Rachmaninov Piano Concertos 3&4

RACHMANINOV PIANO CONCERTOS 3&4 WINE PARTNER Saturday 15 July 7.30pm 3 SPECIAL HOBART Federation Concert Hall Hobart Alexander Shelley conductor RACHMANINOV Howard Shelley piano Piano Concerto No 4 DEBUSSY Allegro vivace Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune Largo Duration 10 mins Allegro vivace Duration 24 mins RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No 3 This concert will end at approximately Allegro ma non tanto 9.30pm. Intermezzo (Adagio) – Finale (Alla breve) Duration 39 mins INTERVAL Duration 20 mins Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concerts are broadcast and streamed throughout Australia and around the world by ABC Classic FM. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off. 35 5580 TSO Fine Drop Ad for Program 2015.indd 3 17/07/2015 9:47 am Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Prélude à ‘L’aprés-midi d’un faune’ equally ambiguous interval of the tritone: like the material elsewhere in the work that Published in 1876, Stéphane Mallarmé’s is derived from the whole-tone scale, it is in eclogue L’après-midi d’un faune is a no clearly discernible key, as is shown by the monument of Symbolist poetry, reflecting in varied ways in which it is harmonised on its its sumptuous but fragmentary language the subsequent reappearances. The second half erotic fantasies of a drowsy faun – a mythical Alexander Shelley Howard Shelley of the melody provides more “conventional” half-man, half-goat – on a hot, languid motifs that are taken up from time to time by Sicilian afternoon. Running like a thread the rest of the orchestra. Alexander Shelley is currently Music Since winning the premier prize at the Royal through the imagery of fruit and flowers and naked nymphs are references to music, Mallarmé’s poem rhymes, but otherwise Director of the National Arts Centre College of Music at the end of his first specifically to the syrinx. This instrument, avoids traditional forms or a narrative line; Orchestra, Ottawa (NACO). He has year, giving his recital debut in 1971 and the “pan-pipes”, was fashioned by the god similarly, Debussy’s piece avoids the goal- been Principal Associate Conductor of making a televised Prom appearance the Pan from reeds into which a young nymph, directed development and tonal architecture the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since same season with the London Symphony desperate to escape his amorous attentions, that informs 19th-century symphonism. As January 2015 and Chief Conductor of the Orchestra, Howard Shelley has enjoyed had been transformed. Pierre Boulez puts it, “What was overthrown Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra. The son was not so much the art of development One such reference to the syrinx’s “sonorous, a distinguished career, regularly touring as the very concept of form itself.” Musical of celebrated concert pianists, Howard airy, monotonous line” would become on all continents including annual trips to events, like the vivid splashes of colour Shelley and Hilary Macnamara, he first the kernel of Debussy’s musical rendering Australia over many decades. As pianist that first answer the flute, are there for the gained attention when he won the 2005 of the poem. (Debussy hated hearing his immediate pleasure they give; climaxes are Leeds Conductors Competition. Since then Howard Shelley has performed with leading music described as “what imbeciles call approached by simple repetition of motifs; he has conducted orchestras around the orchestras and conductors. In 1983 he gave Impressionism” and preferred his work to the most extended melody is a richly scored, be compared to Symbolist poetry.) Inviting work. Recent appearances have included a unique series of five London recitals, Massenet-like tune at the work’s midpoint, Mallarmé to hear the work in 1894, he the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, RTÉ broadcast by the BBC, of Rachmaninov’s accompanied by layered, rocking ostinatos. National Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie- described “the arabesque which…I believe complete solo piano music. Since his to have been dictated by the flute of The faun’s dream is overcome by sleep and orchester Berlin, Bournemouth Symphony conducting debut with the LSO in 1985, your faun”. the “proud silence of noon”, and the piece Orchestra, and a tour with Germany’s ends with flutes, muted horns and the glitter Shelley has conducted all four London In fact the work’s genesis was in a proposal National Youth Orchestra. Operas he has of harp and antique cymbals, fading to symphony orchestras, the Royal Scottish by Mallarmé to present a staged version led include The Merry Widow, Roméo nothingness. National Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, the of his poem at an avant-garde theatre in et Juliette, La bohème, Iolanta, Così fan RTÉ National Symphony and BBC National 1891. By now he knew and admired some Gordon Kerry © 2017 tutte and The Marriage of Figaro. Among of Debussy’s vocal music, and went so far Symphony of Wales as well as the Hong his recordings is Peter and the Wolf in as to announce in the newspaper that the The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first Hollywood, an example of Deutsche Kong Philharmonic, Filarmonica de la performed this work with conductor Thomas staged version would include music by the Matthews in Hobart on 15 February 1962 and, Grammophon’s new interactive digital Ciudad de Mexico, Munich Symphony, young composer “M de Bussy”. The project most recently, with Marko Letonja in Hobart on story-telling, recorded with Alice Cooper St Gallen Symphony, Seattle Symphony, fell through, but Debussy’s imagination 30 November 2013. and the German National Youth Orchestra. Naples Philharmonic and Singapore had been whetted. The orchestral piece that finally appeared made an immediate In 2017 he leads a co-production of Harry Symphony Orchestra. His engagements are Somers’ Louis Riel with the NACO and and positive impact with the audience, often in the dual role of conductor/soloist. if not the critics, and may be said to be Canadian Opera Company. Active in He is Conductor Laureate of the London Debussy’s breakthrough work. In 1910 it several projects designed to inspire future Mozart Players and has been Principal was choreographed and danced by Nijinsky, generations of musicians and audiences Conductor of Sweden’s Uppsala Chamber whose erotic performance caused one of including the Schumann Camerata’s 440Hz those typically Parisian fracas. series, he is artistic director of the Deutsche Orchestra. Television highlights include a documentary on Ravel made in 1998 with The first phrase of the solo flute arabesque Kammerphilharmonie’s Future Lab project with which the piece begins has rightly the ABC. His discography now exceeds 150 – a series which aims to build a lasting been described as a founding moment in relationship between the orchestra and a CDs, including 15 in the Romantic Piano modern music. Its chromatic, rhythmically new generation of concert-goers. Concerto series with the TSO. ambiguous line traces and retraces the 36 37 Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor, Op 30 new direction and the music builds to a urgent material and the main tempo of Allegro ma non tanto big new theme. This, however, is not the the movement returns, picking up hints Intermezzo (Adagio) – second subject, as we might expect; merely of the second subject of this and the first a “premonition” of future themes, which movement in its momentum. The concerto’s Finale (Alla breve) gradually, building bit by bit, add meaning signature rhythm sounds from the depths Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 3 was to the work. of the orchestra, and leads us to a coda in which the “mystery” theme planted in the composed at his summer estate at Ivanovka The true second subject soon appears, a first movement finally blooms into a broad in 1909. He wanted a new concerto for his characteristically romantic Rachmaninov romantic statement. forthcoming American tour. Not keen on melody, first introduced very clearly as going to America at first, he was persuaded a variation of the trochaic rhythm of the Much is made of the difficulties of this to go when he realised he would make opening. The piano has become more and concerto. “Oh, the Rach Three!”, gasps enough money in America to buy an more dominant and the culmination of the Sir John Gielgud in Shine; but the greatness automobile. movement is actually to be found in the of the concerto lies not merely in its technical This was a busy period in Rachmaninov’s cadenza. Then, after another straightforward hurdles. It lies in the way the material life, and he was unable to spend much time statement of the simple opening piano organically grows – and in the way the practising prior to departure. It is extraordinary theme, a sudden ending, almost breathless, immense technical challenges never swamp therefore, considering the difficulties in the promises more. the lyrical purposes of the work. solo part (almost mythologised in the 1996 The second movement begins with some Gordon Kalton Williams Symphony Australia movie Shine), that he practised much of the of the saddest music ever to come from a © 1998/2001 piano part on a dumb keyboard aboard ship. composer whose characteristic mood, even The work was first performed in New York at the best of times, was melancholic. When The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first the piano enters, it gives two versions of its performed with work with conductor Nicholas City under Walter Damrosch that same Braithwaite and soloist Michael Ponti on 22 April year; followed, not much later, by a second opening theme. The first section builds to an 1983 and, most recently, with Marko Letonja and New York performance under Gustav impassioned climax and then slips smoothly Alexander Gavrylyuk in Hobart and Launceston Mahler, of which Rachmaninov recalled: into the scherzo middle section.

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