at major fesvals, including, most è 2020 Resonus Limited including appearances with pop stars and recently, events in Poland, Austria and Italy. Recorded at St John’s Smith Square, London on 22–23 September (concertos) & 18 October (chamber works) 2019 on video game, film and television Producer & editor: Adam Binks Engineers: Dave Rowell (concertos) & Adam Binks (chamber works) soundtracks, whilst its arsc priority As the RPO proudly looks to its future, its Recorded in 24-bit/96kHz resolution remains paramount: the making of great versality and high standards mark it out as Session Photography: Nick Rutter (www.nickrutter.co.uk) music at the highest level for the widest one of today’s most open-minded, Steinway Model D piano maintained by Steinway & Sons possible audience. This would have been forward-thinking symphony orchestras. Cover image: © Jack Leibeck lauded by its Founder and first conductor, RESONUS LIMITED – UK Sir Thomas Beecham, who set up the RPO in 1946, leading a vital revival in the UK’s [email protected] www.resonusclassics.com RES10256