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CHIEF CONDUCTOR: ILAN VOLKOV LEADER: ELIZABETH LAYTON

THE THURSDAY NIGHT SERIES

City Halls, Glasgow Thursday, 5 March 2009 at 7.30pm

THE SYMPHONIC COLLECTION

JONATHAN HARVEY SPEAKINGS interval BRUCKNER SYMPHONY NO. 9

Jonathan Harvey sound projection Jérémie Henrot and Clément Marie IRCAM sound projection Ilan Volkov conductor

Tonight’s concert is being recorded for broadcast tomorrow night in Performance on 3 at 7.00pm

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Please keep coughs and sneezes well muffled ~ thank you. The use of cameras, video or sound-recording equipment is prohibited. SSO Mar 5 v5 26/2/09 13:03 Page 2

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TONIGHT’S POST-CONCERT CODA

(beginning approximately 10 minutes after the end of the main concert)

Why not stay on as Mark O’Keeffe, principal trumpet BBC SSO, performs Jonathan Harvey’s Other Presences, with sound projection by Alistair Macdonald.

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TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

THE SYMPHONIC COLLECTION 5 The orchestral discourse, itself inflected by speech structures, is electro-acoustically shaped by the envelopes The BBC SSO has been privileged to work closely in of speech taken from largely random recordings.The vowel recent years with one of the world’s leading and consonant spectra-shapes flicker in the rapid rhythms composers, Jonathan Harvey.Tonight we are able to and colours of speech across the orchestral textures. A hear the Scottish premiere of the last work that process of 'shape vocoding', taking advantage of speech's Harvey wrote specially for the orchestra during his fascinating complexities, is the main idea of this work. time as its Composer in Association.In Speakings the The first movement is like an incarnation, the descent into orchestra and electronics describe in musical terms human life, with baby sounds. the emergence of human speech from sound, something that takes us back to the very birth of The second is concerned with the frenetic chatter of humanity. The music of Bruckner, too, seems in a human life in all its expressions of domination, assertion, continuous state of ‘becoming’ – the journey of a fear, love, etc. It expands the work 'Sprechgesang' lost soul towards redemption. composed just before. Finally it moves, exhausted, to mantra and a celebration of ritual language.The mantra is orchestrated and treated by shape vocoding.

SPEAKINGS – FOR ORCHESTRA AND LIVE The third movement is shorter, like the first. Here speech ELECTRONICS (2007–8) (c.30’) has a calmer purpose; it is married to a music of unity, a JONATHAN HARVEY (born 1939) hymn which is close to Gregorian chant. There is often a GILBERT NOUNO AND ARSHIA CONT, single monodic line reverberated in a large acoustic space. IRCAM COMPUTER MUSIC DESIGNERS There is little division of line against line, or music against listener, as the reverberation eliminates the sense of BBC co-commission with IRCAM-Centre Pompidou separation between listener and musical object. The and Radio France: Scottish Premiere paradise of the sounding temple is imagined.

Jonathan Harvey sound projection The movements are played without a break. Jérémie Henrot, Clément Marie IRCAM sound projection programme note, © Jonathan Harvey, 2008/2009 Speakings was written in 2007-8. It is the third in my trilogy referring to the Buddhist purification of body, mind and speech, which the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra The World Premiere of Speakings was given by the commissioned. Speakings is also commissioned by IRCAM- BBC SSO, conducted by Ilan Volkov, at the BBC Proms Centre Pompidou/Radio France and involves electronics (Royal Albert Hall, ) on 19 August 2008. which I realised with the help of Gilbert Nouno, Arshia Cont and also Grégoire Carpentier.The work is gratefully dedicated to Ilan Volkov, the BBC SSO and Frank Madlener. +

Speech and music are very close and yet also distant. In Interval (c.20 minutes) Speakings I wanted to bring together orchestral music and human speech. It is as if the orchestra is learning to speak, + like a baby with its mother, or like first man, or like listening to a highly expressive language we don't understand. The rhythms and emotional tones of speech are formed by semantics, but even more they are formed by feelings - in that respect they approach song. In Buddhist mythology from India there is a notion of original, pure speech, in the form of mantras - half song, half speech.The OM-AH-HUM is said to be the womb of all speech. 3 SSO Mar 5 v5 26/2/09 13:03 Page 4

SYMPHONY NO. 9 IN D MINOR convoluted.Who knows whether he would have stuck with (UNFINISHED) (c.63’) the ideas he started out with? Most great composers ANTON BRUCKNER (1824–1896) (ED. NOWAK 1951) prune, cut, simplify as they go along.

Bruckner never begins a symphony with a clear, unambiguous statement. For him, the journey is a matter of 1. Feierlich, misterioso (Solemn, mysterious) feeling one’s way slowly and sometimes painfully towards 2. Scherzo: Bewegt, lebhaft (With lively motion) – the light. And so it is with the Ninth Symphony: distant Trio: Schnell (Fast) horns call across the dark abyss; fragments of ideas 3. Adagio: Langsam, feierlich (Slow, solemn) compete as the growing torrent of sound leads to a massive brass outburst. Then there’s the contrasting, sunlit “As regards Bruckner, I have very sad news, His mind is balm of a warmly lyrical theme led by the strings. Shadows disintegrating, and the spectre of religious mania holds him cross the picture again as the oboe introduces a third idea. ever faster in its grip. It makes a dreadful impression, and These are the building blocks for the movement, and perhaps a quick end would be the best thing, as recovery Bruckner now develops them as he traces a winding path is out of the question. He is, however, astonishingly through territory that is at times fraught with uncertainty, tenacious of his bodily health”. (Joseph Schalk, quoted in occasionally reassuringly benign, and at other times quite Stephen Johnson’s Bruckner Remembered, Faber & Faber, terrifying. Ultimately, there is a triumphant arrival, but not 1998) one that feels like the end of the road.

Joseph Schalk’s distressing picture of Bruckner a few weeks Scherzos in Bruckner’s symphonies are not generally strong before his death in October 1896 suggests that dementia on the skittish humour that composers, from Beethoven had overwhelmed the composer in the last year or so of onward, had tended to give them. They do usually have a his life; the testimonies of other friends bear that out. kind of demonic energy, though, and if there is any humour it tends to be reserved for the trio. In this symphony the For some nine years, his main preoccupation had been his scherzo’s main theme is characterised by a kind of Ninth Symphony. His poor health, however, drained him of diabolical hammering, disturbingly obsessive. The the strength to complete the finale, and it never got beyond contrasting trio theme does have a touch of humour that sketch form. Bruckner wanted to dedicate the symphony to almost resembles Prokofiev in its gossamer lightness of the Glory of God, and sensing that it would never be texture. As with all Bruckner’s scherzos, the traditional finished, he told a number of friends that his Te Deum might pattern of repeating sections is followed religiously. make a suitably laudatory finale. But as Stephen Johnson points out there is no thematic connection between the The finale is one of the most extraordinary movements in well-known Te Deum in C and the symphony - Bruckner’s all of Bruckner. He called it his ‘farewell to life’. Its main ideas symphonic finales habitually bring back themes from earlier seem deeply troubled at first: the opening angst-ridden in the work - and he reminds us that even the keys of the string theme, and the brass outburst that follows it. After two works are not compatible. It has been tried as a those a broad string chorale melody emerges with a sense substitute finale, but it’s not a satisfactory solution. of almost ecstatic release, and in the music that follows Bruckner seems to be searching for a way of resolving the Recent research has unearthed a much earlier Te Deum in tension between these conflicting forces.The eventual, huge D. Since at least it’s in the same key as the Ninth Symphony, climax is one of almost unbearable agony. It’s followed by a it’s possible that this is what Bruckner was thinking of. But coda of heavenly serenity with which the symphony, as we this cannot be the answer either because, composed thirty know it, ends. years earlier, its unsophisticated, immature style is nothing like that of the three existing movements of the symphony. The Ninth Symphony is, and will remain, a magnificent As a finale it would be a complete let-down.Attempts have torso. Its concluding movement may not be the paean of been made to compose a finale based on Bruckner’s praise to God that the ever-devoted Bruckner seems to substantial sketches. The American musicologist William have envisaged, but it is the most moving self-epitaph, Carragan did this, but as with other such exercises an intended or not, that any composer ever wrote. essential component of the original composer’s genius - the self-critical editing instinct - is missing. Bruckner’s sketched programme note by Hugh Macdonald, © BBC material sometimes seems over-complicated, unnecessarily

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+ RECOMMENDED LISTENING He has recently worked with Jonathan Harvey on his opera Wagner Dream and on Speakings, which was premiered at last year’s BBC Proms in London. He is currently carrying BRUCKNER SYMPHONY NO.9 out research on the rhythmic interaction between Günther Wand/North German Radio Symphony musicians and computers. Orchestra (RCA) (historical) Bruno Walter/Columbia Symphony Orchestra (Sony) IRCAM

There are recordings of ‘complete’ versions of the Ninth Symphony, with reconstructions of the 4th movement.The version completed by William Carragan has been recorded by Yoav Talmi and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (Chandos), and by Akira Naito and the Tokyo New City Orchestra (Delta Classics) Founded in 1970 by Pierre Boulez, IRCAM (Institute for the Research and Co-ordination of Music/Acoustics) is an BIOGRAPHIES institution linked with the Centre Pompidou, under the charge of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. Today it is one of the world’s largest public research centres ARSHIA CONT dedicated to both musical expression and scientific research. It is a unique location where artistic sensibilities Of Iranian origin, Arshia Cont has worked since 2004 as a collide with scientific and technological innovation. Frank researcher in the Real-Time Musical Interactions Team at Madlener has directed the institute since 2006. IRCAM's IRCAM, where he is one of the major forces on the “Score three principal activities – creation, research, transmission – Following” project, which enables real-time tracking of a are manifest in IRCAM's Parisian concert season, in the musical score during live performance. His research focuses institute's annual festival, AGORA, and in productions on fields such as artificial intelligence, music perception and throughout France and abroad. complex systems – with applications in computer-music composition and performance. His research has been IRCAM is a performance space in which many world featured in various international symposiums and scientific premieres have been created, a production location and a journals. Since 2007 he has also been a computer-music unique residence for international composers. The designer, working with composers Marco Stroppa and institute’s season is full of unique encounters as a result of Jonathan Harvey. He appears as a performer of live its commission policy. Numerous artist-in-residence electronic pieces, and has collaborated with various programmes result in the creation of multi-disciplinary ensembles and artists, notably for the performance of projects (music, dance, video, theatre and film). Finally, the pieces by Pierre Boulez. In addition to his research role at public can see these creations at the annual AGORA IRCAM, from September last year he has taken charge of festival. co-ordinating scientific and musical research at the institute. In the realm of music and sound, IRCAM is at the cutting- edge of scientific and technological innovations. In GILBERT NOUNO partnership with several universities and international companies, research covers a broad spectrum of scientific An “improv” musician and composer, Gilbert Nouno has disciplines: acoustics, signal processing, computer science, combined his musical education in composition and musicology, ergonomics and musical cognition. Findings are orchestration with his scientific training. The musical and often applied to other artistic domains, such as multimedia, scientific aspects of his training reflect the undertakings of fine arts or live performance, as well as to diverse fields in IRCAM, a junction of digital and musical technologies. He the industrial world (room acoustics, listening devices, has worked with numerous artists and composers, sound design, software engineering). including Pierre Boulez, Suisan Buirge, Steve Coleman, José- Luis Campana, Philippe Schoeller, Kaija Saariaho, Michael IRCAM is also a computer-music education centre. Its Jarrell, Michael Levinas, Brian Ferneyhough, Malik Mezzadri, Cursus programme and workshops carried out in and the jazz group Octurn.

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BIOGRAPHIES

collaboration with researchers and international ILAN VOLKOV composers make IRCAM a reference point in professional training. Its educational activities also reach the general Ilan Volkov has been Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish public thanks to the development of interactive teaching Symphony Orchestra since January 2003, having first software in co-operation with the French Ministry of conducted the orchestra in 1998. He is a passionate Education and the conservatories. IRCAM is also advocate of contemporary composers, and plays an committed to university-level training, with a Master’s important role in the orchestra’s continuing commitment programme, in partnership with the University of Paris VI. to new music. In addition, his interpretations of the Classical and Romantic repertory have been widely For further information please visit: www.ircam.fr praised for their lucidity of texture and structure, rhythmic vitality and depth of insight. In September this year, Ilan Volkov will assume his new role as the orchestra’s Principal JONATHAN HARVEY Guest Conductor.

Jonathan Harvey studied at St. John’s College, Cambridge In addition to conducting numerous concerts each season and gained doctorates from the universities of Glasgow with the BBC SSO, and taking the orchestra to important and Cambridge. He also studied privately (on the advice UK festivals and touring abroad, Ilan Volkov makes of Benjamin Britten) with Erwin Stein and Hans Keller, and frequent guest appearances with other orchestras later worked extensively at IRCAM. He has composed for throughout the world. His engagements in the current and many genres, including orchestra, chamber orchestra, future seasons include debuts with the Cleveland and opera, computer-manipulated sounds, live and pre- Minnesota Orchestras, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra recorded sounds, solo instruments, and also a large and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and re- number of choral works. He published two books in 1999, invitations to the City of Birmingham Symphony on inspiration and spirituality respectively.Arnold Whittall’s Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, study on his music appeared in the same year; published Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris and by Faber & Faber. His works feature on around 50 CD the National Symphony Orchestra,Washington. recordings and are regularly performed at most international festivals. Jonathan Harvey held the position of In the opera house he has conducted Tchaikovsky’s Composer in Association with the BBC SSO from 2004 Eugene Onegin for San Francisco Opera (2004), and in until 2008. Since January 2005 the orchestra has given 2006 conducted Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at performances of the following works: Cello Concerto; Glyndebourne Festival Opera with the London Wheel of Emptiness; Ricercare una melodia – for trumpet Philharmonic Orchestra, having already appeared with and tape delay system; Tranquil Abiding; … towards a Pure Glyndebourne Touring Opera. This spring he will he will Land (BBC Commission); White as Jasmine; Body Mandala conduct performances of Britten’s Peter Grimes at (BBC Commission); Timepieces for orchestra and two Washington National Opera. conductors, Scena for violin and ensemble; and Speakings – for orchestra and live electronics (BBC co-commission with Ilan Volkov is also one of the guiding forces behind IRCAM-Centre Pompidou and Radio France). A CD Levontin 7, a performance venue in that brings recording of many of the works listed above, played by the together differing musical genres including classical, jazz, BBC SSO/Ilan Volkov, was released on the NMC label at electronic and rock. Opened in 2006, it is described by the beginning of last year (NMC D141) and won the Volkov as means of influencing cultural life in ‘in a Gramophone Award for the best Contemporary CD of way that is more subtly apparent than conducting, and 2008. more practical than merely giving a concert once every few years.’ For further information please visit: www.vivosvoco.com

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BBC SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Chief Conductor: Ilan Volkov Laura Ghiro Contra-Bassoon Chief Conductor Designate: Donald Runnicles Alistair Tasker Peter Wesley (++) Janis Walton Associate Guest Conductor: Stefan Solyom Gemma O’Keeffe Horns Conductor Laureate: Jerzy Maksymiuk Alan John David Flack (+++) Leader: Elizabeth Layton Diane Merson-Jones Jeremy Bushell Patrick Broderick Violas Ian Smith Formed in 1935, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is Scott Dickinson (+++) Andrew Saunders recognised as one of the UK’s leading orchestras. The Andrew Berridge (++) winner of several awards, including a Royal Philharmonic Jacqui Penfold (+) Wagner Tubas Society Award (the only Scottish orchestra to do so) and Fiona Robertson Rebecca Hill Georgia Boyd David Pryce three Gramophone Awards, its wide repertoire and flexible Alice Batty Etienne Cutajar approach to format means it can perform a complex Eilen Berridge Andrew Saunders contemporary piece as a specialist ensemble alongside a Sarah Chapman Rik Evans Trumpets major symphonic work. It has a busy broadcasting Martin Wiggins Mark O’Keeffe (+++) schedule on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Alistair Beattie Eric Dunlea Television and also records commercially. Hedley Benson (++) Cellos Robert Baxter Sian Bell (++) Based here at City Halls, the orchestra takes live music to Alison Lawrance (+) Trombones towns and cities across Scotland every season, is in Anthony Sayer Simon Johnson (+++) demand at major UK festivals and plays every summer at Anne Brincourt Philip Wheldon the BBC Proms. It has appeared in many of the great Rebecca Leyton Gregor Stewart Gillian de Groote musical centres of Europe and has toured the USA, South Harold Harris Bass Trombone America and been twice to China, most recently in May Sonia Cromarty Alan Mathison (++) 2008. In Scotland, as well as being the leading supporter of Jessica Sullivan Tuba living composers and new music, the orchestra is Double Basses Jonathan Gawn (*) extremely active in the community with an innovative Iain Crawford (++) learning programme dedicated to bringing the inspiration John Van Lierop (+) Timpani of great music to people of all ages and backgrounds. Derek Hill Gordon Rigby (+++) Paul Spiers Jeremy Ward Percussion In September Ilan Volkov will step down after seven years Lynette Eaton Heather Corbett (+++) as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and will then assume Dave Lyons the role of Principal Guest Conductor. His numerous Flutes Martin Willis Rosemary Eliot (+++) Ian Coulter projects with the BBC SSO, including the first UK Ewan Robertson residency by IRCAM Paris – in Glasgow in April last year Kate Chisholm Harp – have helped define the partnership between conductor Helen Thomson Piccolo and orchestra as one of the most exciting in British music Rosemary Lock (++) Piano today. He will be succeeded by the eminent Scottish-born Lynda Cochrane conductor Donald Runnicles, Music Director and Principal Oboes Conductor of the San Francisco Opera. Stella McCracken (+++) Celesta Timothy Rundle Graeme McNaught

First Violins Joanna Sutherland Cor Anglais Keyboard Elizabeth Layton (leader) Liza Johnson Christopher Redgate (*) James Clapperton Bernard Docherty Catherine James (co-leader) Cheryl Crockett Clarinets +++ section principal Olivier Lemoine (+++) Yann Ghiro (+++) ++ principal Peter Cynfryn Jones (++) Second Violins Barry Deacon + string sub-principal Jane Mawson Greg Lawson (+++) * guest principal Marie Brown Christopher Latham (++) Bass Clarinet Amy Cardigan David Chadwick (+) Simon Butterworth (++) orchestra list correct at the time Wilson Hainey Elizabeth Flack of going to print Gent Koço Julia Carpenter Bassoons Emily MacPherson Barbara Downie Julian Roberts (+++) Alastair Savage Alex Gascoine Sarah Andrew 7 SSO Mar 5 v5 26/2/09 13:03 Page 8

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: WWW.BBC.CO.UK/BBCSSO

NEXT THURSDAY NIGHT SERIES CONCERT AT CITY HALLS

Thursday, 19 March at 7.30pm

RICHARD STRAUSS TOD UND VERKLÄRUNG MOZART ALMA GRANDE E NOBIL CORE, K.578* MOZART EXSULTATE, JUBILATE, K.165* PROKOFIEV ROMEO AND JULIET SUITE

Ailish Tynan soprano* Michaπ Dworzyn´ski conductor

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

And don’t forget the Prelude before that concert 6.45pm (Recital Room): Simon Lord, Producer BBC SSO, in conversation with Vicky Featherstone, Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Scotland, on Romeo and Juliet.

For further information about The Thursday Night Series and how to obtain tickets please visit: www.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