Journey Through Music
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JOURNEY THROUGH MUSIC Friday 26 May, 7.30pm Arvo Pärt Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (7 mins) Henri Dutilleux Tout un monde lointain … (27 mins) Interval: 20 mins Hector Berlioz Symphonie fantastique (50 mins) BBC Philharmonic Juanjo Mena conductor Leonard Elschenbroich cello ARE YOU READY TO BEGIN YOUR MUSICAL JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY? Our Journey Through Music scheme at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall is an affordable and enjoyable introduction to the world of concert-going and classical music. For young people and children from the age of 8, our special scheme is aimed at making our concerts easily accessible for families and anybody who wants to discover orchestral music or to explore it further. Share your experience using the hashtag #MyJTM illustrations:All Wright/Nucco Brain Ben AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ORCHESTRA WHAT IS AN THE CONDUCTOR ORCHESTRA? The person in charge is usually the But there’s more to it than this. The An orchestra is a group of instrumental conductor, who stands at the front and conductor can also help to reveal the players who perform together, usually led directs the orchestra from a podium, changing moods of the music. If they can by a conductor. keeping time either by waving a short create a strong musical image for the stick, called a baton, or sometimes just listener, the effect can make us feel all The modern symphony orchestra usually with his or her hands. One of the earliest sorts of emotions: happiness, sadness, has somewhere between 60 and 90 conductors, the Italian-born Frenchman fear, pride and everything in between. players: around 30 violins, 12 violas, Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–87), kept his The music might energise you, or it might 10 cellos, eight double basses; two or orchestra together by banging a big stick make you feel you’ve fallen into a dream. three each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and on the floor, but one day he accidentally bassoons; four horns, three trumpets, stabbed his foot and soon afterwards died three trombones, a tuba, a harp and an of gangrene. It’s not as dangerous these assortment of percussion instruments. days! You can find out more about the instruments, and where they sit, on Part of the conductor’s job is to show the next two pages after this. the beat (or pulse) of the music so that all the musicians play together in time. He or she also signals when individual musicians or groups have to start or stop playing. All the time conductors are listening to the overall sound- balance, and altering it, to make sure that the important instruments don’t get drowned out by less important ones. Otherwise, like lots of people talking loudly at the same time, the result would be chaos! 1 All illustrations:All Wright/Nucco Brain Ben THE ORCHESTRA O N STAGE Most orchestras have a similar seating plan, with the strings at the front, the woodwind behind them and the brass and percussion further back still. PERCUSSION The percussion section sits at the back of the orchestra and centres around the timpani, or kettledrums – between two and four copper drums. They have pedals, which alter BRASS their pitch (or notes). The bass drum is hit with just one Like the strings and woodwind, the brass family has stick; while the metal cymbals are clashed together, often four groups. There are French horns (usually four), when the music gets very loud. The side-drum is a small instruments once associated with hunting, while military drum that can play very quietly or very loudly the trumpets came from military bands, and often indeed. Sometimes composers ask for a variety of other have fanfare-like parts. Trombones are played with percussion instruments, such as the xylophone, the a movable slide but, in spite of their size, they can marimba or even whistles, whips and sirens. play amazingly fast notes; and finally the enormous tuba makes the deepest notes of all. STRINGS WOODWIND String players sit at the front in a semi-circle, The woodwind section sits behind the strings, often in two rows. usually with the violins on the left and the There are four different instruments, usually in pairs, but in bigger cellos on the right. Each of the string sections orchestras there can be up to three or four players of each (and also the woodwind, brass and percussion instrument. The metal flutes produce a high, bright, silvery sound. sections) has a principal, who leads the The piccolo is like a small flute and plays very high up.Oboes are section. The strings divide into four sections: black wooden instruments with a detachable reed, which gives them violins, violas, cellos and double basses. The a distinctive sharp-edged sound. Before a concert starts, the whole violins are subdivided into first violins and orchestra tunes up to the note ‘A’ sounded by the Principal Oboe. second violins, with the Firsts generally having A bigger, lower version of the oboe is the cor anglais, or ‘English horn’. a slightly more difficult and brilliant part. Clarinets have a more hollow, woody sound. The lowest-sounding Violas are bigger than violins, with a deeper, member of its family is the bass clarinet. The lowest woodwind mellower sound. The cellos have a rounded, instrument is the bassoon, which is long and heavy and has to be bass sound. The huge double basses (which supported by a sling round the player’s neck. The contra-bassoon are played standing up, or perched on a high is so long that it’s bent double. Occasionally a piece will need extra stool) add depth to the string sound. The instruments, such as the saxophone, which is more usually found in harp is played with fingers instead of a bow, a jazz band. and it has a series of complicated pedals that change its pitch (or notes). BRASS CH HORNS TRUMPETS FREN T ROM BON WOODWIND ES T UB AS NI PA IM T PERCUSSION LS A B UTES OBOES CL M FL ARIN Y ETS C B AS SO O N S OND EC V HARPS S LINS IOLA IO S V C T S E DOUBLE S N L R I L STRINGS I L O BASSES F O S I V TONIGHT'S MUSIC Arvo Pärt (born 1935) Henri Dutilleux (1916 –2013) Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten Tout un monde lointain … (1967–70) (1977) 1 Enigme (Enigma) – 2 Regard (Gaze) – Arvo Pärt comes from the Baltic nation of Estonia, and he’s 3 Houles (Surges) – often described as a ‘Holy Minimalist’. Even though you don’t 4 Miroirs (Mirrors) – have to be religious to enjoy it, many people feel that Pärt’s 5 Hymne (Hymn) music has a wonderfully thoughtful, even spiritual feeling. His music often begins by sounding very simple – with just a few Leonard Elschenbroich cello notes, as if he’d used the very minimum needed. But that’s only the start. As you’re about to hear, Pärt weaves those notes into Many classical composers lived a long time ago. But quite a few something incredibly rich and beautiful. of us actually met Henri Dutilleux (pronounced ‘Doo-tee-yer’), who died only four years ago at the age of 97. He was a kind, Just after he finished writing this piece in 1977, he heard the lively old man, full of good humour and not terribly tall, who sad news that the British composer Benjamin Britten had died. wore old-fashioned glasses and spoke English with a very thick Pärt was a great fan of Britten’s music – so he called it Cantus French accent and a very deep voice. You might have mistaken in memoriam Benjamin Britten, which translates as ‘Song [or him for your great-grandad, but his music was full of imagination Chant] in memory of Benjamin Britten’. and magical sounds. He finished this piece in 1970 and it’s what musicians call a What to listen for concerto – a piece in which a single (‘solo’) player, in this case • The strings: Pärt likes to keep things simple so he doesn’t a cellist, performs alone with the support of the orchestra. But use woodwind or brass in this piece, just strings and a bell. Dutilleux didn’t call it that. He liked to gather ideas from poetry Listen to how plainly it begins, and then how the strings and paintings, and see what sounds they suggested to him. In start to ‘sing’, to overlap and cascade. this piece, he took ideas from the mysterious French poetry • The bell: does it remind you of anything in particular: a mood, or a place? Out of all the possible instruments, why do you think Pärt chose to add just this one? What else could I listen to? Arvo Pärt’s Fratres often appears in films and TV documentaries – it’s deceptively simple, and it couldn’t be by any other composer. TONIGHT'S MUSIC of Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) – and each section (or us another clue from his favourite poet: ‘Guard your movement) of the piece has a single word from one of his dreams! Wise men don’t have dreams as beautiful as fools poems, to get your imagination going. There’s lots to discover – do!’ after all, the title means ‘A whole distant world …’ What else could I listen to? Dutilleux wrote a concerto for violin and orchestra, too – the What to listen for beautiful L’arbre des songes (‘The Tree of Dreams’). 1 Enigme (Enigma) • A puzzle – and a mystery! The very first sound is Interval: 20 minutes (time for an ice-cream!) mysterious – like something rustling, or a wave slowly breaking on the sea.