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Thursday INTERVAL 6 September 7.30pm Albert Hall Duration 20 mins

Launceston SCHUBERT LAUNCESTON 5 Johannes Fritzsch conductor No 9, Great Siobhan Stagg Andante – Allegro ma non troppo Andante con moto MILLS Scherzo (Allegro vivace – Trio) Impromptu, after Schubert Allegro vivace Duration 9 mins Duration 48 mins This concert will end at approximately 9.30 pm. Orchestral Songs Säusle, liebe Myrte Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden Morgen! Cäcilie 1 Macquarie St Hobart, Tasmania Duration 23 mins 03 6235 5355 Tasmanian Symphony concerts are broadcast and streamed throughout Australia www.oldwoolstore.com.au and around the world by ABC Classic FM. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off.

10 11 (born 1949)

Impromptu, after Schubert alternation of major and minor, the lilting rhythms and the harmonic pungency. There are also subliminal and conductor Richard Mills references to the Symphony No 8 is well known to Tasmanian audiences and Winterreise as the music unfolds. through his long association with Principal Guest Conductor of the Tasmanian Siobhan Stagg is one of Australia’s most the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, ‘’, the notion of longing or Symphony Orchestra and Conductor outstanding young singers. Highlights of the including his tenure as Director of the desire, which is present in both song texts, is a motivating force in the Laureate of the Queensland Symphony 2017/18 season include Pamina (Magic , TSO’s Australian Music Program. In 2009 development of the orchestra’s music, he conducted the TSO and TSO Chorus Orchestra, Johannes Fritzsch was the QSO’s Royal House, Covent Garden); Gilda which after each paragraph gives way in the world première of his Passion Chief Conductor from 2008 to 2013. Almost (, ); Najade to the unchanging simplicity of the According to St Mark. In 2008 the TSO (, ); Schubert citations, which extend the concurrently, he was Chief Conductor of the gave the world première of Night Poems, hand of friendship through time to Graz Philharmonic and Graz Opera (Austria). and Pamina, Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Musetta with conductor Sebastian Lang-Lessing, us today. Previously, he has held the position of Chief (La bohème) and Contessa di Folleville (Il and in 2011 the world première of Canti Conductor and Artistic Director with both viaggio a Reims), Deutsche Oper Berlin. di fuoco e ferro (Songs of Fire and Iron), The final stanza of ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’ encapsulates the sentiments Nuremberg State Opera and the Freiburg A soloist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin since with conductor Olari Elts and 2013/14, her roles include Sophie (Der . which the composer as poet could well State Theatres and Philharmonic Orchestra. invoke as a prelude to this little piece: Johannes Fritzsch was born in 1960 in Rosenkavalier), Blonde (Abduction from the Richard Mills is the conductor on many of the TSO’s recordings in the Australian Alas, with dewy wings Meissen, Germany, where he completed Seraglio), Gilda, Marguerite de Valois (Les Huguenots) and Woodbird and Woglinde Music Series (released on ABC Classics) Time vanishes from me on the rocking his musical education. He has conducted including Concertos for Strings (Richard waves. in The Ring Cycle with Sir Simon Rattle. such as the Staatskapelle Dresden, Mills), Quamby () and Tomorrow let time again vanish with Elsewhere she has sung Cordelia in Aribert Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Etruscan Concerto (Peggy Glanville- shimmering wings, Reimann’s Lear (Hamburg State Opera), As it did yesterday and today, Radio Orchestra, Danish Radio Symphony Hicks). Blonde (Hamburg State Opera and the Until, on higher, more radiant wings, Orchestra and Orchestre National du He has received Helpmann Awards for Dutch National Opera), the title role in Luigi I myself vanish from the flux of time. Capitole de Toulouse. Opera companies his work as a composer () and Rossi’s Orpheus (Royal Opera House), and conductor ( and The Richard Mills © 2013 with which he has worked include the Morgana (Alcina) and Marzelline (Fidelio) Love of the Nightingale). Other awards Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden, Deutsche The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, which (Grand Théâtre de Genève). Upcoming include the Sir Bernard Heinze Award, Oper, Komische Oper Berlin, Opéra Bastille, commissioned this work, gave the world engagements include her US debut at Fellowship and the Ian Potter première, in Hobart on 21 March 2014. Royal Opera Stockholm and . Foundation Award for Established Lyric Opera of Chicago in the title role of Over the past 20 years he has given many . Currently Artistic Director of Massenet’s Cendrillon, her debut for the Victorian Opera, he was made a Member masterclasses for the German conductor Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Mélisande of the Order of Australia in 1999. training and development organisation, in Pelléas et Mélisande, Victorian Opera. The composer writes: Dirigentenforum des Deutschen Musikrates. Highlights on the concert platform include Impromptu, after Schubert is a Similarly, he has been actively involved in Brahms’ A German (Berliner nurturing up-and-coming conductors in meditation in response to two Philharmoniker/Christian Thielemann and fragments from Schubert songs, Australia through training programs run by Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/Herbert ‘Ariette’ and ‘Auf dem Wasser zu Symphony Services International. In January Blomstedt), Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony singen’, the first in G major, the second 2015, he joined the University of Tasmania at the BBC Proms/, Haydn’s in A-flat minor. These fragments are the as Adjunct Professor, Conservatorium of Creation (MSO/Sir Andrew Davis), Mozart exclusive provenance of an off-stage , the quotations call from times Music, Tasmanian College of the Arts. arias with Rolando Villazon, Salzburg past through time. The orchestra both He is the Course Leader of the recently Mozartwoche (Mozarteumorchester Salzburg/ responds to and develops the song founded Australian Academy in Kristiina Poska) and a tour of Australia with fragments, taking some of the classic cooperation between UTAS and the TSO. Roberto Alagna. fingerprints of Schubert: the expressive

12 13 Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Orchestral Songs attention to the expressive possibilities Symphony No 9 in C, D944, Great which paid Schubert a small gratuity, Zueignung, Op 10 No 1 of the woodwind instruments, the Andante – Allegro ma non troppo had read through the work but decided Säusle, liebe Myrte, Op 68 No 2 above all. Andante con moto it was too long and ‘difficult’ for players Freundliche Vision, Op 48 No 1 In Freundliche Vision (A Pleasant Vision), Scherzo (Allegro vivace – Trio) and audiences alike. (This remained Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden, two lovers are walking towards a white Allegro vivace a stumbling-block for the work well Op 68 No 1 house in a beautiful, daisy-filled meadow. into the 19th and early 20th centuries: Morgen!, Op 27 No 4 There they will find peace and beauty. Mendelssohn had to withdraw it from Among papers found after Schubert’s Cäcilie, Op 27 No 2 Strauss treats this dream-like vision a performance in London owing to a death was a score of his ‘Great’ with discretion and restraint yet taken player rebellion, and Hans von Bülow Symphony in C, which the composer’s as a whole – vocal line, harmony and found aspects of it as baffling as the Richard Strauss was one of the last in – it is one of the loveliest brother showed to Robert Schumann in music of his erstwhile disciple, Mahler.) a long line of composers of German of all of his songs. 1838. Fired with enthusiasm, Schumann Finally, the nickname refers in part to the Romantic song. Beginning with Schubert, sent it to Mendelssohn in Leipzig, and in work’s generous dimensions, but also the tradition extended across the 19th Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden (I would 1839 the work was performed there by distinguishes it from Schubert’s earlier century. Choosing poems that lent have made a Bouquet) is another setting the Gewandhaus Orchestra. In a letter to symphony, now known as Symphony No themselves well to musical treatment of a Brentano poem. Here, the lover his then fiancée, Clara Wieck, Schumann 6, D589, which is also in C major. (whether because of emotional or explains that she would have made a described the rehearsal he had attended: descriptive or dramatic content, or all bouquet for her beloved had the flower The challenges and joys of the symphony three) and setting the poems in such a not pleaded for its life and asked not I have been in paradise today!…I was stem from its balance of classical way that the vocal line and the piano to be plucked (shades of Goethe’s supremely happy, and had nothing principles and, for want of a better accompaniment interacted closely, Heidenröslein!). Added to that, the left to wish for, except that you were term, Romantic aspirations – it is after all composers in this tradition produced beloved has failed to appear at the my wife, and that I could write such roughly contemporary with Beethoven’ touching and imaginative small-scale rendezvous. With no bouquet and no myself. Ninth and Berlioz’s Symphonie marvels. Strauss composed over 200 beloved, the lover comes to realise that fantastique. The work is cast in the Schumann’s enthusiasm was generated songs. The selection performed here love and sorrow are closely intertwined. conventional four-movement layout of in part by the ‘heavenly length’ of the were all written in the first instance for This explains the bittersweet harmonies the classical Viennese symphony, and voice and piano. of the song’s closing paragraph. piece, which he compared to a novel Schubert uses some kind of sonata in four volumes; Schubert had, clearly, design in three of the movements; his In Zueignung (Dedication), a setting of Morgen! (Tomorrow) is one of Strauss’s hit on a new way of structuring large a poem by Austrian poet Hermann von orchestration, with its use of horn calls most famous songs. A setting of a poem spans of symphonic time, and this would and distant, soft , evokes the Gilm, the subject sings of the sweet by Scottish-born John Henry Mackay, have radical implications for the form as sufferings that come from being in love. Romanticism of Mendelssohn and Weber. it is a song of quiet, unspoken rapture. cultivated by composers from Schumann Strauss captures the ecstasy of the lover’s Crucially important is the role played by to Mahler. The first movement begins with a slow dilemma in music of great sweep and the solo , which introduces the song introduction that creates added tension verve. Zueignung comes from Strauss’s and enhances the mood of tranquil The magic number ‘nine’, the fact of before the outbreak of the faster material Op 10 collection of songs, which dates throughout. This is one of the four songs Schubert’s tragically early death, and in the main body of the movement. from 1885, when the composer was in his of Strauss’s Op 27, a collection presented existence of at least one ‘Unfinished So far, so Classical, but in addition the early 20s. This collection is generally held as a wedding gift by the composer to his Symphony’ in Schubert’s oeuvre have theme (on unison horns) which begins to mark Strauss’s coming-of-age as wife-to-be, soprano , conspired to create a number of myths the work also contains the seeds of much a song composer. in 1894. about the ‘Great’ C major symphony. of the symphony’s subsequent material The gentle song Säusle, liebe Myrte First, far from being Schubert’s last – especially the dotted rhythm in the Cäcilie (Cecilia) is another song from the word in the medium, it was completed theme’s second bar, which pervades the (Rustle, dear Myrtle), which is a lullaby ‘wedding collection’, Op 27. Indeed, in 1826 – well before his death – and whole work. This elaboration of material to a sleeping beloved, is rich in unlike the other songs in this collection, nature imagery (the rustling leaves of indeed was at one time numbered from a small cell recalls the examples of Cäcilie was dashed off hurriedly the the myrtle tree, cooing turtledoves, ‘seven’ in the Schubert canon. Second, Haydn and Beethoven, though Schubert night before Strauss’s marriage. It makes chirping crickets, and so on). This is while the Leipzig performance was balances this concentration with his extensive use of a refrain, ‘Wenn Du es hardly surprising given that the poem the work’s public première, in fact the characteristic spinning of apparently wüßtest’ (If only you knew), which at the is by Clemens Brantano, co-editor of symphony hadn’t sat under Schubert’s endlessly new melodies. But from song’s conclusion becomes, ‘If only you Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Originally bed all that time: the composer had Beethoven too he learned the rhetorical knew, / you would live with me!’ composed in 1918, Strauss orchestrated sent a copy to Vienna’s Gesellschaft der power of reiteration, and at various the song in 1940, paying particular Robert Gibson © 2018 Musikfreunde in 1826, and the orchestra, points in the piece creates long stretches

14 15 TSO of increasingly exciting music out of the forceful repetition of short, strongly profiled motives. The tremendous tension built up during the first movement is resolved in a way uncharacteristic of Schubert: he brings back the opening horn theme, now transformed by the Brass prevailing fast tempo into something much less dreamy in character. in The slow movement begins in A minor, the work’s relative minor key, and its main St David’s theme, characterised by the pervasive dotted rhythm, has been described by Cathedral Donald Tovey as a ‘heartbreaking show of spirit in adversity’. Certainly Schubert’s health was, at this time, deteriorating thanks to syphilis and the then common treatments for the disease, but the work is in no way a document of self-pity. Using a device common in his songs, Schubert takes his music into the major mode (A major) for dramatic, and possibly optimistic, contrast. The Scherzo maintains the large-scale thinking of the rest of the work, and in this regard anticipates the massive structures of Bruckner’s symphonic scherzos. Like Bruckner, Schubert generates great energy by the use of inexorably buoyant rhythms and a string of beautiful themes. The finale is likewise of a proportion to match the previous movements and is as Saturday 22 September 7.30pm full of thematic invention. It encompasses material and emotional states as different as what Tovey identifies as ‘fairy music’ Johannes Fritzsch and gestures ‘as terrible as anything in Conductor Beethoven or Michelangelo’. © 2009 Like alchemy, the rich sounds of the TSO Brass and the spacious surrounds of St David’s The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first Cathedral combine to deliver concert experiences of rare and resonant beauty. performed this work with Kenneth Murison Bourn From honeyed horns to brilliant , ceremonial trombones to deep-toned tuba, on 29 April 1953 and, most recently, with Marko the TSO Brass present a world of instrumental colours, each one distinct yet perfectly Letonja in Hobart on 21 March 2014. blended when combined as an ensemble.

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