BRISBANE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA IS PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY:

4MBS Classic FM is pleased to appoint the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra as 4MBS Orchestra in Residence for 2021 to recognise their 30th anniversary year.

SUNDAY 14 MARCH 2021 | 3PM MOUNTAIN CREEK STATE HIGH SCHOOL and SUNDAY 21 MARCH 2021 | 3PM BRISBANE CITY HALL Conductor: Paul Dean

GLINKA | Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla

TCHAIKOVSKY | Polonaise from Eugene Onegin

SIBELIUS | Scene with Cranes

DVOŘÁK | Symphony no. 8 in G Major, Op. 88 Allegro con Brio Adagio Allegretto grazioso Allegro ma non Troppo

It is with great excitement that we welcome Brisbane clarinettist, composer and conductor, Paul Dean, as our new Chief Conductor. He is widely regarded as one of Australia's foremost musicians in his multiple capacities as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, composer and Artistic Director. Paul currently holds the position of Head of Winds at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, is a founding member of the Endeavour Trio and co-Artistic Director of Ensemble Q with cellist Trish O'Brien. Paul was the founder of the Southern Cross Soloists, the Bangalow Music Festival, the Coramba Chamber Music Festival and the Sunwater and Stanwell Winter Music School. Between 1987 and 2000 he was Principal Clarinet with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as soloist with QSO on over 40 occasions. He has also performed as soloist with the Melbourne, West Australian, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Southern Sinfonia NZ, and Trondheim Symfoniker (Norway). He has performed as soloist at many Festivals throughout world including the Oxford May Music Festival, the Huntington Music Festival, Alpine Classic Switzerland, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Trondheim Chamber Music Festival, Coramba Chamber Music Festival, Camden Haven Music Festival, and the Melbourne, Christchurch, Brisbane, Queensland, Perth, and Sydney Festivals. Paul was appointed Composer in Residence for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's 2019 season. His clarinet concerto was premiered by the MSO with the composer as soloist and Michael Collins conducting. His violin concerto, "A Brief History" was dedicated to Stephen Hawking and was premiered in the MSO's "Symphonic Universe" performances with presenter Brian Cox and violinist Jack Liebeck.

PROGRAM NOTES

Glinka, Mikhail (1804-1857) Overture to “Ruslan and Ludmilla” The composer who was arguably the first Russian to become widely known outside his homeland was born in a remote village where he was brought up by his grandmother. Because of his relative isolation from larger centres, he was not exposed to any “classical” European music during his early childhood. However, at the age of thirteen he was sent to St Petersburg, where he was delighted to discover the riches of the music of sophisticated Europe. The result was that during a most successful career, he wrote songs, piano music, chamber music and operas, tangentially influencing younger Russian composers such as Tchaikovsky. He died in Berlin in 1857. Ruslan and Ludmilla was Glinka’s second opera, from which the overture has become its most performed section. The structure of the overture bears some resemblances to sonata form without being in strict form. Full of lively scale passages and memorable melodic themes, the work’s continuing popularity is well merited. Two rather quirky facts accompany both the opera and its creator. History states that the opera was based on a book by the famous author Pushkin. So far so good. However, because the actual librettist was roaringly drunk during its creation, the story of a girl rescued from a villain came out somewhat garbled. But the music compensates! Fact number two concerns Glinka’s over-zealous grandmother. Apparently she was so concerned about the little boy’s health in a harsh Russian climate that she kept her house permanently over-warm and rarely let the poor child outdoors to play, resulting in an adult somewhat afflicted with hypochondria. Helicopter Granny, anyone? Juliet Hoey

Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich (1840-1893) Polonaise from Eugene Onegin If Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) came to be known as the ‘father of Russian literature’, he is also the father of Russian opera. His short stories, verse novels, history plays and fairy tales soon became essential subjects for operatic treatment, from Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov via Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov operas all the way to Stravinsky’s one-act oddity Mavra (1923).

In the case of Tchaikovsky’s first Pushkin project, Eugene Onegin, life and art became inextricably linked. In 1877 he found himself playing out the role of the moody hero to a young woman, Antonina Milyukova, a former student, who had written to him – just as the romantic, impressionable teenage Tatyana in the verse-novel writes to Onegin – declaring her love. Onegin’s rejection seems perverse, and he pays for it by falling in love with the married Tatyana four years later. Partly through cynical motives, to stop the gossip about his homosexuality, Tchaikovsky went so far as proposing to Antonina. After a ‘courtship’ during which he told her that he could not love her, they married. Only two weeks later, the composer had attempted suicide and left her for good.

The score of Eugene Onegin is pervaded by shades of lyricism, from quiet melancholy to breathless passion, punctuated now and then by music of a purely — but appropriately — decorative nature. One example of the latter occurs in the ball scene at the beginning of the third act, when this dashing Polonaise is danced. For the festivities, Tchaikovsky provided music with exactly the right aristocratic pomp and ceremony.

The Polonaise, French for ‘Polish’, is a dignified ceremonial dance that from the 17th to 19th century often opened court balls and other royal functions. Likely once a warrior’s triumphal dance, it was adopted by the Polish nobility as a formal march as early as 1573 for the coronation of Henry of Anjou as king of Poland. In its aristocratic form the dancers, in couples according to their social positions, promenaded around the ballroom with gliding steps accented by bending the knees slightly on every third step. Polonaise music is in 3/4 time.

Lindy Hunter

Sibelius, Jean (1865-1957) Scene with Cranes

Jean Sibelius, born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius, was a Finnish composer and violinist of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely recognized as his country's greatest composer and, through his music, is often credited with having helped Finland to develop a national identity during its struggle for independence from Russia. When Sibelius was studying at the Helsinki Music Academy, one of his closest friends was the conductor- to-be Armas Järnefelt. It was through Armas that he met his future wife, Armas’s sister Aino, whom he married in 1892. Another sibling of Aino and Armas (they came from a family of 9 children) was the writer Arvid, and it was for his play Kuolema (‘Death’) that Sibelius wrote a set of incidental music in 1903. Sibelius extracted some of the music from this to perform separately, including Valse Triste and this Scene with Cranes. Valse Triste was a hit during Sibelius’s lifetime, but Scene with Cranes was only performed once during his lifetime and was published posthumously. In Finnish culture, cranes are like our storks, delivering babies. In Järnefelt’s play, the main characters, Paavali and Elsa, see a flock of cranes fly overhead, and one of the birds separates from the group to bring them a baby. In this short piece of music, the strings set the scene, while the clarinets represent the cranes, imitating the sound of the bird call. Although they are silent for a large part of this work, the clarinets are the main piece in this musical puzzle. In mythology cranes are seen as symbolising freedom and eternal youth. It could then be reasonably suggested that the cranes in this work represent the freedom that death can offer. Two days before his death, it has been recorded that Sibelius “was returning from his customary morning walk. Exhilarated, he told his wife Aino that he had seen a flock of cranes approaching. ‘There they come, the birds of my youth’, he exclaimed. Suddenly, one of the birds broke away from the formation and circled once above their home. It then rejoined the flock to continue its journey.”

Lindy Hunter

Dvořák, Antonin (1841-1904) Symphony No 8 in G Major, Op.88 Allegro con Brio Adagio Allegretto grazioso Allegro ma non Troppo Antonin Dvořák was one of the first Czech musicians to achieve worldwide recognition as a composer. So obviously, posterity has reason to be thankful that the young boy did not follow the trade of his father, who was a butcher. Dvořák began his music studies in Prague in 1857 where, among acquiring other necessary skills, he became a fine violist, financing his studies by playing in various entertainment venues, and at times, even in a mental hospital. His mastery of the viola may well have had some bearing on the fact that many string players find his orchestral writing to be wonderfully playable and idiomatic, even in the most difficult passages. His compositional output was large and varied, including a piano concerto, the well-loved cello concerto, chamber music (the Dumky Trio in particular), solo and duo piano pieces, the Slavonic Dances, and nine symphonies. The exquisite Stabat Mater, written after the death of one of his children, also deserves mention. It is a stunning work that merits being heard much more often. To my knowledge it has been performed in Brisbane only two or three times. Of the nine symphonies, the Eighth Symphony which is being presented today bears scant resemblance to its better-known cousin, the Ninth (the New World). This is hardly surprising when it is realised that Dvořák wrote the Eighth Symphony in 1889, two years before being appointed director of the New York Conservatory. During his tenure there, the composer was exposed to the refreshing influence of American folk music, such influences being abundantly present in the New World, written in New York. In contrast, The Eighth Symphony makes good use of some of Bohemia’s folk tunes, specifically the very opening of the first movement, highlighted by the cellos. The piece is in the usual four movements, but the formal structure includes some rather individual features which sound typically Dvořák. For example, soon after the opening of the second movement, listen carefully and you may hear a faint suggestion of train journey. Apparently Dvořák was a train enthusiast, even including a similarly suggestive sound in the third movement of the New World Symphony. Movement Three of today’s work is a charming waltz. The final movement begins with a trumpet fanfare, followed by yet another theme dominated by the cellos. The Eighth Symphony was first performed in Prague in February 1890. Long may its voice continue to be heard. Juliet Hoey Brisbane Symphony Orchestra Concertmasters Violoncello French Horn Fiona Williams# Emma Allan* Karina Bryer* Megan Arends Donald Backstrom Damien Berglas Lynne Backstrom Janine Boothroyd Violin I Ursula Brown Helen Chandler André Allavena Gabriel Dumitru Kath Allen Trish Favaloro Trumpet Karen Blair Lara Higham Michael McKay* Tertia Hogan Adam Hoey Philip Harden Weiwei Huang Juliet Hoey Kylie Lundqvist Rose Hoffman Trombone Alice Mariette Lindy Hunter Craig Alloway* Ariel Shih Michael Lam Frederic Cassard Noah Van den Berg Isabelle Watson Double Bass Bass Trombone Glenn Scribner* John Cosic Violin II Cameron Bryer Maree Versace* Bernadette Hawkins Tuba Gerald Arends Mike Watson Elise Mills Hannah Baker Max Dierich Flute Timpani Julia Guppy Tara Neal* Steven Bryer* Megan Kirkby Kylie Moorhouse Kirsten Kloza Rachel Neale Oboe Colleen Schneider Frances Brodie* Frances Thompson Jaye Guarrera

Viola Clarinet Eve Brown Gavin Rebetzke* John Hemming Lisa Squires Sarah Lewis Damien Thomson Bassoon Stephanie Yesberg Sarah Wagner* Angela Cook

# Concertmaster for this program

* Principal player