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Concert Programme Autumn 2020 bsolive.com Welcome It’s my great pleasure to welcome you to this What amazing musical portraits Elgar week’s BSO concert of two British created in this dazzling sequence of masterworks, and a gem by Fauré. inventive musical vignettes, for instance, to name but three - the humorous Troyte, the The Britten and Elgar works hold special serious intellect of A.J Jaeger aka ‘Nimrod’, resonances for me. I’d been taken on holiday and the bulldog Dan, the beloved pet of to the Suffolk coast as a child, and when, George Sinclair, organist of Hereford aged fourteen, I first saw Peter Grimes, I was Cathedral, paddling furiously up the river totally bowled over by the power of the Wye. music, and the way it evoked, especially in the Four Sea Interludes, those East Anglican In between, I’m relishing the prospect of the landscapes and coast seascapes that I BSO’s Principal Cello, Jesper Svedberg, remembered. Later, at university in Norwich, bringing his poetic musicianship to Fauré’s I had the privilege of singing under Britten at haunting Élégie. I’m also looking forward to the Aldeburgh Festival, as well as meeting hearing the Britten and Elgar conducted by him at his home, The Red House. For me, David Hill, whose interpretations of English these memories are unforgettable. music are second to none, witnessed, not just in his performances, but also in his Elgar was another discovery of my teens; superb recordings, many, of course, with the when growing up in Birmingham, BSO. Worcestershire and Elgar country was only a couple of hours bus ride away. I would walk Andrew Burn the Malvern Hills with the Enigma Variations Presenter, BSO Autumn Series ringing in my head, after all this is where Pre-concert talks Elgar and his “friends pictured within” flew kites, went for bicycle rides, played japes on each other, and in their homes nearby made music. Concert Season Autumn 2020 3 Elgar’s Enigma Lighthouse, Poole Britten David Hill Wednesday 25 November Four Sea Interludes Conductor 16’ Supported by Jesper Svedberg Annette D’Abreo & Edwin Bessant Fauré Cello Elégie 8’ Amyn Merchant Leader Elgar Enigma Variations 29’ All information is correct at the time of going to print. All timings are guidelines only and may differ slightly from actual lengths. Four Sea Interludes (Peter Grimes) Benjamin Britten Born 22 November 1913 Lowestoft Died 5 December 1976 Aldeburgh 1. Dawn Grimes: “I am native, rooted here” 2. Sunday Morning Balstrode: “Rooted by what?” 3. Moonlight Grimes: “By familiar fields, marsh and sand, 4. Storm ordinary streets, prevailing winds.” This exchange from Act 1 of Peter Grimes reveals both an underlying theme of the opera, and a clue to the work’s importance in Britten’s career. In 1939 Britten, a pacifist, left for the USA where, like W.H. Auden, he felt he would be able to continue his work more freely than in wartime Britain. However, in 1941 he read an article by E. M. Forster about the Suffolk poet George Crabbe; its opening line was: “To think of Crabbe is to think about England”, and his reaction to these emotive words confirmed in him a growing feeling that his place was in Britain. That chance reading of the article brought him home and also sowed the seeds for an opera based on one of Crabbe’s characters, the tormented fisherman, Peter Grimes, who appears in the poem The Borough. Repertoire 5 The Four Sea Interludes that link scenes Moonlight evokes the sultry calm of a still, in the opera and reflect the underlying summer night, with the jabbing figure on psychological tensions, quickly became flute and xylophone reflecting the tensions part of the orchestral repertoire. In 1939 in the mind of Grimes. In the snarling Britten had heard a concert performance portrait of the gale-force winds and waves of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of a ferocious Storm, Britten recalled his of the Mtsensk District noting in his diary childhood memories: “My life as a child that the opera was “tremendous” and that was coloured by the fierce storms that the entr’actes contained “terrific music” sometimes drove ships onto the coast and Undoubtedly Britten had them in mind when ate away whole stretches of neighbouring he decided to link scenes in Peter Grimes cliffs.” in a similar way with a series of orchestral interludes. The premiere of Peter Grimes on 7 June 1945, staged by Sadler’s Wells Opera, In Peter Grimes Britten celebrates the was a triumph and a milestone in British coastal communities and landscape of his 20th century music, heralding Britten’s native Suffolk: “I wanted to express my emergence, at the age of just thirty-two, as awareness of the perpetual struggle of a native operatic composer of international men and women whose livelihood depends stature. Britten’s life-long partner Peter on the sea.” The sea interludes uncannily Pears sang the eponymous role of the evoke the East Anglian seascapes that troubled, misunderstood fisherman; Joan were such a potent force for Britten. Dawn Cross was the school teacher Ellen Orford portrays daybreak on a grey East Anglian who befriends him, and the conductor was morning as sung by the chorus to the words Reginald Goodall. of Britten’s librettist, Montagu Slater: “To those who pass, the Borough sounds betray/ Andrew Burn The cold beginning of another day/And houses sleeping by the waterside/Wake to the measured ripple of the tide”. In Sunday Morning chimes of church bells peal out as the Borough gathers for Matins on a brilliant day with sunlight glittering on the waves. Élégie for cello and orchestra Gabriel Fauré Born: 12 May 1845 Pamiers, South-western France Died: 4 November 1924 Paris Fauré was one of the most important French The Élégie received its premiere in its original musicians of the later 19th and earlier 20th version with piano, performed by the cellist centuries. A fine and skilful composer, his Jules Loëb, to whom it was dedicated, at a best-known work is probably his beautifully Société Nationale concert in Paris on 15th restrained setting of the Requiem, but he December 1883. The version with orchestra was also particularly inspired in chamber followed in 1897, and was first performed in music and song writing. Other aspects of 1901, by Pablo Casals. his career included those of organist and choirmaster for many years at the Parisian Terry Barfoot church of the Madeleine, and, later, as Professor of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire, where his pupils included Maurice Ravel, Georges Enesco and Charles Koechlin. Fauré’s creative talents are found to excellent effect in the Élégie for cello: it is a penetrating work whose wide emotional range demands the utmost commitment on the part of the performers. There is a simple three-part (ABA) structure, with a strongly characterised melodic line that is admirably suited to the cello. At the centre, the orchestra offers a new theme which is soon transferred to the cello, culminating in a cadenza and the return of the earlier material. Repertoire 7 Variations on an Original Theme (‘Enigma’) Edward Elgar Born 2 June 1857 Broadheath, near Worcester Died 23 February 1934 Worcester Theme: Andante One evening in 1898 Elgar was improvising Var I. C.A.E. L’istesso tempo on the piano. His wife asked him what he Var II. H.D.S-P. Allegro was playing: “Nothing”, he replied, “but Var III. R.B.T. Allegretto something might be made of it, Powell would Var IV. W.M.B. Allegro di Molto have done this”. Something was indeed Var V. R.P.A. Moderato made of it; he had hit on the idea for the Var VI. Ysobel. Andantino Enigma Variations. Composed between 1898 Var VII. Troyte. Presto and February 1899, and dedicated “to my Var VIII. W.N. Allegretto friends within”, the Variations on an Original Var IX. Nimrod. Adagio Theme (‘Enigma’) was first performed at Var X. Dorabella. Intermezzo. Allegretto St James’ Hall in London on 19 June 1899, Var XI. G.R.S. Allegro di molto conducted by Hans Richter. The occasion Var XII. B.G.N. Andante was a triumph for Elgar, establishing him Var XIII. *** Romanza. Moderato overnight as the leading British composer of Var XIV. E.D.U. Finale. Allegro the day. Though the names of the people behind the vignettes were quickly discovered, two puzzles remain: what is the meaning of the label ‘Enigma’ which Elgar gave to his ‘original’ theme, and what is the ‘larger’ theme that Elgar stated “goes but is not played” over the variations as a whole? The Enigma may represent Elgar, the creative artist, but the larger theme has a variety of possibilities such as the concept of friendship, or an actual melody; for instance, the theme of the slow movement from Mozart’s Symphony No.39, which the late Joseph Cooper most persuasively proposed. 8 Repertoire The answer, however, matters little to the Var X. (Dorabella) Dora Penny. Her appreciation of this magnificent work. After pseudonym is derived from Mozart’s Così the theme is played the music leads into the fan tutte.and her stammer is affectionately variations. portrayed. Var XI. (G.R.S.) George Sinclair Robertson Var 1. (C.A.E.) Caroline Alice Elgar, the was organist of Hereford Cathedral; however, composer’s wife, whose encouragement the variation is about his bulldog, Dan, and spurred Elgar to his finest achievements. his antics in the river Wye. Note Dan’s Var II. (H.D.S-P.) Hew David Steuart-Powell ‘rejoicing bark on landing’! who played chamber music with Elgar.

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