French Classics
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FRENCH CLASSICS 23–26 NOVEMBER 2018 Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall CONCERT PROGRAM Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Fabien Gabel conductor Beatrice Rana piano Fiona Campbell mezzo-soprano Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus master Debussy Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.3 INTERVAL Debussy/Dean Ariettes Oubliées Ravel Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No.2 Pre-concert talk (Friday & Saturday) Join Megan Stellar, founder and editor of Rehearsal Magazine, for a pre-concert conversation on-stage at Hamer Hall from 6.15pm. Post-concert conversation (Monday) Join composer and ABC Classic FM producer, Andrew Aronowicz, for a post-concert conversation inside the Stalls Foyer of Hamer Hall from 8.30pm. Running time: One hour and 45 minutes, including a 20-minute interval In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone. The MSO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which it is performing. MSO pays its respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other mso.com.au communities who may be in attendance. (03) 9929 9600 2 MELBOURNE SYMPHONY FABIEN GABEL ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR Established in 1906, the Melbourne Fabien Gabel is music director of the Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an Quebec Symphony Orchestra, and was arts leader and Australia’s oldest appointed music director of the French professional orchestra. Chief Youth Orchestra in 2017. Conductor Sir Andrew Davis has His 2017–18 schedule saw guest been at the helm of MSO since 2013. appearances with the Cleveland Engaging more than 4 million people Orchestra at their Blossom Festival, each year, the MSO reaches diverse the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Hessian audiences through live performances, Radio Symphony Orchestra, Detroit recordings, TV and radio broadcasts Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle and live streaming. Its international Weimar, Houston Symphony, National audiences include China, where MSO Symphony Orchestra (Washington has performed in 2012, 2016 and most DC), Helsinki Philharmonic, San Diego recently in May 2018, Europe (2014) and Symphony, and Orchestre de Paris. Indonesia, where in 2017 it performed at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Fabien Gabel has worked with soloists Prambanan Temple. such as Emmanuel Ax and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and singers such as Natalie The MSO performs a variety of Dessay. Recordings include Saint-Saëns’ concerts ranging from symphonic Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 5 with Louis performances at its home, Hamer Hall Schwizgebel and the BBC Symphony at Arts Centre Melbourne, to its annual Orchestra. Fabien Gabel made his free concerts at Melbourne’s largest professional conducting debut in 2003 outdoor venue, the Sidney Myer Music with the Orchestre National de France. Bowl. The MSO also delivers innovative and engaging programs and digital tools to audiences of all ages through its Education and Outreach initiatives. 3 BEATRICE RANA FIONA CAMPBELL PIANO MEZZO-SOPRANO Beatrice Rana came to public attention Proclaimed “outstanding” and “best in 2011 after winning First Prize and mezzo-soprano in Australia” by The all special jury prizes at the Montreal Australian, multi award-winning International Competition. In 2013 she performer Fiona Campbell is one of won the Silver Medal and Audience Australia’s most versatile and beloved Award at the 14th Van Cliburn singers. A mother, producer and ABC International Piano Competition. presenter, accomplished international performer, recitalist and recording Beatrice Rana has performed at the artist, Fiona has consistently entranced world’s most prestigious venues and audiences and received wide critical with conductors such as Riccardo acclaim for her powerful performances Chailly, Yuri Temirkanov and Zubin and exquisite musicianship. Mehta. Among orchestras she has appeared with the London Philharmonic, Much in demand as a principal artist Philadelphia Orchestra, NHK Symphony, with all the finest orchestras and and Orchestre National de France. ensembles in Australia, Fiona is a fierce advocate for the arts and gaining Recent appearances have included national prominence through her concerts with the Tonkünstler involvement in music education, artistic Orchestra at the Vienna Musikverein direction and her media presence. and Chopin with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Recent recordings include Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety with Antonio Pappano and the Academy of Saint Cecilia and Bach’s Goldberg Variations. 4 MELBOURNE SYMPHONY WARREN TREVELYAN-JONES ORCHESTRA CHORUS MSO CHORUS MASTER For more than 50 years the Melbourne Warren Trevelyan-Jones is the Head Symphony Orchestra Chorus has been of Music at St James’, King Street in the unstinting voice of the Orchestra’s Sydney and is regarded as one of the choral repertoire. The MSO Chorus leading choral conductors and choir sings with the finest conductors trainers in Australia. Warren has had including Sir Andrew Davis, Edward an extensive singing career as a Gardner, Mark Wigglesworth, Bernard soloist and ensemble singer in Europe, Labadie, Vladimir Ashkenazy and including nine years in the Choir of Manfred Honeck, and is committed Westminster Abbey, and regular work to developing and performing new with the Gabrieli Consort, Collegium Australian and international choral Vocale (Ghent), the Taverner Consort, repertoire. The Kings Consort, Dunedin Consort, The Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars. Commissions include Brett Dean’s Katz und Spatz, Ross Edwards’ Mountain Warren is also Director of the Parsons Chant, and Paul Stanhope’s Exile Affayre, Founder and Co-Director of Lamentations. Recordings by the MSO The Consort of Melbourne and, in 2001 Chorus have received critical acclaim. with Dr Michael Noone, founded the It has performed across Brazil and Gramophone award-winning group at the Cultura Inglese Festival in Sao Ensemble Plus Ultra. Warren is also Paolo, with The Australian Ballet, a qualified music therapist. Sydney Symphony Orchestra, at the AFL Grand Final and at Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies. 5 PROGRAM NOTES The project fell through, but Debussy’s imagination had been whetted. The orchestral piece that finally appeared CLAUDE DEBUSSY made an immediate and positive impact (1862–1918) with the audience, if not the critics, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and may be said to be Debussy’s (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) breakthrough work. In 1912 it was choreographed and danced by Nijinsky, Published in 1876, Stéphane Mallarmé’s whose erotic performance caused one eclogue l’après-midi d’un faune is a of those typically Parisian fracas. monument of symbolist poetry, reflecting The first phrase of the solo flute in its sumptuous but fragmentary arabesque with which the piece language the erotic fantasies of a drowsy begins has rightly been described as faun – a mythical half-man, half-goat – a founding moment in modern music. on a hot, languid Sicilian afternoon. Its chromatic, rhythmically ambiguous Running like a thread through the line traces and retraces the equally imagery of fruit and flowers and naked ambiguous interval of the tritone: like nymphs are references to music, the material elsewhere in the work that specifically to the syrinx. This instrument, is derived from the whole-tone scale, the ‘pan-pipes’, was fashioned by the it is in no clearly discernible key, as god Pan from reeds into which a young is shown by the varied ways in which nymph, desperate to escape his amorous it is harmonised on its subsequent attentions, had been transformed. reappearances. The second half of the One such reference, to the syrinx’s melody provides more ‘conventional’ ‘sonorous, airy, monotonous line’, would motifs that are taken up from time to become the kernel of Debussy’s musical time by the rest of the orchestra. rendering of the poem. (Debussy hated Mallarmé’s poem rhymes, but otherwise hearing his music described as ‘what avoids traditional forms or a narrative imbeciles call impressionism’ and line; similarly, Debussy’s piece avoids preferred his work to be compared to the goal-directed development and tonal Symbolist poetry.) Inviting Mallarmé architecture that informs 19th-century to hear the work in 1894, he described symphonism. As Pierre Boulez puts ‘the arabesque which…I believe to have it, ‘What was overthrown was not so been dictated by the flute of your faun’. much the art of development as the very In fact the work’s genesis was in concept of form itself.’ Musical events, a proposal by Mallarmé to present like the vivid splashes of colour that a staged version of his poem at an first answer the flute, are there for the avant-garde theatre in 1891. By now he immediate pleasure they give; climaxes knew and admired some of Debussy’s are approached by simple repetition of vocal music, and went so far as to motifs; the most extended melody is announce in the newspaper that the a richly scored, Massenet-like tune at staged version would include music the work’s midpoint, accompanied by by the young composer ‘M de Bussy’. layered, rocking ostinatos. 6 The faun’s dream is overcome by sleep unwelcome casting as the ‘enfant and the ‘proud silence of noon’, and the terrible’ of Russian music, and evoked piece ends with flutes, muted horns and a corresponding critical reaction (‘cats the glitter of harp and antique cymbals, on a roof make better music,’ wrote one fading to nothingness. Russian critic of Concerto No.2). No.3, on the other hand, shows much more of © Gordon Kerry 2017 the tunefulness and accessibility which The Melbourne Symphony first performed this it is wrong to regard as having entered work on 12 September 1940 under conductor Sir Bernard Heinze, and most recently in October Prokofiev’s music only after he returned 2014 with Benjamin Northey. to Russia in the early 1930s. The lyrical opening of this piano concerto, SERGEI PROKOFIEV completed in 1921, recalls that of the (1891–1953) First Violin Concerto of 1916–17.