SAINT-SAËNS’ GREAT ORGAN SYMPHONY 3 AUGUST 2018 CONCERT PROGRAM Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Benjamin Northey conductor Piers Lane piano Calvin Bowman organ Kodály Dances of Galánta Liszt Piano Concerto No.1 INTERVAL Saint-Saëns Symphony No.3 Organ Running time: 1 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 BENJAMIN NORTHEY ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR Established in 1906, the Melbourne Benjamin Northey is Chief Conductor Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an of the Christchurch Symphony arts leader and Australia’s oldest Orchestra and Associate Conductor professional orchestra. Chief of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Conductor Sir Andrew Davis has Benjamin appears regularly as guest been at the helm of MSO since 2013. conductor with all major Australian Engaging more than 4 million people symphony orchestras, Opera Australia each year, the MSO reaches diverse (Turandot, L’elisir d’amore, Don Giovanni, audiences through live performances, Così fan tutte, Carmen), New Zealand recordings, TV and radio broadcasts Opera (Sweeney Todd) and State Opera and live streaming. Its international South Australia (La sonnambula, Les audiences include China, where MSO contes d’Hoffmann). His international has performed in 2012, 2016 and appearances include concerts with most recently in May 2018, Europe London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo (2014) and Indonesia, where in 2017 Philharmonic Orchestra and Mozarteum it performed at the UNESCO World Orchestra Salzburg. Heritage Site, Prambanan Temple. With a progressive and diverse The MSO performs a variety of approach to repertoire, he has concerts ranging from symphonic collaborated with a broad range of performances at its home, Hamer Hall artists including Maxim Vengerov and at Arts Centre Melbourne, to its annual Slava Grigoryan, as well as popular free concerts at Melbourne’s largest artists Tim Minchin, Barry Humphries outdoor venue, the Sidney Myer Music and James Morrison. Bowl. The MSO also delivers innovative An Honorary Fellow at the University and engaging programs and digital of Melbourne Conservatorium tools to audiences of all ages through of Music, his awards include the its Education and Outreach initiatives. prestigious 2010 Melbourne Prize Outstanding Musician’s Award as well as multiple awards for his numerous recordings with ABC Classics. 3 PIERS LANE AO CALVIN BOWMAN PIANO ORGAN London-based Australian pianist Calvin Bowman is a graduate of the Piers Lane has worked with many University of Melbourne, and was of the world’s leading orchestras the first Australian to graduate with and conductors, and at numerous a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from international festivals. Recent Yale University, with the assistance of appearances have included recitals a Fulbright scholarship. at Norway’s Fjord Classics festival, He is much in demand as a soloist, a recording of Ferdinand Ries piano accompanist and chamber musician. concertos, and the world premiere with As keyboardist he has premiered Kathryn Stott of Carl Vine’s Concerto works by many prominent Australian for Two Pianos. composers and appeared as soloist Piers Lane became Artistic Director with many of the major Australian of the Sydney International Piano orchestras. Competition in 2016. He was formerly Dr Bowman is also a prolific composer, Artistic Director of the Australian specialising in the form of artsong. Festival of Chamber Music. His His major awards include an Australia CDs cover the music of composers Council Fellowship, and he has also ranging from Scriabin to Henselt to been commissioned by organisations Bach to Grainger. Brett Dean, Colin such as Ars Musica Australis and Matthews, and Malcolm Williamson Symphony Australia, as well as by have also composed for him. In the many individuals and ensembles. Queen’s Diamond Jubilee honours, he was made an Officer in the Order He is an exclusive Decca/UMA artist. of Australia. A recording of his artsong with Sara Macliver, Paul McMahon and Christopher Richardson entitled Real and Right and True was released in July. 4 PROGRAM NOTES up in the town of Galánta on the border between Hungary and Austria, where the passing traffic, including gypsies ZOLTÁN KODÁLY and wandering musicians, may well (1882-1967) have left an aural impression. This is a mature work from Kodály (he was in his Dances of Galánta (Galántai táncok) early fifties), both highly accessible and Lento – Andante maestoso – gently conservative, possibly due in part Allegretto moderato – Andante to the influence of the commissioning maestoso – orchestra. Allegro con moto, grazioso – Andante Based on the verbunkos style (similar maestoso – to the csárdás or the ‘tavern’ tunes of Allegro – Hungary and its surrounding regions), Poco meno mosso – these dances have two moods: pensively slow and fiercely fast. Chiefly linking Allegro vivace – Andante maestoso – these two emotional opposites with Allegro molto vivace broad and impassioned string writing, Kodály also allows solo passages to play Zoltán Kodály is revered as Hungary’s a significant role. As in his suite from father of modern composition. His the opera Háry János (1927), there are breadth of creativity and commitment to meltingly lyrical sections of poignant teaching helped to maintain a vigorous beauty and virtuosity for the clarinet. musical culture through periods of artistic and political oppression. Throughout the first major section or Along with his close contemporary first ‘dance’ (Lento – Andante maestoso) and friend Béla Bartók (1881-1945), and indeed through the rest of the suite, he collected over 3,500 folk tunes the clarinet receives special attention from throughout Hungary, Romania from Kodály. It seems to act as a melodic and Slovakia. These songs influenced fulcrum, linking and leading harmonic both composers’ subsequent works, and rhythmic changes. as well as those of many other middle- Kodály maintains tension by clever European composers. Kodály said of his use of rubato and rhythmic variation, collaboration with Bartók: ‘The vision as with the syncopated rhythms of the of an educated Hungary, reborn from fiery csárdás heard in the late-night the people, rose before us. We decided revels of a tavern. The ‘gypsy scale’, to devote our lives to its realisation.’ found in so much of the folk music Thus the importance of folk tunes to diligently collected by Kodály, is a the national identity of countries such prominent melodic feature. There is as Hungary cannot be overstated. also a Jewish ‘feel’ in much that is here The Dances of Galánta were written – the clarinet in particular conjures the for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest sound of klezmer music in its sense of Philharmonic in 1933. Kodály took as his abandonment and melancholy. source a compendium of dances from A solo flute and piccolo in dotted rhythm the early 1800s, ‘the gypsy dances from accompanied by pizzicato strings Galánta’, and selected, orchestrated introduce the second dance (Allegretto and linked some of them. Kodály grew 6 moderato). There is a decidedly Eastern FRANZ LISZT flavour to this section, and the whirring (1811-1886) strings, when released from pizzicato, Piano Concerto No.1 in E flat are particularly striking as they return to the first, clarinet-inspired, introspective Allegro maestoso – dance themes. Quasi adagio – An oboe introduces the third dance Allegro vivace – Allegro animato – (Allegro con moto, grazioso). This melody Allegro marziale animato is so simple and insubstantial that it seems to need reinforcement from the Liszt was a larger-than-life character, other woodwinds, brass and strings. It both biographically and musically. A is eventually overwhelmed by the return gifted child prodigy, he was publicly of the melancholic first theme, which in kissed on the brow by Beethoven, and turn is interrupted just as suddenly by a later gained a formidable reputation fierce, syncopated dance (Allegro) with as a womaniser, toured extensively the whole orchestra in full cry. as the greatest pianist of his era, lived with a princess and even took a form of Two dances quickly follow, with Holy Orders. Yet behind this colourful melodies reminiscent of Háry János and romantic image lay an immensely – there are grace-noted bassoons, gifted musician, deeply committed to horns swinging across the bar line the future of music and the creative and a dotted rhythm returning in the endeavours of his contemporaries. clarinet (Poco meno mosso). This mildly comic excursion by Kodály sets up Liszt’s two piano concertos rank a frantic finale, beginning with the among his most important works and, muted insistence of the timpani. The while quite different in character, have theme is then launched by the winds, a similar history. Early sketches for and captured in virtuoso brilliance by both works date from 1838-1840, but the strings, with powerful syncopation Liszt’s constant touring prevented the throughout the orchestra (Allegro completion of the first until 1849, the vivace). Instead of a predictably year after his appointment as court triumphant close, the first brooding conductor in Weimar. But even then melody returns in an arresting G sharp there was a delay and the Concerto No.1 minor. Kodály is perhaps reminding the was not to be premiered in Weimar until listener that behind all this exuberance 17 February 1855, with Liszt himself as lies darkness. But such introspection soloist and Berlioz conducting. is thrust aside in the final bars (Allegro molto vivace) where the dance is at an Dedicated to Henri Litolff, the concerto end: exhilarating, exhausting! is a work of extraordinary unity in four movements played without a break. David Vivian Russell The main theme dominates both the first Symphony Australia © 2000 and the last movements and all other The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first important themes recur several times performed the Dances of Galánta on 10-11 during the course of the work.