Bruckner: Symphonie Nº. 2

CHAMBER ARR ANGEMENT BY SOLOISTS ENSEMBLE Bruckner: Symphonie Nº. 2 Trevor Pinnock

CHAMBER ARR ANGEMENT BY ANTHONY PAYNE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC SOLOISTS ENSEMBLE Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896)

Symphonie No. 2 in C minor (Arr. Anthony Payne) q Moderato...... 17:45 w Andante...... 14:27 e Scherzo: Mässig schnell...... 6:09 r Finale: Mehr schnell...... 16:10

Johann Strauss II (1825 – 1899) t Wein, Weib und Gesang, Opus 333 (Arr. Alban Berg)...... 10:55

Total Time: 65:39

Recorded at St George’s, Bristol, UK March 2013

Produced by Jonathan Freeman-Attwood | Engineered by Philip Hobbs Post-production by Julia Thomas | Design by gmtoucari.com Photos by Hana Zushi, Royal Academy of Music Cover Image Improvisation 9, 1910 (detail) by Wassily Kandinsky ©ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2014 Trevor Pinnock Conductor Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble

Violin Trombone Eloisa-Fleur Thom Eleanor Tinlin Ashley Harper Julia Pusker

Viola Clarinet Timpani Ricardo Gaspar Matthew Scott Fergus Brennan Richard Waters Michael Pearce

Cello Piano Pei-Jee Ng Natalie Watson Chad Kelly Bernadette Childs

Bass Horn Harmonium Andrei Mihailescu Anna Douglass Alexander Binns Carys Evans Rebecca Alexander

Flute Trumpet Emma Halnan Darren Moore

4 A New Essence for Bruckner

Arnold Schoenberg founded his Society for Private Musical Performance in 1918 as a reaction against the commercialisation of music in post-war Vienna. Restoring music’s value by turning inwards and closing ranks may seem strange to us in an age when the constant accessibility of music has become a cultural assumption, yet Schoenberg believed that elevating the currency, purity of expression and mystique of music inevitably meant a degree of exclusivity. By giving expert performances, in private, by subscription and without critics (a notice of ‘Kritikern ist der Eintritt verboten’ was pinned to the door), applause or accompanying programmes or notes, a new platform of creativity for the cognoscenti was established. Sometimes audiences did not know what they were going to listen to until they turned up. Quality of execution through careful preparation was matched by a discriminating presentation of the works of eminent living composers, whose musical creations were often refashioned for the Society in manageable chamber scorings. A wide variety of pieces by Ravel, Debussy, Bartók, Mahler, Johann Strauss, Webern, Berg and Schoenberg were all regularly heard in a chamber idiom of winds, string quintet, piano and, crucially, the Society’s ‘signature’ harmonium. The experiment was short-

5 lived. It barely lasted three years but its legacy is an interesting one, not least for an evocative, alternative landscape it offered to now-established masterpieces and the generosity by which composers honoured and ‘critiqued’ their fellow artists, through arrangements which distilled the very essence of the musical language in this micro-oeuvre. That this music could be presented with such finely drawn lines and in such favourable conditions allowed fine works to resonate in challenging ways which ultimately celebrated their most durable characteristics. Of special interest to Schoenberg was the potential for getting to the heart of a large orchestral work through the intimacy and flexibility of single instrumental ‘voices’ interacting as if the works were conceived as chamber creations. This principle cast a magic spell on reworkings of pieces such as Mahler’s Symphonie No. 4, Das Lied von der Erde and Debussy’s L’aprés-midi d’un faune (also recorded for Linn by Trevor Pinnock and the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble). The challenge continues in this latest ‘premiere’: Bruckner’s Symphonie No. 2 in C minor. I asked composer Anthony Payne (of Elgar’s Third Symphony fame) if he would adopt the principles of Schoenberg’s Society in a new version of this symphony. We might imagine Bruckner to be a bridge too far within this aesthetic

6 though, actually, Bruckner’s Symphonie No. 7 was reworked in 1921. Our retrospective appraisal of this earlier gem arguably merits even greater attention as we identify, through adopting the ideals of the Society, an especially coherent ensemble work, one with a fresh and perhaps even more pervasive Schubertian dialect than Bruckner’s original canvas for full orchestra. Whilst employing a slightly larger ensemble than the core group used by Schoenberg, we hope that this scoring serves to reveal the luminescent appeal of a little-known nineteenth- century masterpiece — whilst also extending Schoenberg’s and his pupils’ practice of refined intimacy. Yet, unlike Schoenberg, we aim to disseminate the pieces as widely as possible. You may applaud and you are permitted to read this note. Critics?

© Professor Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal, Royal Academy of Music, 2014

7 About the Commission

Standing in the Academy’s foyer after another entrancing Sunday morning Bach cantata programme, I was button-holed by the Principal, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood. I didn’t realise that I was about to lose my next five months’ composing time, as he captured my interest with his plan to resurrect the idea of Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performance, concentrating on those notable chamber arrangements of what were for the time (1918) rarely heard orchestral masterpieces (Mahler’s Symphonie No. 4, Debussy’s L’aprés-midi d’un faune, etc). Then, like a bolt from the blue came the question, how would I like to extend the tradition by contributing an arrangement myself. I held my ground, ‘Like what, for instance?’ ‘What about Bruckner’s Second Symphony?’ came the reply. I was stunned. As it happened this was the only Bruckner symphony I’d never heard, and while admiring much of this composer’s work, I did not consider myself a committed Brucknerian. I gulped and said I’d have a look at it. I acquired a score and recording, and quickly came to the conclusion that despite Bruckner’s massive orchestral effects, a chamber arrangement for judiciously chosen forces was a distinct possibility. As is often the case with pre-twentieth-century German music, the basis of the orchestral texture was the string sonority, and if I could replace that aspect of the score with, say, a sextet of

8 two violins, two violas, a cello and a double bass, I would be well on the way to solving my problem. The wind and brass sonorities in Bruckner also provide an exciting presence of course, but I felt they could be represented with a bold central core of flute and oboe with pairs of clarinets, and horns, plus a single trumpet and trombone supported by harmonium and piano to imply more than was actually present in the line up. I decided to accept the commission, but feared the amount of hard work involved at a time when other commitments were hanging over me. I am an unrepentant luddite, and have never reconciled myself to the use of computer programmes to speed the process of producing a full score. This was to be a hand-written job, and the symphony consisted of some 1,750 bars. ‘Well dear reader’, as Charlotte Brontë might have said, ‘I completed it’, and during the course of five months’ hard labour came to admire the symphony enormously. Certainly, I now think it structurally the tightest of Bruckner’s earlier symphonies. Performed magnificently under Trevor Pinnock’s direction by one of the finest chamber groups I’ve heard in the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble, the arrangement exceeded my most extravagant expectations, and I owe to all concerned my heartfelt gratitude.

© Anthony Payne, 2014

9 Conductor’s Note

Two factors dominated my thought and inspiration as I prepared Bruckner’s Symphonie No. 2 for performance. The first was my image of him improvising in the great church of St Florian. I could almost hear him experimenting with the elements of the Symphony which he may initially have presented in improvised form on the organ at Crystal Palace in August 1871. The second was the discovery of Bruckner’s own manuscript score which I was amazed to find freely available on the internet. The hours spent with this precious document revealed much about Bruckner’s alliance of visionary material and a classicism traceable to Schubert. The score includes his own meticulous corrections of phrasing and many of his pencilled early revisions. I was also struck by his numbering of bars into units, which I took to be less indicative of his known obsession with numbers than of his desire to keep his far reaching musical ideas within a strict classical framework. In choosing a performing version I had to make a judgment on the many revisions that Bruckner made to the original text in 1873 and 1877, with the encouragement of his friend Herbeck, and subsequently in his final revision in the 1890s. Good editions are now available of most of the different stages of revision although I have yet to see one which incorporates a radical reworking of the

10 central section of the slow movement pencilled into Bruckner’s manuscript score. I have chosen to adopt some of the composer’s later adjustments which seemed especially well-suited to this performance with a chamber ensemble. Bruckner’s visit to London in 1871 was clearly a happy one. He received enthusiastic acclaim for his virtuoso playing and commented that ‘In England my music is really understood’. I believe that his Symphonie No. 2 deserves to be better known and I am delighted to present it with the outstanding Royal Academy Soloists Ensemble in this remarkable chamber arrangement by Anthony Payne.

© Trevor Pinnock, 2014

11 The series: reigniting Schoenberg’s vision

This is the second release in the Royal Academy of Music’s series of chamber reductions. The recordings aim to reignite Schoenberg’s vision of performing chamber reductions at his Society for Private Musical Performances, bringing fresh perspectives of stripped-back orchestration to symphonic repertoire.

The Academy’s 2015 release on Linn will feature the Royal Academy Soloists Ensemble, conducted by Trevor Pinnock, alongside the Academy Alumni Soloists in a programme of songs including a new chamber reduction of Zemlinsky’s Sechs Gesänge to words by Maeterlinck, Op. 13 and Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, arranged by Schoenberg.

12 Praise for Mahler: Symphonie No. 4 Debussy Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

‘These lucid performances, conducted by Trevor Pinnock, make a fine start to the series...reveals details that are usually never heard in an orchestral performance...a satisfying, thought-provoking disc.’

‘Simply, this is one of the most beautiful and revealing discs I have heard in years. I am completely hooked.’ The Herald

‘This performance is deeply touching...The young Royal Academy of Music instrumentalists, all named in the brochure, acquit themselves superbly.’ International Record Review

13 The Royal Academy of Music

‘The Royal Academy of Music in London is internationally known and recognised as representing the highest values of music and musical society.’ ‘This building has been absolutely at the centre of everything that I have done; everything that I have learnt.’ Sir Simon R attle The Royal Academy of Music has been training musicians to the highest professional standards since its foundation in 1822. As Britain’s senior conservatoire, its impact on musical life, both in the UK and abroad, is inestimable. The music profession is permeated at all levels with Academy alumni, including classical giants such as Sir and Sir , pop icons Sir Elton John and Annie Lennox, a host of opera stars such as Dame Felicity Lott, Lesley Garrett and Susan Bullock, principals in some of the world’s leading orchestras (including the Royal Orchestra, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic

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Orchestras, the Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera New York, and all of London’s leading orchestras), innovative soloists including Dame Evelyn Glennie and Joanna MacGregor, best- selling recording artists such as Katherine Jenkins, and media celebrities Gareth Malone, Aled Jones and Myleene Klass. An institution that trained Sir Arthur Sullivan, Sir Henry Wood, Sir , Lionel Tertis, Dame , Dame Moura Lympany, Richard Lewis, Dennis Brain, Sir Clifford Curzon, Philip Langridge and John Dankworth, and with strong associations back to Mendelssohn, is bound to be proud of its history; but the Academy is firmly focused on refreshing creative traditions for tomorrow’s musical leaders in the classical, jazz, media and musical theatre worlds. Every year some of the most talented young musicians from over fifty countries come to study at the Academy, attracted by renowned teachers and by a rich artistic culture that broadens their musical horizons, develops their professional creativity, and fosters their entrepreneurial spirit. In addition to a busy schedule of lessons, classes and masterclasses, students benefit from the Academy’s ambitious and unrivalled calendar of concerts, operas, musical theatre shows and other events, in which they work with leading practitioners such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sir ,

16 Yan Pascal Tortelier, Trevor Pinnock, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Semyon Bychkov, Thomas Brandis and Barbara Bonney. As International Chair of Conducting Studies from 1988 until he died in 2013, Sir conducted a total of eight operas and over fifty orchestral concerts at the Academy. All these facets of Royal Academy of Music life contribute to The Guardian’s recent ranking of the Academy as top UK conservatoire for three years on the trot, and praising its ‘cosmopolitan confidence that is in tune with the global music industry’. Ever since its inception, the Academy has been committed to transporting its musical activities from its central London home to the widest possible national and international audiences. Today, Academy students perform at many leading venues and festivals, including , Southbank Centre, Kings Place and the Aldeburgh Festival. They collaborate with distinguished partners such as the London Sinfonietta, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Juilliard School in high-profile projects that attract national attention and critical plaudits. Notably, the Academy and New York’s Juilliard School joined orchestral forces in sensational concerts in the Lincoln Center and BBC Proms. The Academy’s own record label, with distribution through Harmonia Mundi, has received critical acclaim for over twenty releases. The

17 Academy is committed to lifelong learning, ranging from the Junior Academy that trains musicians up to the age of eighteen, through many ‘Open Academy’ community music projects with schools in London and further afield, to performances and educational events for the musically curious of all ages. The Academy’s museum is home to one of the world’s most significant collections of instruments and artefacts. Highlights include the important collection of Italian stringed instruments (with many examples by Stradivari, Guarneri and members of the Amati family), a unique collection of nineteenth-century keyboard instruments, composers’ manuscripts (including Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis) and collections that belonged to Sir Henry Wood, Sir John Barbirolli, Lord Menuhin, , Sir , Nadia Boulanger, Richard Lewis, Robert Spencer, Norman McCann and David Munrow. These collections are an invaluable educational and artistic resource for the Academy’s entire community, underpinning teaching and research and enabling young musicians to find their own artistic profile in the context of musical riches of the past. As the Academy approaches its bicentenary it goes from strength to strength. In the past three years alone, the Academy

18 has been rated the best conservatoire for research by Higher Education, the top conservatoire and the second-highest rated institution in the country for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey, and top conservatoire in The Times University Guide.

Trevor Pinnock

Trevor Pinnock is recognised worldwide as a harpsichordist and conductor who pioneered performance on historical instruments with his own orchestra, The English Concert, which he founded in 1972 and led for the next thirty years. He now divides his time between conducting, solo and and educational projects. He works regularly with orchestras such as Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Pinnock’s contribution to musical life at the Royal Academy of Music is considerable, with regular conducting commitments as Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy’s Concert Orchestra in addition to conducting Royal Academy Opera productions, including the acclaimed production of Haydn’s La vera costanza. In 1992 he was awarded the honour of CBE and he is also an Officier des Arts et des Lettres.

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Anthony Payne

Composer, writer, lecturer and broadcaster Anthony Payne was born in London and educated at Dulwich College and . His list of commissions includes three major premieres at the BBC Proms (another is scheduled for 2014) and works for the BBC Philharmonic and London Sinfonietta. An extensive discography includes two complete CDs of chamber music. He has published books on Schoenberg, and Elgar’s Third Symphony, the completion of which, in 1997, brought him worldwide acclaim and numerous awards, including the Elgar Medal. Earlier known as a perceptive musical journalist, he is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC and has appeared in television documentaries on Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Parry and Delius. He has been Visiting Professor at Mills College, California, Composition Tutor at the New South Wales Conservatorium, Australia, and Professorial Fellow at the University of East Anglia. He is married to the soprano Jane Manning, with whom he formed the ensemble Jane’s Minstrels in 1988.

23 ALSO AVAILABLE ON LINN CKD 442

Trevor Pinnock & Benjamin Zander & Jonathan Royal Academy of Music Freeman-Attwood Soloists Ensemble Mahler: A Bach Notebook Mahler: Symphony No. 2 for Trumpet Symphonie No. 4 ‘Resurrection’

Alexander Janiczek & Kuniko Robin Ticciati & Chamber Orchestra Cantus Scottish Chamber of Europe Orchestra Stravinsky: Apollon musagète Berlioz: & Pulcinella Suite L’enfance du Christ

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