A Fine MATINEE 2 MATINEE

FRIDAY 29 MAY 2.30PM FEDERATION CONCERT HALL

Anthony Marwood director & violin INTERVAL BEETHOVEN Duration 20 mins Romance in F for Violin and Orchestra DVORˇ ÁK Duration 10 mins Romance for Violin and Orchestra MOZART Duration 12 mins Symphony No 31, Paris Allegro assai VASKS Andante Distant Light Allegro Duration 32 mins Duration 23 mins This concert will end at approximately 4.30pm.

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. 27 (1770-1827)

Romance in F for Violin and Orchestra, in these pieces, of rondo form, where Op 50 repeated statements of material are contrasted with episodes of new material, Long after Beethoven was well established balancing lyricism and virtuosity. Just what in Vienna, he had two violin Romances the story might be is a mystery, of course. published. The G-major piece appeared ANTHONY MARWOOD Anthony Marwood regularly collaborates in Leipzig in 1803 and the F-major work The F-major piece is perhaps more forward- with contemporary composers. Violin in Vienna two years after that. But despite looking than its stable-mate. It begins concertos that have been composed for that, the non-contiguous opus numbers and without preamble, with the soloist spinning Anthony Marwood is internationally him include Sally Beamish’s Violin Concerto, the fact that their first public performances out the long and songlike melody, which is then taken up by the orchestra. While in renowned both as a soloist and director, Steven Mackey’s Four Iconoclastic Episodes were some years apart – the F major seems some ways Mozartian, the melody contains a collaborating regularly with eminent and Samuel Carl Adams’ Violin Concerto. to have been premièred in 1798, and the G major in 1801 or 1802 – it is possible that number of features that would soon become ensembles around the world. Highlights He gave the première of Thomas Adès’ they were written at the same time, namely staples of Romantic music, such as the rapid of this season include a Wigmore Hall Concentric Paths in Berlin with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (conducted by the in the 1790s. After all, in 1802 Beethoven ornamental “turn” before the third beat residency, his third tour with the Australian of the first bar, and the use of increasingly composer), and went on to give national produced his three Violin Sonatas, Op Chamber Orchestra, a performance of wide intervals like the minor seventh. There premières of the work around the globe. 30, works that do for their genre what Berg’s Chamber Concerto with the Aurora the “Rasumovsky” quartets and Eroica is also a sense of subtle conflict, as in the Orchestra and a tour with accordionist Anthony Marwood’s recordings include the Symphony had done for theirs. Charming as slow movement of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano James Crabb. Other highlights include Schumann violin sonatas and Brahms violin the Romances undoubtedly are, the same Concerto, where the soloist’s part is, broadly his debut as soloist/director with the sonatas (both with Aleksandar Madžar), could not be said for them. speaking, “Apollonian” and serene in the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and Schumann’s late works for violin and face of ominous chromaticism and dark orchestra and Britten’s Violin Concerto and Also in existence is a fragment from the instrumental shading from the orchestra, Camerata Bern, a return to Canada for first movement of what would have been a concerts with Les Violons du Roy, and Double Concerto with the BBC Scottish which often seems to be offering stern substantial Violin Concerto in C (catalogued admonitions in its formal rhetoric. Serenity, engagements with the New Zealand, Symphony Orchestra. as Woo5) composed between 1790 and however, wins. Sydney, Adelaide and Tasmanian Born in , Anthony Marwood 1792 – before Beethoven left Bonn for Symphony Orchestras. studied with Emanuel Hurwitz at the Royal Vienna – and it seems likely that at least © Gordon Kerry 2010/15 Academy of Music and David Takeno at one of the Romances, written for exactly the As soloist he has worked with conductors the Guildhall School of Music. He was same modest orchestral forces, was intended The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first such as Valery Gergiev, Sir Andrew Davis, performed this work with conductor Thomas named Instrumentalist of the Year by the as the slow movement: the keys of F and G Douglas Boyd, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Marin Matthews and soloist Brian Hanly in Hobart on Royal Philharmonic Society in 2006, and are both closely related to C, according to 27 November 1964 and, most recently, with Alsop, David Robertson, Gérard Korsten, for sixteen years was the violinist of the classical convention, so could serve as a Phillip Green and Barbara Jane Gilby in Hobart Martyn Brabbins and Ilan Volkov. In recent Florestan Trio. He is co-Artistic Director of slow movement. on 31 December 1988. seasons he has appeared with the Los the Peasmarsh Festival and Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Both works also show Beethoven’s intimate teaches annually at the Yellow Barn Festival knowledge of string instruments – he was a Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, in Vermont. He was appointed a Fellow of more than proficient violinist and had played Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Guildhall School of Music in 2013. in the court orchestra in Bonn. In both Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, BBC He plays a 1736 Carlo Bergonzi violin. works, he makes full use of the instrument’s Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, singing upper register, but also uses its Irish Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart darker lower tones sparingly and to great Players, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Scottish dramatic effect. Chamber Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony The term “romance”, of course, has a literary Orchestra and Swedish Chamber history: French writers, in particular, used it to Orchestra. In 2013/14 he performed denote a poem or song in strophic form that with clarinettist Martin Fröst and pianist related a tale of love and gallantry. German Marc-André Hamelin in Europe and the poets took the term over, infusing it with folk US. He maintains a fruitful relationship idioms and often using it interchangeably with the Australian National Academy of with “ballade”. The sense of a story told Music, regularly directing workshops and with the structural repetition of strophic performances with the orchestra. verse carries over into Beethoven’s use,

28 29 WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) ANTONÍN DVORˇ ÁK (1841-1904)

Symphony No 31 in D, K297, Paris occasions in between. Two different slow Romance in F minor, B 39 (Op 11), for Violin The Romance is dominated, as was the Allegro assai movements exist for this symphony. One was and Orchestra original string quartet movement, by a written for the symphony’s first public outing loftily gliding main theme which emerges Andante on 18 June and another for a performance Dvorˇák’s Romance for violin and orchestra in the fullness of its aplomb only when the Allegro on 15 August. Both, in other words, are had its origins in the slow movement solo violin pulls together the elements of authentic. Mozart dispenses with a minuet of a string quartet the young composer a short, canonic introduction. For his new Mozart had no great love for Paris, the City and trio and, instead, follows the Andante completed just six weeks before his sonata structure – the quartet original was of Love. He arrived in the French capital with a fleet-footed Allegro. marriage to Anna Cˇ ermáková in Prague in in rondo form – Dvorˇák in fact provides in March 1778 in search of a job. Mozart’s November 1873. This was the Quartet in F Never before had Mozart had such a large not one but two new themes: first a father, Leopold, would have accompanied orchestra at his disposal as in this work. In minor, the fifth of the composer’s 14 extant, singing melody over an irregular rocking him but he was not granted leave from his addition to the usual pairs of flutes, oboes, complete quartets, a work which remained accompaniment, then a descending theme position in Salzburg and in his place sent bassoons and horns, the Paris Symphony unpublished until 1929. which supports a striding orchestral tutti Maria Anna, Mozart’s mother. That the includes two trumpets, timpani and, very ahead of a highly competent development 22-year-old composer needed a guardian The great Dvorˇák scholar Otakar Šourek importantly, two clarinets. Later that same and recapitulation. at all tells us something about Leopold’s saw this string quartet as autobiographical, year Mozart wrote to his father back in This relatively early work already displays controlling influence. contrasting the poverty and failures of the Salzburg: “If only we had clarinets! You characteristic signs of the mature Dvorˇák, composer’s earlier life with his optimism for Mozart didn’t want to be in Paris in the first cannot imagine the glorious effect of a not least in the dying fall in the of the a happily married future. That interpretation, place. He had travelled via Munich, Augsburg symphony with flutes, oboes and clarinets.” main theme’s second phrase and in the and Mannheim and, in Mannheim, had Although relatively unknown in Salzburg, however, is speculative. Nor is there any expressive colouring of the winds and fallen in love with soprano Aloysia Weber. clarinets were a fixture of the orchestra of the indication that romantic love inspired brass as they accompany the soloist into Mozart would have liked to have prolonged Concert spirituel, the concert series for which Dvorˇák’s designation “Romance“ for his new the sunset. the Paris Symphony was written. composition, which he completed probably his already lengthy stopover in the city Anthony Cane © 2003 in 1877 and first heard performed by Josef (Mannheim was renowned for its orchestra) to Of particular note in one of Mozart’s letters Markus in December of that year. see how things would develop with Aloysia, home is his comment that, at the première, The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first but Leopold sent a furious letter commanding the Paris audience was delighted by the Dvorˇák doubtless thought of “romance” performed this work with conductor Vanco “Be off with you to Paris! And soon!” Cavdarski in Hobart on 14 September 1977 surprise forte early in the third movement (or romanza) as the sort of song without and, most recently, with Yip Wing-sie and soloist So Mozart was out of sorts when he arrived and broke into spontaneous applause as words, or instrumental serenade, implied in Jennifer Owen in Hobart on 21 February 1998. in the French capital. He was in love and the orchestra was playing. Clearly, 18th-century usage such as Mozart’s Eine the object of his love was a long way away. symphony concerts were more raucous kleine Nachtmusik and Haydn’s Symphony Over the next few months he attempted to affairs in those days. No 85, La Reine. More specific models make connections with the great households Robert Gibson © 2015 were probably Beethoven’s two familiar of Paris but nothing substantial came of his Romances for violin and orchestra. And efforts. He composed the Concerto for Flute The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first they reflect what Dvorˇák was consciously performed this work with conductor Clive Douglas and Harp for the flute-playing Duc de Guines attempting – to break away from the siren who never actually paid him the full amount in Hobart on 9 March 1954 and, most recently, with Sebastian Lang-Lessing in Hobart and Sydney allure of fashionable Wagnerian style and for the commission. The most substantial on 17 September and 3 October 2008. achieve mastery of traditional musical composition of his six-month stay was this structure, sonata form in particular. particular work, the Symphony No 31, Paris. The new composition must have been a Mozart was particularly pleased to tailor the Paris Symphony to Parisian taste. One thing success. While the original string quartet that local audiences loved was having all of remained on the shelf, the Romance (in the instruments sounding together at the separate versions with orchestral and piano start, the so-called le premier coup d’archet. accompaniment) was promptly published Mozart wisely guessed that he would have in 1879 by Fritz Simrock in Berlin, to whom the audience on side by giving them this Brahms had introduced the young Czech characteristically French opening statement. composer, and who was already enjoying In fact, he rounds off the first movement with runaway success with Dvorˇák’s first set of the same gesture and cites it on numerous Slavonic Dances.

30 31 PE¯TERIS VASKS (BORN 1946)

Violin Concerto, Distant Light the self-annihilation inherent in our hostile relationship with nature. Distant Light was first performed by Gidon Kremer (its dedicatee) and the Kremerata Baltica at the 1997 Salzburg Festival. On a more prosaic level, this most “ethereal” of violin concertos was inspired by reading Kremer’s autobiography, Childhood Fragments. Vasks realised that he and Kremer had, unknowingly, gone to the same school. “Distant Light is nostalgia with a touch of tragedy. Childhood memories, but also the glittering stars millions of light-years away.” The work has its own unique single- movement structure. Beginning with atmospheric sounds (the soloist, for example, is asked to play an arpeggio PE¯ TERIS VASKS of unspecified, “bird-like” harmonics), the work soon introduces a broad, lyrical For 35 years now, orchestral repertoire has melody. The passion rises (and it is possible been replenished by Eastern European to talk of passion in Vasks’ music), and then THE TIRELESS VOLUNTEERS OF TSO FRIENDS. and Baltic composers. Latvian Pe¯teris Vasks the soloist launches into the first of three became known in the West in the 1980s, cadenzas that will define the structure. and he was contracted by German publisher Out of glacially-moving lower strings, a Schott in 1990, the year before Latvian new lyrical section emerges and builds independence from the Soviet Union. toward a folk-like dance (with glints of Volunteers, take a bow! Vasks studied double bass in Latvia and waltz) leading to the second cadenza. Lithuania and performed with major Latvian After more dance-like music, silence – and The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra is earmarked projects. TSO Friends also do ensembles before turning to composition. then slow music resumes. The aspiring indebted to a great number of people who a brilliant job raising awareness of the TSO lyricism of this work is won against genuine volunteer their time, knowledge and energy in the community. US radio presenter Daniel Stephen Johnson intrusion of drama; there are what sound to assist the organisation in a variety of has said, “The rough outlines of Pe¯teris Further fundraising is done by a number like apprehensions of alarm and then the ways, from governance to fundraising to Vasks’ work and career might have a of smaller but significant groups including most intense of the cadenzas takes place, music-making. familiar ring to them: born in Soviet Latvia, the Ball Committee and the Northern before the brief, lumbering return of dance Vasks endured government repression not The members of the TSO Board and TSO Fundraising Committee. Again, these music. Recollection of the opening melodic only for his aesthetics but for his Christian Foundation Board provide invaluable tireless advocates for the TSO give freely material suggests that we may have been faith, and emerged in the late 1970s with assistance by bringing their extensive of their time and energy. listening all this time to a highly interesting a pared-down compositional style heavily knowledge, skills and expertise to the arch structure; the return of atmospheric A large group of volunteers is the TSO influenced by sacred themes.” Endurance boardroom table. Their time-consuming sounds supports this. Chorus, a body of approximately 70 singers of the human spirit against the brutality of services are delivered wholly voluntarily. who offer their time and talent. Members a monolithic oppressor might describe the “Nostalgia with a touch of tragedy” partly Additionally, some Board members sit on of the TSO Chorus attend a weekly Symphony No 1; later works sometimes explains the emotional appeal of this various sub-committees, such as the Audit rehearsal and a string of rehearsals closer put us in mind of the sacred music of work. But it could also be explained by the and Risk Committee and the Remuneration to performance dates. No doubt it is a buzz Estonian Arvo Pärt, but the influence prevailing singing style “through which and Nominations Committee. of earlier models, the Poles Lutosławski I express my ideals”. Overall, Vasks asks for choristers to sing with the orchestra, but and Penderecki endures, particularly in listeners to hold out against the darkness The TSO is fortunate to have an army of it works to the TSO’s advantage too. With moments of “indeterminacy”. Vasks’ and focus on the “distant light”. supporters in TSO Friends, an indefatigable the TSO Chorus on hand, the TSO is able later works are concerned with broader group of people who assist the organisation to broaden its repertoire. Gordon Kalton Williams © 2015 by raising money to help with purchasing questions of the soul (he is the son of a To all of the groups listed above, the TSO music, instruments, equipment and other clergyman). Some works are offered almost This is the first performance of this work by the would like to extend a hearty thank you. as artefacts of faith that we can escape Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

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