Thursday 14 September 2017 Helen Grime Fanfare 2017 / note by Paul Griffiths Helen Grime in Profile b 1981

LSO SEASON CONCERT + SCULPTURE COURT LIVE RELAY his five-minute splash of fore, to herald, several times over, more NEW MUSIC BRITAIN INTRODUCTION from Paul Griffiths colours and dash of energies racing to and fro from the upper woodwind, was commissioned by the eventually incorporating the dance. Helen Grime Fanfare * (world premiere) This rather extraordinary programme could be Barbican Centre for tonight’s concert. Thomas Adès understood as a bunch of new works followed Clearly something celebratory was needed – Suddenly the marking turns to ‘Submerged, Harrison Birtwistle Concerto by a classic. However, one of the ‘new’ lot, celebrating a beginning, and therefore distant’, and the focus shifts to and Interval – 25 minutes ’s piece, is almost four decades celebrating the future more than the past. basses with harp, celeste and bells. The cor Oliver Knussen No 3 old, and both that work and Thomas Adès’ Helen Grime, by enlarging the notion of anglais steps forward, joined in its second NEW Elgar Variations on an Original Theme, ‘Enigma’ Asyla have gained classic status. In the fanfare as acclamation and summons, phrase by a , and out of memories 20 years since he conducted the first has created a festive overture that the earlier music gradually reassembles Sir conductor performance of Asyla, Sir Simon Rattle has brilliantly fits the bill while having also itself, to achieve full splendour under the Christian Tetzlaff violin taken it to the Los Angeles Philharmonic a seriousness of intent that is just as heading ‘Bright, exuberant’. This is not, and , and played it with appropriate to the occasion. however, quite where we end. • * Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the the latter in New York and the Far East. London Symphony by the Barbican Tonight’s performance will be his 26th Under the marking ‘Bright, dance-like’, This fanfare is part of a longer commission, MUSIC (and the work’s something like 150th). the first fanfares are sounded by high which will be premiered on 19 & 26 April orn in York in 1981, Grime was Claremont Trio of New York (Three Whistler Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 The Knussen symphony is another work woodwinds, rushing up (and later down) brought up in Aberdeenshire, Miniatures, 2011). Evocative titles, and he has promoted, touring it across Europe, in scales, joined by clangs from tuned where her mother and (highly appropriate) references to visual the US and Japan with his Birmingham percussion – glockenspiel, xylophone and HELEN GRIME CURATES … grandparents were music teachers. art, by no means ended there. Among her orchestra in the 1980s and 1990s. marimba – and supported by chords in the She studied at the , more recent works are responses to Joseph and to mainland Europe, Canada, and Asia on Mezzo Birtwistle’s tells the same bass. This streaming music alternates with Wednesday 20 September 7.30pm with and Edwin Roxburgh, Cornell’s assemblages (Aviary Sketches story its own way, for here is a living composer more evidently dance-like episodes featuring Milton Court Concert Hall and in 2008 at Tanglewood. By that time for string trio, 2014) and Joan Eardley’s inviting us to consider his work as we would , harp and celeste. The quick, volatile she was already making a reputation. paintings (Two Eardley Pictures, written BRITAIN Welcome drink generously provided by Beethoven’s, or Tchaikovsky’s, or Elgar’s. duple metre of these episodes soon takes works by Purcell, George Benjamin, Virga (2007), an LSO commission, proved for last year’s BBC Proms). Other times LSO Drinks Partner Chapel Down command of everything as the two kinds Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews, her gift for lustrous textures, of lines the stimulus seems to come more from the

But, spearheading the concert, never heard of material coalesce, but that command is Britten, Thomas Adès, engaging with each other in lively interplay instrumental line-up, as in her Quartet

before, Helen Grime’s piece turns us just as soon joyously lost as jubilation and Stravinksy and Helen Grime and often worked from pregnant motifs (2011) or the Double Concerto for perhaps towards the future, to a time intensity increase with the arrival of a duet that run through a composition. and that, in 2015, concluded Sculpture Court Relay presented by Barbican when we do not have classics and new for E-flat and B-flat in octaves. Jacqueline Shave director / violin Commissions followed for the Birmingham an association with the Hallé. She is works but just great music. • Britten Sinfonia Contemporary Music Group (A Cold Spring, currently working on a larger orchestral With a slight slackening of speed, though See page 14 for details 2009), the BBC Scottish Symphony work for Simon Rattle and the LSO, Concert ends approx 10.15pm hardly of thrust, the brass come to the Orchestra (Everyone Sang, 2010) and the to be performed in April next year. •

46 Programme Notes & Composer Profile 47 Thomas Adès Asyla 1997 / note and profile by Paul Griffiths Thomas Adès in Profile b 1971 LSO0798

I and clubs), of yet unsounded potentials Next comes a slow movement, whose THE CLUB SCENE II in a large orchestra, and of his own creative descents upon descents are begun by III Ecstasio strengths. Those strengths included a keyed instruments and soon spread through Talking about how he composed IV mastery of harmony and sound, and a gift the orchestra, led at first by . the club scene to The Independent, ‘Authoritative for the pregnant idea, all allowing him to There may be the sense of lament, Thomas Adès recalled: performances syla are places of safety. create symphonic music that appears to or chant, echoing in some vast space – We are all of us asylum-seekers. grow of itself, react to itself. though a central section is more agitated ‘So I bought some techno music and and sumptuous Asyla are also places of confinement. and dynamic. There follows the club scenes •: listened to it, just quietly, to get the We may all of us, too, at times, feel ourselves The first movement conjures a new world, a shock, though not total, since there were structure rather than blast my head off. textures.’ to be living in a madhouse. Asyla are places of stairways of sound from intimations of its pounding rhythm almost I realised that, in techno, you have to The Guardian of (last) resort – concert halls, as it may be. and percussion (principally cowbells), from the start. Dance floors, too, can be repeat things 32 or 64 times. So I tried to LSOLive_Ades_Cover_161216_FINAL.indd 1 19/12/2016 12:02 Asyla are forms, notably the symphony, through which a horn melody blows, asyla. As for the slow finale, we seem at first orchestrate it one night in my living room, where we feel at home, or where we once provoking very Adèsian gleaming to be listening to a deep under water, repeating all these figures over and over, on Thomas Adès felt at home. harmonic planes. It is not long before but soon flotsam from throughout the work this massive score paper, 30 staves to a page. Asyla | | is bobbing on the dolorous waves. • At 3am, I went to bed and, as I sat there, London Symphony Orchestra — realised my heart had stopped beating. orn in London in 1971, the son of enabling him to create music that An extraordinary soundscape of fantasy and urgent reality, I thought, ‘Christ, I’m having a heart attack’. an art historian and a translator- fascinated and compelled. In 1997, Discover the visionary world of Thomas Adès. THOMAS ADÈS CURATES … I rang the hospital and then they sent an poet, Adès made an early start. he produced his first big symphonic delicacy and excitement, bitter disillusionment and glowing hope. ambulance. My heart gradually started An appearance in London, when he was piece, Asyla, for Simon Rattle and the Presented together for the first time, Asyla, Tevot and — Monday 18 September 7.30pm again, but very shallowly. The ambulance 21 and fresh from studies at Cambridge City of Birmingham Symphony, extending Polaris trace his journey from wunderkind to one of the Milton Court Concert Hall took me to the Royal Free, where I waited with Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway, his stylistic and expressive resources. most imposing figures in contemporary music. First performed by the City of Birmingham the heavy beat of a quite different sort for two hours among other Saturday night brought him commissions from the London His second opera, , was Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon of music is being heard – and there will works by Per Nørgård, Nicholas Maw, casualties. And finally a doctor saw me Sinfonietta () and the Endellion introduced at Covent Garden in 2004. Experience Dolby Atmos on Pure Audio Blu-ray and Rattle in October 1997, Adès’ Asyla quickly be more such incursions. Meanwhile, , Harrison Birtwistle, and said, ‘You hyperventilated’. I thought, Quartet (). He was still only Then came further orchestral works, delve into three-dimensional sound that brings you established itself as the first big orchestral the music unfolds at more than one speed Niccolò Castiglioni, György Kurtág, ‘Thank God. It’s not my heart, it’s just my brain.’ 24 when his first opera was produced, including a second symphonic score, closer to the live experience than ever before. work of a remarkable composer, and as an simultaneously, the detail often darting, Osvaldo Golijov, John Woolrich the louche-exact, documentary-fantastical Tevot (2007), also for Rattle, this time extraordinary soundscape of fantasy and the larger movement going in swells, and Thomas Adès . A Ligetian skill in with the Berlin Philharmonic. Major works lsolive.lso.co.uk urgent reality, delicacy and excitement, upward and downward. The music goes, refreshing the most basic materials since have included a second quartet and bitter disillusionment and glowing hope. also, in multiple directions at the same time, Richard Baker conductor (a common chord in a surprising context, a third opera, The Exterminating Angel, Adès was only 26 at the time of composition, one filament of it reaching the furthest Guildhall School Musicians a falling interval in an extremely high register) staged at Covent Garden earlier this year, but already startlingly aware – aware of the reaches of piccolos, piano and celeste See page 14 for details and in referring very precisely to music of following its Salzburg première. • musical world around him (in concert halls before the last page is torn off. diverse types, classical and popular, was

48 Programme Notes 14 September 2017 Composer Profile 49

Thomas Adès Ad.indd 1 23/08/2017 12:24 Harrison Birtwistle Violin Concerto 2009–10 / note and profile by Paul Griffiths Harrison Birtwistle in Profile b 1934 Christian Tetzlaff violin

Christian Tetzlaff violin of rapid articulation, of energy gathering dry, muttering quick notes; and a looping Lars Vogt, performances with the Tetzlaff towards an eruption, and of calm – usually melody that, from its short-long rhythmic SIR HARRISON Quartett and clarinettist Jörg Widmann. irtwistle as a young man played the troubled calm of inward lament. patterns, has something of a Scottish feel. BIRTWISTLE CURATES … the clarinet, and in much of his Much of the music grows out of these ideas. He also appears with the Rundfunk- earlier music he favoured that — The orchestra, at first reluctant, moves into Saturday 23 September 7.30pm Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthaus- and other wind instruments, along with A ‘discussion’ between action when the violin has the first of its Milton Court Concert Hall orchester Berlin, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, percussion; his huge opera The Mask of rare brief rests, shortly after its duet with a and Montreal, NHK, Finnish Radio symphony Orpheus has an orchestra entirely drawn soloist and orchestra. flute. At this point the woodwinds unleash Varèse Octandre and Israel Philharmonic . from those families. Then gradually — clamant melody and the tuba has its own Machaut Messe de Nostre Dame His regular collaboration with conductor came a rapprochement with the strings, song, to which it will return at intervals with Plainsong Tropes arranged for Robin Ticciati takes them to Dubai with the accelerating to the point where he could Birtwistle has described the work as a through the piece. Other features presented instruments by Harrison Birtwistle Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Frankfurt, write a string quartet (The Tree of Strings, ‘discussion’ between soloist and orchestra, during these first four minutes include Byrd Lamentations Hamburg and Essen with Deutsches 2007), followed in 2009–10 by this concerto, the orchestra coming up with its own mechanical repetition, often clangorous Harrison Birtwistle Pulse Sampler Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, as well which he composed for tonight’s soloist to soloists from time to time, especially in with percussion, and a frequently used Harrison Birtwistle Moth Requiem as a return to Edinburgh with the Scottish a commission from the Boston Symphony five crucial passages, increasingly long and means of tying soloist and orchestra Chamber Orchestra. Orchestra. In conceiving the work he found involved, and also diverse in the kinds of together, when one takes up a note Martyn Brabbins conductor hrough the decades of including Tragoedia (1965) for opposing wind qually at home in Classical, he had a memory of playing the violin as a relationship they imply, where the solo violin extended by the other. BBC Singers postmodernism since 1970, and string chamber groups on the fulcrum Romantic and contemporary His recordings have received numerous schoolboy; he knew how the thing worked, discourses in turn with flute, piccolo, , Birtwistle’s music has remained of a harp. The heat went underground, repertoire, Christian Tetzlaff sets prizes and awards, including the Diapason what it felt like. oboe and bassoon. These duets, and the Having presented these indications of its See page 16 for details resolutely modern in its dissonance, subsumed in relative quiet and generative standards with his interpretations of the d’Or, Edison, Midem Classical and larger dialogues going on around them, premises and processes, the concerto can its formal complexity and freedom, its slowness, as he worked towards his opera Violin Concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, ECHO Klassik awards (including 2017’s — are not based on themes but proceed rather move on its way, luminous where the solo continuing innovation and its positively The Mask of Orpheus (1973–86). While that Tchaikovsky, Berg and Ligeti, and is renowned Instrumentalist of the Year, Violin for Brahms: A maze of zigzags. as statement and response, question part is concerned, against the often more mechanistic appurtenances of pulse and was in progress he also wrote two big for his innovative chamber music projects The Violin Sonatas on the Ondine label), and answer, thrust and counter-thrust, lumbering orchestral contribution. During repetition. At the same time it evokes a symphonic pieces (The Triumph of Time and performances of Bach’s solo repertoire. as well as several Grammy nominations. — gesture and reaction. Moments of stark the last and closest duet, for the soloist with prehistory of monuments and ritual acts. and Earth Dances) and much else, living disagreement are rare, but strain and bassoon, beginning about two-thirds of the Born in Accrington in 1934, Birtwistle was partly in the Hebrides, partly in France. Highlights of the 2017/18 season include Born in Hamburg in 1966, Christian As usual with Birtwistle, once the music unease are never far away. way in, the orchestral energy becomes more a slow starter. Though he had played the In 1996, the year he completed a formidable touring with the London Philharmonic Tetzlaff has been Artist-in-Residence gets going – and it gets going immediately, unified, and swerves forward again when the clarinet and composed from boyhood, and cycle of Célan songs (Pulse Shadows), Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski to the with the Berlin Philharmonic, with Sir startlingly – it does not stop, but moves To open the discussion the soloist puts duet is over. Before long, though, the work though he found lively colleagues (notably he moved to rural Wiltshire. Subsequent George Enescu Festival, Bucharest and Simon Rattle, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore on forward to the end, 25 minutes later, forward three topics: a rocketing rise, into regains its magnificent rolling gloom, to be Peter Maxwell Davies and Alexander Goehr) works, characteristically combining intensity Musikfest Bremen, and a return to Wigmore Hall, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and hr- creating a massive continuity that is also the upper air where it is greeted (or is it cut off by the solo violin plucking a middle- at the Royal Manchester College of Music, with melancholy, have included encounters Hall as Artist-in-Residence. The season- Sinfonieorchester. He plays a violin by a maze of zigzags. There are no distinct silenced?) by glockenspiel, piccolo and harps register D, the note that has been at the he was into his thirties before he produced with classical genres. • long residency includes a duo recital with German maker Peter Greiner. sections, though there certainly are zones with harmonics from the orchestral violins; centre of so many violin concertos. • his first works of characteristic trenchancy,

50 Programme Notes 14 September 2017 Composer Profile & Artist Biography 51 Oliver Knussen Symphony No 3 1979 / note and profile by Paul Griffiths Oliver Knussen in Profile b 1952 Edward Elgar in Profile 1857–1934

1 Andante misterioso – Fantastico by a theatre of percussion: bass drums, building to another climax. again through this part of the work, but now 2 Allegro con fuoco , cymbals. Next to come forward then offer a link to all these musical states horns enter to introduce the clarinets, 3 Molto tranquillo are low bassoons, eventually joined by in reverse order: flutes, chimers, horns and which dominate the next variation. upper woodwind and then replaced by clarinets, and string melody, much altered Horns and clarinets were coupled in the he nature of this luminous symphony bumptious . As these last move and now in a denser texture, from which first part, one will remember, and other can be quite quickly stated: it plays into a dance in short-long steps, almost the music breaks back to its opening. features of that earlier music resurface, for 15 minutes divided at the the whole orchestra comes into action. The speed soon recovers and, urged on by not least in the clarinets, as this second halfway mark, the first part being made of This does not happen very often in a score , a short development careers part goes on. The tutti fourth variation contrasts leading up to a massive chord, that generally focuses (as we have heard towards its goal in a chord that engages has the brass section fully in operation, the second of a steady unfolding from that already) on individual families, but it the entire orchestra and all twelve notes. to take over in the fifth, with rising horn crisis point. Knussen was an astonishingly happens now to reinforce a gathering climax. arpeggios heralding the mighty processional skilled and creatively mature 21-year-old This would be the moment to observe for woodwinds and horns that is the sixth when he wrote the first part, between July Right afterwards, at a faster tempo, the that Knussen’s harmony, though free and variation. These towering harmonies are, 1973 and January 1974. The second part violins at last make themselves heard – complex, is lit by the lights of former times. in the seventh variation, reduced to two, then took him some while to find, and was and vociferously – in a smart three-note The twelve-note chord has E at its bass, oscillating slowly, then shaking. After this added in the summer of 1979, in time for rise that launches them into a long melody. G-sharp next above and B at the top. That the symphony ends as it began. he son of a former LSO Principal His precocity as a composer, though, oaded with honours by a grateful After his tone poem Falstaff (1913), his a performance at the BBC Proms that year. The three-note gesture is one of the hardly makes for an E major sonority, but Bass player, Knussen was was deceptive. A startling cascade of Empire, including a knighthood in output of major works dwindled, perhaps on So although the composition extended over symphony’s basic motifs, and it is heard some sense of a distinct harmonic character At the foot of the score Knussen places born in Glasgow in 1952, pieces from his teens, including his Second 1904, Elgar was, as a shopkeeper’s account of World War I, perhaps because he more than six years, the composing of it was again when the violins resume after a does come across – and E is indeed the a name, doing so hesitantly, in brackets studied composition in London with Symphony with solo high soprano (1970–71), son and a Catholic, always by establishment was burdened with theatre commissions. carried out in two relatively short stretches, breathing space filled by and cellos. pole around which the symphony turns. and with a succession of dots: ‘(Ophelia …)’. John Lambert from 1963, and conducted was followed by the protracted emergence terms an outsider. His father’s enterprise, In 1918–19 came a return to productivity, but totalling no more than nine months – and This access of energy, arriving with the It was, for instance, the starting point for He reminds us that one of the offshoots the London Symphony Orchestra in his of his Third Symphony (1973–79). During the in Worcester, was a music shop, which is the works he then wrote – chamber pieces Knussen was still only 27 when it was done. violins first time round, has the force of an the violins’ lift at the start of the allegro. from this piece was a set of Ophelia Dances own First Symphony when he was 15. next decade or so he was largely occupied where as a boy he taught himself to play and, especially, his elegiac Cello Concerto – allegro taking over from an introductory for nine-piece ensemble. But here, in this He then studied with Gunther Schuller with two operas after children’s books several instruments and compose. sound like farewells. His wife’s death, in 1920, At the start, under the marking Andante passage in a classical symphony. So it is Now, as the work moves into its second half, symphony of water, wild melodies, outdoor at Tanglewood in the early 1970s, by Maurice Sendak: Where the Wild Things By the age of 16 he was making a living was the final blow. He retreated from London misterioso, tremolo strings might suggest in this one: there is a change of gear, a new Molto tranquillo, coloured chords succeed one sounds, a cortège, have we also been initiating strong connections, personal are (1979–83) and Higglety Pigglety Pop! locally as a musician, but wider success, to Worcester, and though he was repeatedly a watery surface ruffled by a breeze, beginning. Horns and clarinets, the latter another in the strings, setting up the frame dreaming of that same doomed heroine? • and musical, with the United States. (1984–90). Since then his biggest works as a composer, came only gradually, drawn out to make recordings (he was the and delicately disturbed also by splashes: in quick scales and arpeggios, maintain for a succession of variations, rather in the Emerging as a conductor of striking gifts, have been concertos for horn (1994) and until he achieved a breakthrough with his first composer to record a representative almost immediately from a pair of clarinets, the dynamism another way, followed by manner of a passacaglia. The second variation OLIVER KNUSSEN … he began an association with the Aldeburgh violin (2002), as well as an orchestral song ‘Enigma’ Variations (1898–99) and oratorio selection of his music), he virtually stopped followed by muted trumpets, further a chiming ensemble of celeste, harp and might evoke a sunlit forest, with waves of … curates and conducts his own work alongside Festival in 1983 and later moved to the area. cycle, Requiem – Songs for Sue (2005–06), The Dream of Gerontius (1899–1900). composing. Elgar was Principal Conductor woodwinds and horns. The preparatory guitar, plus percussion. From here the birdcalls from flutes and clarinets together Stravinsky, Birtwistle and Patrick Brennan He has also worked regularly with leading in memory of his first wife. • His First Symphony (1907–08) was of the London Symphony Orchestra from spell is broken by the clarinets, all four of bassoons convey the music into a more fully alternating with and . with the Birmingham Contemporary Music orchestras and new music groups in this followed rapidly by his Violin Concerto for 1911–12, the Orchestra gave several premieres them now, as they wheel in accompanied scored sequence with flutes to the fore, Brass instruments have been silent so far Group on 16 September – see page 13. country and abroad. Fritz Kreisler and Second Symphony. of his works conducted by the composer. •

52 Programme Notes 14 September 2017 Composer Profiles 53 Edward Elgar Variations on an Original Theme, ‘Enigma’ Op 36 1898–99 / note by Stephen Johnson

Enigma: Andante ne evening in October 1898, ‘It expressed, when written (in 1898) the Finale – which has enabled Elgar to and clearly a light-fingered keyboardist. Then comes the famous Nimrod, Variation IX. ‘Set that to music’, said Sinclair. But it is Elgar the self-made Edwardian I CAE: L’istesso tempo Edward Elgar lit himself a cigar my sense of the loneliness of the artist … reach that longed-for goal. In III, RBT mimics Richard Baxter Townsend, This is a portrait of one of Elgar’s closest The result was variation XI. The heartfelt gentleman who strides out in the Finale EDU – II HDS-P: Allegro and sat down at the piano. and to me, it still embodies that sense’. eccentric tricyclist with a querulous, friends, A J Jaeger (‘Jaeger’ is the German cello melody of XII is a tribute to BGN – the initials being the first three letters III RBT: Allegretto It had been a wearying day, and his But there is another side to this story. reedy voice. IV, WMB depicts Squire Baker word for ‘hunter’, and Nimrod is the hunter Basil G Nevinson, whose faith in Elgar of his own name in the French ‘Eduard’ – IV WMB: Allegro di molto playing was aimless – just a kind of Loneliness, a sense of nothingness yet In Elgar’s own words: of Hasfield Court, hurriedly presenting mentioned in the Biblical book of Genesis). sustained him in times of crisis and neglect. ‘bold and vigorous in general style’. V RPA: Moderato improvisatory doodling. Suddenly his combined with great idealism and ambition – his house guests with the day’s itinerary, Specifically this music records ‘a long The subject of variation XIII, ***, is more Memories of earlier friends’ variations VI Ysobel: Andantino wife Alice interrupted him: all that was true of Elgar. Since the ‘Enigma’ ‘This work, commenced in a spirit of then slamming the door as he leaves. summer evening talk, when my friend mysterious. Elgar tells us that he intended are recalled, especially CAE and Nimrod. VII Troyte: Presto Variations first appeared there has been humour and continued in deep seriousness, V, RPA reveals two sides of Matthew discoursed eloquently on the slow it for the ‘most angelic’ Lady Mary Lygon, But the end is a glad, confident apotheosis, VIII WN: Allegretto ‘Edward, that’s a good tune.’ endless speculation as to whether some contains sketches of the composer’s friends. Arnold’s son Richard, serious in movements of Beethoven … It will be who was then on a long sea-voyage – culminating in a foretaste of the first phrase IX Nimrod: Adagio I awoke from the dream: musical riddle is contained in the ‘Enigma’ It may be understood that these personages conversation, but with a ‘funny little noticed that the opening bars are made hence the clarinet’s quotation from of Elgar’s next orchestral masterpiece, X Dorabella: Intermezzo Allegretto ‘Eh! Tune, what tune?’ theme: a cryptogram perhaps, or a comment or reflect on the original theme nervous laugh’ on woodwind. ‘Pensive, to suggest the slow movement of the Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous the First Symphony – a celebration of XI GRS: Allegro di molto And she said, ‘Play it again, I like that tune.’ scrambled reference to the well-known and each one attempts a solution of and for a moment, romantic’ was Elgar’s eighth sonata, the ‘Pathétique’. Voyage, and the depiction of a low throbbing the present, and hope for the future. • XII BGN: Andante I played and strummed, and played, tune Auld Lang Syne has been suggested. the Enigma, for so the theme is called’. description of Isobel Fitton, the subject ship’s engine. But according to Ernest XIII ***: Romanza Moderato and then she exclaimed: ‘That’s the tune.’ of No VI, Ysobel – a player, hence No X, Dorabella, was Elgar’s nickname for Newman, there is also a memory of an XIV Finale: Allegro — the starring role for this instrument. Dora Penny •. ‘The movement suggests a earlier love lost and still yearned for – And that, according to Elgar, is how the theme A musical journey through friendship … No VII, Troyte, depicts more music-making, dancelike lightness’, Elgar wrote. It does – there is certainly a strange poignancy here. See page 53 for Elgar’s he was to call ‘Enigma’ came into being. though this time, it is the ‘maladroit’ efforts but it also reveals great tenderness: of all composer profile In another version of the story, Alice asks vivid musical portraits of his closest friends. of the architect Arthur Troyte Griffith to play Elgar’s friends Dora was one of the most him what he’d been playing: ‘Nothing’, says — the piano. According to Elgar, No VIII, WN is helpfully responsive to Elgar’s devastating THE DORABELLA CYPHER Elgar, ‘but something might be made of it’. ‘really suggested by an 18th-century house’: mood-swings. GRS (G R Sinclair, organist of That comment is of more than musical However ingenious or entertaining the So, something of Elgar the ‘Enigma’ remains Sherridge, near Malvern, home of Winifred Hereford Cathedral), was the owner of the The Dorabella Cypher is an significance, because it seems that for results, surely this misses the point. unresolved – even the warmest, most Norbury. But Winifred herself appears in bulldog Dan, who fell into the River Wye, enciphered letter written by Elgar that theme represented something The variations may begin with ‘nothing’, understanding friendship cannot completely ‘a little suggestion of a characteristic laugh’. scrambled out and barked in triumph. composer Edward Elgar to Dora important about himself. At first he was the lonely, melancholic, self-doubting relieve that ‘sense of loneliness of the artist’. Penny, which was accompanied cagey about this: artists; but they progress to something by another dated 14 July 1897. very different: a depiction of the artist in After the ‘Enigma’ theme, the first variation — Elgar adored puzzles and codes, and ‘The Enigma I will not explain – the triumph – in the Finale, EDU (‘Edu’ was depicts Elgar’s wife: CAE – Caroline Alice The end is a glad, confident apotheosis … this cypher is considered one of the top last year when a policeman from Cleveland its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed’. Alice’s nickname for Elgar), we see the man Elgar – ‘a prolongation of the theme with a foretaste of Elgar’s next orchestral masterpiece, the First Symphony – ten trickiest puzzles in the world. Penny happened upon the idea that the first who has indeed made something of himself. what I wished to be romantic and delicate never deciphered it and though attempts part of the cypher offers an instruction But 13 years after the hugely successful And it is a musical journey through additions’, was Elgar’s description. a celebration of the present, and hope for the future. to decrypt it have been numerous, many on how to unlock the remainder of it – premiere of the ‘Enigma’ Variations, friendship – the 13 vivid musical portraits No II, HDS-P is Hew David Steuart-Powell, — believe its true meaning remains unknown. which he believes to be a previously he told the critic Ernest Newman that: of his closest friends that build up to a chamber music partner of Elgar, The latest attempt to decipher it was in May unheard melody from Elgar’s Salut d’Amour.

54 Programme Notes 14 September 2017 Programme Notes 55 London Symphony Orchestra on stage 14 September Discover New Music with the LSO Leader Second Violins Cellos Flutes Bassoons Timpani Roman Simovic David Alberman Rebecca Gilliver Gareth Davies Rachel Gough Nigel Thomas NEW MUSIC BRITAIN NEW MUSIC THIS SEASON WITH THE LSO AT LSO ST LUKE’S Thomas Norris Alastair Blayden Adam Walker Daniel Jemison First Violins Sarah Quinn Jennifer Brown Patricia Moynihan Joost Bosdijk Percussion Thomas Adès BBC Radio 3 Open Ear Sessions Carmine Lauri Miya Väisänen Noel Bradshaw Neil Percy Three Studies from Couperin 30 September, 11 November, Lennox Mackenzie David Ballesteros Daniel Gardner Piccolo Contra Bassoon David Jackson 15 & 19 October 13 January & 14 April Clare Duckworth Matthew Gardner Hilary Jones Sharon Williams Dominic Morgan Sam Walton Ewan Campbell Amy Bryce From first breath Nigel Broadbent Julian Gil Rodriguez Amanda Truelove Tom Edwards Frail Skies (Panufnik commission) (LSO Community Choir commission) Gerald Gregory Naoko Keatley Miwa Rosso Oboes Horns Jeremy Cornes 25 March 24 November Maxine Kwok-Adams Belinda McFarlane Morwenna del Mar Olivier Stankiewicz Timothy Jones Paul Stoneman Laurent Quenelle Iwona Muszynska Victoria Harrild Rosie Jenkins Angela Barnes Patrick Giguere LSO Jerwood Composer+ showcase Revealing (Panufnik commission) 17 March Harriet Rayfield Paul Robson Anna Euen Harps 15 April Sylvain Vasseur Louise Shackelton Double Basses Cor Anglais Jonathan Lipton Bryn Lewis Panufnik Composers Workshops William Melvin Esther Kim Colin Paris Christine Pendrill Andrew Budden Lucy Wakeford Helen Grime Fanfares for Orchestra 18 March Helena Smart Aischa Guendisch Patrick Laurence (Barbican commission) 19 & 26 April LSO Soundhub Showcase: Phase I Eleanor Fagg Matthew Gibson Bass Oboe Trumpets Piano / Celeste 14 July Hilary Jane Parker Violas Thomas Goodman Adrian Rowlands Philip Cobb Elizabeth Burley Tippett The Rose Lake Takane Funatsu Alexander Zemtsov Joe Melvin Gerald Ruddock John Alley 22 April Gillianne Haddow Jani Pensola Clarinet Niall Keatley Anna Bastow Paul Sherman Andrew Marriner Robin Totterdell Guitar / Mandolin Regina Beukes Simo Väisänen Forbes Henderson lso.co.uk/201718season Lander Echevarria E-flat Clarinet Trombones 020 7638 8891 Julia O’Riordan Chi-Yu Mo Dudley Bright Robert Turner Peter Moore Jonathan Welch James Maynard Carol Ella Renaud Guy-Rousseau Caroline O’Neill Bass Stephanie Edmundson Paul Milner Philip Hall Alan Andrews Tuba Ross Knight The Panufnik Composers Scheme is generously supported by Lady Hamlyn and the Helen Hamlyn Trust Jerwood Composer+ is generously supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation 56 On Stage 14 September 2017

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