A World of Music at Glasgow City Halls THE GLASGOW SEASON 2014/2015 BOX OFFICE: 0141-353 8000 bbc.co.uk/bbcsso #bbcssothursday ‘It has been my intention to bring some of the fi nest singers, soloists and conductors to Scotland and to showcase the brilliance, fl exibility and commitment of this remarkable group of musicians.’ THE GLASGOW SEASON 2014/2015 In September 2014 it will be fi ve years since I took up the post of Chief I’m also delighted that this year I’ll be celebrating an important birthday Conductor with this wonderful orchestra. Our relationship continues in Scotland with arguably the fi nest present a conductor could ask for to blossom, and I am immensely proud of our achievements so far. It - Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The orchestra and I will be joined by has been my intention to bring some of the fi nest singers, soloists and a world-class line-up of soloists, and our friends the Edinburgh Festival All concerts are scheduled conductors to Scotland and to showcase the brilliance, fl exibility and Chorus, for what promises to be a very memorable occasion. I hope you to be recorded for future commitment of this remarkable group of musicians. The 2014/15 season can be there. transmission or broadcast is no exception. BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra facebook.com/bbcsso live on BBC Radio 3. Our theme this season in Glasgow is ‘discovery’ so whether you’re a BBC Scotland twitter.com/bbcsso We open with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony and will later regular subscriber to the Thursday Night Series or an occasional visitor perform his enigmatic Fifteenth, as well as the First Piano Concerto to our wonderful home at City Halls, I’m certain you will fi nd something City Halls, Candleriggs youtube.com/bbcsso with Garrick Ohlsson; we’ll be exploring connections between the new in the evenings ahead to intrigue, delight and surprise you. And if Glasgow G1 1NQ music of Sibelius and Beethoven; and there will be a very special concert you’ve never heard the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra before you’re Email: [email protected] performance of Berg’s riveting music drama Wozzeck, one of the 20th in for a treat. century’s greatest operas. This is a gripping tale told through passionate, visceral music and an unforgettable experience for performers and bbc.co.uk/bbcsso audiences alike. Donald Runnicles, Chief Conductor SHOSTAKOVICH 04 5,10,15 05 Dmitri Shostakovich was perhaps the greatest symphonist of the 20th century, often composing under immense political pressure. David Fanning salutes his achievement and introduces the three landmark symphonies in the BBC SSO’s 14/15 Season. On 12 May 1926, a gawky, bespectacled 19 year-old took epic central group of symphonies, Nos. 4 to 10, from the the applause in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonia era of ‘high-Stalinism’. for his fi rst symphony. Nearly 46 years later, on 8 January 1972, in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatoire, the same The pressures on Shostakovich fi rst came to a head in composer, now bloated and almost immobilised by illness, January 1936. While he was at work on the fi nale of his was wildly fêted at the fi rst performance of his fi fteenth colossal Fourth Symphony, Pravda published anonymous and last symphony. articles denouncing his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District and his ballet Bright Stream. Those broadsides were In between was a career marked by extraordinary changes a sign that permissiveness in the arts was no longer to be of fortune, in a country and a world of bewildering tolerated, and that the doctrine of Socialist Realism was extremes: advanced culture and noble aims, cheek-by- in fact an instrument of control - enforcing optimism and jowl with philistinism and mass murder. Shostakovich’s conformity, not merely recommending them. own multi-faceted temperament – precariously balancing scepticism with compassion, evasiveness with overwhelming Shostakovich was forced to reinvent himself, which he did directness, fi erce independence with equally fi erce social with a vengeance the following year with his Fifth Symphony conscience – proved to be his strongest coping strategy. (20 November), sealing his rehabilitation and scoring a But not all those characteristics were inborn. They were global as well as national triumph. From horns, trumpets nurtured by infl uences as diverse as Beethoven, Wagner, and piano brutalising the fi rst movement’s lyrical themes, to Mahler, Stravinsky and Berg, and forged in the fl ames of the full orchestra blaring out a fi nal Mahlerian apotheosis, harsh circumstance, most conspicuously at the time of the via a scherzo poised between fragility and brutality, and a D Hunstein/Lebrecht Music & ArtsD Hunstein/Lebrecht Permissiveness in the arts was no longer to be tolerated, and the doctrine of Socialist Realism was now an instrument of control. hymn-like, strings-led slow movement, Shostakovich used his experience by ghosts and ciphers (including, for the fi rst time, Shostakovich’s DSCH with fi lm music to evoke moods of resistance, suff ering and survival. As musical signature – the notes D, E fl at, C, B natural). And the way the deep as it was direct, his work struck chords with an intelligentsia beset fi nale pushes celebration into hyper-ventilation stakes Shostakovich’s by mass denunciations, deportations and state-sponsored paranoia. In claim to the title of undisputed master of musical double-speak. a masterstroke of spin he dubbed the Fifth a ‘Soviet artist’s practical 06 creative reply to just criticism’, claiming to have found that phrase in a The Tenth was a peak Shostakovich would not seek to scale again. review of the piece (but since no amount of research has uncovered The apparently conformist, programmatic Nos. 11 and 12, and the any such source, the words were more likely his own, but used with resolutely non-conformist cantata-symphonies Nos. 13 and 14, seem 07 calculated irony). poles apart in their messages. Some saw – and continue to see - covert dissidence here. For others in the Soviet intelligentsia it was precisely The position Shostakovich had by now carved out for himself as the the irreconcilable ‘doubleness’ that refl ected their inner lives through spiritual chronicler of his times was reinforced after the Nazi invasion Khrushchev’s so-called ‘Thaw’ and Brezhnev’s ‘Stagnation’. Sweet Harmony: of June 1941, with his ‘Leningrad’ Symphony, No. 7. Soon after the War, however, came a second encounter with institutionalised philistinism, in Finally, Shostakovich’s symphonic swansong, the profound, enigmatic the ‘anti-formalism’ campaign of 1948, which saw him dismissed from his Fifteenth of 1971 (7 May), looked back over a damaged life. In an teaching posts and forced to turn his hand to craven adulations of Stalin unguarded moment, the composer likened his percussion-dominated SHAKESPEARE in fi lm scores and cantatas. His symphonic impulses were temporarily fi rst movement to a toyshop at night. In fact, words failed him, and they on hold. Then, following the death of Stalin in March 1953, those still fail us if we try to rationalise the symphony’s mixture of sardonic impulses were released – again with a vengeance - in the magnifi cent humour, depression, outrage and resignation. Holding all that in AND MUSIC Tenth Symphony (25 September), a tour-de-force of Beethovenian such delicate artistic balance was a massive achievement: not only of ambition and craftsmanship. From the moment the cellos and double craftsmanship, but also of insight into the modern psyche. basses awaken the symphony from the depths, until the piccolo sings its From the songs and music performed in his plays, to opera and sad farewell, the fi rst movement is a masterpiece of patient symphonic David Fanning is Professor of Music at the University of Manchester and ballet based on his works, Shakespeare has fi red the imagination unfolding. A scherzo of pure venom is followed by another one haunted has written extensively on Shostakovich. of composers for over 400 years. Richard Bratby introduces our overview of some of the music The Bard has inspired. SHOSTAKOVICH 5,10,15 A fl ute swirls, a playbill fl utters in the breeze, and as a choir And if you happen to be a composer…aye, there’s the 25 September 2014 soars on the soundtrack, the camera pans across the roofs rub. After having that whole opening sequence to himself, Symphony No.10 of Elizabethan London. Far below, the Globe Playhouse William Walton now fi nds himself up against William bustles with life. There’s a fanfare, a band plays, and then the Shakespeare in full, ringing fl ight. Confronted with the 20 November Chorus strides on stage and – fi ve minutes into Laurence challenge of fi nding music to match some of the most Symphony No.5 Olivier’s 1944 fi lm ofHenry V – declaims the fi rst words potent, expressive and – yes – musical words in the English we’ve heard: language, Walton takes the only sensible course of action, 7 May 2015 and falls silent. O for a Muse of fi re, that would ascend Symphony No.15 The brightest heaven of invention, It’s not that words and music are enemies: far from A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, it. Although few of the original tunes have survived, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Shakespeare’s plays are punctuated with songs, dances, Photofest /Lebrecht Music & Arts (copyright Warner Bros) Music & Arts/Lebrecht Warner (copyright Photofest SWEET HARMONY: SHAKESPEARE AND MUSIC Thursday 22 January 2015 Delius The Walk to the Paradise Garden Walton Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario Thursday 5 February Shostakovich King Lear (music from the fi lm) Thursday 5 March Liszt Hamlet: symphonic poem Prokofi ev Romeo and Juliet (excerpts) Thursday 14 May Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream OPENING NIGHT: SHOSTAKOVICH 10 Laurence Olivier in his fi lm adaptation of Henry V 08 THURSDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2014, 7.30PM 09 MUSSORGSKY (c.13 MINS) Frederick Delius took things a stage further; understandably, given that A NIGHT ON THE BARE MOUNTAIN his A Village Romeo And Juliet (1901) was an opera.