COLOURS MASTERPIECES OF THE PRESENT, OF THE SURROUNDED BY THE PAST. EAST

Scheherazade by Sophie Gengembre Anderson

Friday 4 August 7.30pm Federation Concert Hall Hobart MASTER 6 Marko Letonja conductor RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Alina Ibragimova violin Scheherazade Largo e maestoso – Lento – Allegro SCULTHORPE non troppo (The Sea and Sinbad’s Sun Music II Ship) Duration 6 mins Lento (The Story of the Kalender Prince) BARTÓK Andantino quasi allegretto (The Violin Concerto No 2 Young Prince and the Young Princess) Allegro non troppo Allegro molto – Vivo – Allegro non Andante tranquillo troppo e maestoso – Lento (Festival in Allegro molto Baghdad – The Sea – The Ship Goes Duration 36 mins to Pieces on a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior – Conclusion) INTERVAL Duration 47 mins Duration 20 mins This concert will end at approximately 9.40pm. 28120

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28120 HJAH_TSO_Ad_A5.indd 1 11/04/2016 4:52 pm Peter Sculthorpe (1929-2014)

Sun Music II for the 1968 Australian Ballet production of the Sun Music ballet, with choreography by “A sun in me Robert Helpmann. When premièred later And a sun in heaven as a separate work, at a Sydney Symphony And beyond that, the immense sun behind Orchestra Prom concert on 22 February the sun” 1969, conducted by John Hopkins, it bore Marko Letonja Alina Ibragimova DH Lawrence Sun in Me the name Ketjak. In Balinese music, Kecak In coining the title, “Sun Music”, in 1965, (or Ketjak) is the “Monkey Dance” which Peter Sculthorpe charted a new territory accompanies part of the Ramayana, during Marko Letonja is Chief Conductor and Performing music from the baroque era for Australian music and claimed it as his which the dancers fall into a kind of trance. to new commissions on both modern Artistic Director of the Tasmanian Symphony own. Critic Roger Covell noted that the first The prominent passages for bongos and Orchestra and Music Director of the and period instruments, Alina Ibragimova Sun Music was “not in any sense bronzed, timbales represent this type of music, characterised by interlocking ostinato Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg. is one of the most accomplished and swaggering holiday music…it has more versatile violinists of her generation. She to say about the mystery, fear and lonely patterns, and its strict rhythmic pulse creates Born in Slovenia, he studied at the Academy has performed with orchestras such as the glare of the sun than about the pleasures the framework for the disparate, and even of Music in Ljubljana and the Vienna more percussive sounds produced by the London Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, of warmth. This is sun music written by a Academy of Music. He was Music Director composer living in a country where the sun pitched instruments of what Sculthorpe Philadelphia Orchestra, West German Radio reminds us is “a normal Western orchestra”! of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra can be as much an enemy as a friend”. Orchestra Cologne, Bamberg Symphony, Without denying the structural function of the from 1991 to 2003 and Music Director and Seattle Symphony, Orchestra of the Age of In December 1960, while studying in Oxford, kecak music, Sculthorpe insists: “The music Chief Conductor of both the Symphony Enlightenment and all the BBC orchestras. Sculthorpe received news of his father’s isn’t oriental…but without Asia the work terminal illness, and returned to Tasmania Orchestra and the Opera in Basel from 2003 Conductors with whom she has worked wouldn’t have existed”. where he composed the work that “marked to 2006. He was Principal Guest Conductor include Haitink, Gergiev, Jurowski, Elder, my real emergence as a fully-fledged Graeme Skinner © 2007 of Orchestra Victoria in 2008 and made Mackerras, Paavo Järvi and Nézet-Séguin. composer”. That work, Irkanda IV, is a The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first his debut with the TSO the following year. She has appeared at festivals such as “ritual lamentation” for his father, but also performed this work with conductor John Verbier, Mostly Mozart New York and a reflection on the remote, sun-drenched Hopkins in Hobart on 7 October 1969 and, He took up the post of Chief Conductor Aldeburgh. As a recitalist she has appeared “scrub country” to which its Aboriginal most recently, with Graham Abbott in Hobart and Artistic Director of the Tasmanian on 15 October 1991. at the , Mozarteum, title gestures. It was in this contemplation Symphony Orchestra at the start of 2012. of Outback loneliness that Sculthorpe Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein. He has worked with many orchestras in discovered the “affirmation of life and living” With Cédric Tiberghien she has given presented in the work’s coda, conceived as Europe including the Munich Philharmonic, complete cycles of Mozart and Beethoven an “instrumental setting” of DH Lawrence’s Vienna Symphony, Berlin Radio Orchestra, violin sonatas at Wigmore Hall. As soloist/ poem Sun in Me. Mozarteum Orchestra and the Orchestra director she has toured with the Australian In 1968 Sculthorpe described Lawrence’s Filarmonica della Scala, Milan. He has also Chamber Orchestra, among others. The sun as “the symbol of the giving of life, worked in many renowned opera houses 2016/17 season includes residencies at destroying of life, good and God”. By then, such as the Vienna State Opera, Berlin Portugal’s Fundação Casa da Música and Lawrence’s writings had inspired several new compositions. In due course, other “suns” State Opera, La Scala Milan, Semper Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg. Alina Ibragimova was born in Russia and suggested themselves to Sculthorpe, and Oper Dresden, and the Grand Théâtre de in the series of four Sun Musics as it stands studied at Moscow’s Gnesin School before Genève. Additionally, he has conducted at today, “the sun of DH Lawrence, the Mexican moving with her family to the UK where she the Arena di Verona. Future engagements sun, the Japanese, the Asian and Australian – studied at the School and and my own sun – are ever present”. include the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, . Honours include What is now called Sun Music II was in fact Berlin Radio Orchestra, Bavarian State an MBE in the New Years’ list, 2016. Alina the very last of the series to be composed, Opera in Munich and Wagner’s Der Ring des Ibragimova performs on a c1775 Anselmo derived from a new movement Sculthorpe Nibelungen for the Royal Swedish Opera Bellioso violin generously provided by devised to add to the three other Sun with Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde. Georg von Opel. Musics (and one other vocal movement)

44 45 Béla Bartók (1881-1945) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Violin Concerto No 2 Mengelberg in March the following year. Scheherazade – Symphonic Suite, Op 35 other and composed on the basis of themes Allegro non troppo When he eventually did hear a performance Largo e maestoso – Lento – Allegro non common to all the four movements. Why Andante tranquillo in 1943 after his emigration to America, he troppo (The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship) then, if that be so, does my suite bear the expressed relief about the balance and rich Lento (The Story of the Kalender Prince) name, precisely, of Scheherazade? Because Allegro molto scoring, remarking that “there was no trouble this name and the title The Arabian Nights Andantino quasi allegretto (The Young When the great Hungarian composer Béla with regard to the instrumentation”. connote in everybody’s mind the East and Prince and the Young Princess) Bartók’s new work for violin and orchestra fairytale wonders; besides, certain details of A newfound diatonic openness and Allegro molto – Vivo – Allegro non troppo was premièred in early 1939, it was titled harmonic clarity in Bartók’s musical language the musical exposition hint at the fact that simply “Violin Concerto”. Only in 1956, after e maestoso – Lento (Festival in Baghdad all of these are various tales of some one is evident in the Violin Concerto No 2. – The Sea – The Ship Goes to Pieces on a the manuscript of an early, unperformed The outer movements are unmistakably person (who happens to be Scheherazade) violin concerto from around 1908 resurfaced, Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior – entertaining therewith her stern husband.” based in the key of B major, though Conclusion) was the composer’s catalogue of works meandering chromatic elements (for Along with the Capriccio espagnol and the posthumously revised, and the two concertos example in the first movement’s cascading The Sultan Shahriyar, convinced of the Russian Easter Overture, Scheherazade were assigned specific numbers. Whilst the 12-tone second theme) are also prominent. duplicity and infidelity of all women, had displays Rimsky-Korsakov’s formidable First Concerto is a compact and private Symmetrical constructive procedures are vowed to slay each of his wives after the instinct for brilliant orchestration – an work (dedicated to the violinist Stefi Geyer, found on a number of levels, a feature that first night. The Sultana Scheherazade, instinct that can be heard in the music of with whom Bartók was in love), the Second is characteristic of many of Bartók’s works however, saved her life by the expedient his students, Respighi and Stravinsky, and Concerto is an unashamedly open and of recounting to the Sultan a succession of the 1930s. The finale mirrors and varies which influenced the music of Debussy broadly conceived composition that displays of tales over a period of a thousand the first movement material, and it even and Ravel (himself drawn to Shéhérazade Bartók’s masterful craft in its full maturity. and one nights. Overcome by curiosity, contains a second cadenza (accompanied as a subject). Rimsky-Korsakov considered the Sultan postponed from day to day Bartók wrote his Violin Concerto No 2 for his by orchestral interjections) towards the Scheherazade one of those works in work’s end. The generally reflective central the execution of his wife, and ended by younger compatriot, the highly respected which “my orchestration had reached a movement provides emotional contrast to renouncing altogether his sanguinary solo violinist and quartet leader Zoltán considerable degree of virtuosity and bright the bravura that surrounds it. Cast as a resolution. Székely. They had known each other since sonority without Wagner’s influence, within set of variations, it is based on a simple, the early 1920s, and the violinist had already Many were the marvels recounted to the limits of the usual make-up of Glinka’s touching, folk-like melody that is stated premièred Bartók’s virtuosic Rhapsody No Shahriyar by Scheherazade. For the orchestra”. Such is his virtuosity, that with by the violin at the outset. 2 for violin and orchestra. Bartók was a telling of these she drew from the verses surprisingly modest forces (adding to magnificent pianist, but as he did not play James Cuddeford © 2017 of the poets and the words of folk songs the traditional orchestra only piccolo, cor the violin himself, he regularly consulted and tales, connecting her stories one with anglais, harp and a generous complement of various violinists – including Joseph Szigeti, The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first the other. percussion instruments) Rimsky-Korsakov can performed this work with conductor Pinchas Jelly d’Arányi, and Yehudi Menuhin, in Steinberg and soloist Erich Gruenberg in Rimsky-Korsakov conceived the idea convince us of the raging of a storm at sea, addition to Székely – when composing works Hobart on 14 July 1979 and, most recently, “of writing an orchestral composition the exuberance of a festival, and the exotic featuring the instrument. His resultant writing with David Porcelijn and Leonidas Kavakos in on the subject of certain episodes from colour of the Orient. for string instruments, as can be observed Hobart on 30 April 1991. Scheherazade” in the middle of winter 1887- As if repeating in music Scheherazade’s feat in the six String Quartets, the Violin Sonatas 88, while he and Glazunov were engrossed of narrative woven from poetry and folk and various solo works, is uniquely inventive, in the completion and orchestration of tales, Rimsky-Korsakov drew on isolated effective and brilliant. Borodin’s unfinished opera Prince Igor. episodes from The Thousand and One The solo part of the Violin Concerto No 2 The following summer he completed the Nights, employing musical themes and is immensely difficult and exploits a wide symphonic suite – “a kaleidoscope of motifs to connect the four movements one range of violinistic sonorities and techniques. fairytale images and designs of Oriental with the other. At first Rimsky-Korsakov A large orchestra is used, including a full character”. was persuaded to assign to specific battery of percussion, with notable parts “All I had desired,” he later wrote in My movements the fragments that had caught for the harp and celesta. Bartók composed Musical Life, “was that the hearer, if he liked his imagination – “the sea and Sinbad’s ship, the work in just over a year, completing it my piece as symphonic music, should carry the fantastic narrative of the Kalender Prince, on New Year’s Eve 1938. He was unable to away the impression that it is beyond doubt the Prince and Princess, the Baghdad festival, be present at the world première, which an Oriental narrative describing a motley and the ship dashing against the rock with Székely successfully gave with Amsterdam’s succession of fantastic happenings and not the bronze rider upon it”. But within a year of Concertgebouw Orchestra under Willem merely four pieces played one after the the first performance, he had withdrawn the

46 47 descriptive headings, which, he said, were deliberately, neglects to tell us which of the intended to “direct but slightly the listener’s beggar princes in The Arabian Nights he fancy on the path which my own imagination had in mind.) The dramatic middle section had travelled, and to leave more minute and features muted fanfares, based on the Deepen your relationship with particular conceptions to the will and mood Sultan’s theme. The third movement opens of each”. with a sinuous violin melody – it is easy to the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. imagine that Scheherazade is telling this According to the composer, it is futile story in her own voice. The similarity between to seek in Scheherazade leading motifs the two main themes (for violin and then that are consistently linked with the same flute and clarinet) suggests that the Young poetic ideas and conceptions. Instead, he Come to know musicians, attend members-only Prince and Princess are perfectly matched in explained, the seeming leitmotifs were temperament and character. Scheherazade’s events and orchestral rehearsals, and share your love “nothing but purely musical material…for theme interrupts, before the two themes are of music with like-minded friends. symphonic development”. The motifs unify woven together in delicate figurations. all the movements of the suite, appearing in different musical guises so that the “themes An agitated transformation of the Sultan’s Annual Membership $35 (single) $48 (couple). correspond each time to different images, theme, in dialogue with Scheherazade’s Generous concessions available. actions and pictures.” The ominous octaves theme, prefaces the final tale. The fourth Contact the TSO Box Office 1800 001 190. representing the stern Sultan in the opening, movement is a curious elision of the Festival for example, appear in the tale of the in Baghdad and the tale of the shipwreck, Kalender Prince, although Shahriyar plays described by one writer as a “confused no part in that narrative. And the muted dream of oriental splendour and terror”. fanfare of the second movement returns in Triangle and tambourines accompany the the otherwise unconnected depiction of the lively cross-rhythms of the carnival; and foundering ship. Rimsky-Korsakov also cites the mood builds in intensity before all is the appearance of both the Kalender Prince’s swamped by the return of the sea theme theme and the theme of the Young Princess from the first movement. But after the fury of in the Baghdad festival although “nothing is the shipwreck, it is Scheherazade who has the said about these persons taking part in the last word. Her spinning violin solo emerges in festivities.” gentle triumph over the Sultan’s bloodthirsty resolution. Yet Rimsky-Korsakov did acknowledge that one motif was quite specific, attached not to Sultan: “Oh, Scheherazade…you have taught any particular narrative, but to the storyteller: me many lessons, letting me see that every “The unifying thread consisted of the brief man is at the call of Fate…I have listened to introductions to the first, second and fourth you for a thousand nights and one night, and movements and the intermezzo in movement now my soul is changed and joyful; it beats three, written for violin solo and delineating with an appetite for life.” Scheherazade herself as telling her wondrous Yvonne Frindle © 1998 tales to the stern Sultan.” It is this theme – an intricately winding violin solo supported only The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first by the harp – which soothes the thunderous performed this work with conductor Kenneth Murison Bourn in Hobart on 30 May 1951 and, opening of the suite and embarks upon most recently, with Sebastian Lang-Lessing in the first tale: the sea and Sinbad’s ship. For Hobart and Launceston on 4 and 5 March 2011. Rimsky-Korsakov, who was a synaesthetic, the choice of E major for the billowing cello figures can have been no accident: to his ears it represented dark blue. A suitably cajoling melody played by solo bassoon represents the Kalender (or “beggar”) Prince in the second movement, once more introduced by Scheherazade’s theme. (Rimsky-Korsakov, perhaps

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