Debut in Derby X Creates Exciting and Imaginative Performance Experiences for Audiences and Participants

Principal Conductor : Duncan Ward Principal Guest Conductor : Nicholas Kok Leader/Artistic Advisor : Benedict Holland Choral Advisor : David Lawrence

Sinfonia Viva is a virtuoso ensemble delivering original and extraordinary creative musical experiences. Founded in 1982, Sinfonia Viva has a national reputation as a leader in creative music activity in the UK. Its work offers relevant and enriching possibilities for all. Sinfonia Viva in association with Derby LIVE, Derby Cathedral Sinfonia Viva: and Orchestras Live x Embraces new opportunities and ways of working whilst nurturing the best of existing present practice, making music accessible to the widest audience

x Connects participants, communities and professional musicians through shared creative activities and performances Debut in Derby x Creates exciting and imaginative performance experiences for audiences and participants

x Collaborates with partners to devise, develop and deliver original musical opportunities

x Is an ambassador for music making Derby Cathedral th Saturday 10 January 2015, 7.30pm The Orchestra has toured to Ireland and Berlin, has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM and has been part of a project for Granada Television. The Orchestra made its London debut as part of an Indian music festival in London’s Kings Place, building on its partnership with top Indian classical violinist Kala Ramnath. One of the Orchestra’s tracks on the Gorillaz’ album Plastic Beach was nominated for a Grammy award. The Orchestra has hosted the Association of British Orchestras’ national conference. Its project work includes a contribution to BBC Radio 3’s Music Nation week-end, producing local content for the Olympic Torch Evening Celebration event in June 2012 in Derby, work as part of the SO Festival in Skegness and events linked to broadcasts as part of BBC Big Screen relays.

On stage in concert halls and smaller venues across the region Sinfonia Viva continues to deliver high quality performances and concerts of extraordinary range based on original programming and project development. Partnership working, often bringing together musicians from other musical styles, genres and traditions is central to the ethos of the organisation. This is supported by extensive experience in event management activity and delivery.

Sinfonia Viva is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and receives funding from Derby City Council. Principal Conductor position sponsored by the Nottingham City Gate Branch of Handelsbanken.

Feedback on any Sinfonia Viva event is welcome via the contact details below.

Sinfonia Viva, Assembly Rooms, Market Place, Derby DE1 3AH Purcell arr. Britten Tel: 01332 207570 Fax: 01332 207569 Email: [email protected] www.vivaorch.co.uk Chacony in G minor, Z730 Viva Chamber Orchestra Ltd is a company limited by guarantee registered in England No.187955. Registered address 22-26 Nottingham Road, Ward Stapleford, Nottingham. Registered Charity No.291046 VAT No.385367024 Resounding Vaults

Britten Les Illuminations, Op.18

Beethoven

Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60 Chacony in G minor, Z730 Henry PurcellProgramme (1659-1695) arranged for string orchestra by Benjamin Britten

Of all Purcell’s instrumental pieces, the Chacony is one of the best-known. It forms part of a manuscript collection in Purcell’s own handwriting, headed The work’s of Hen; Purcell Anno Dom. 1680. This includes a number of other fantasias, and may, perhaps, have been intended to form the basis of a published collection similar to his Ten Sonata’s in Four Parts (1680), which also contains a single-movement chaconne. The scholar and performer Peter Holman has put forward the theory that it may have originated either as music for a dance at Charles 2nd’s court or as part of an otherwise lost theatre score. He goes on to suggest that it may have been scored originally for a single violin, two violas and bass, as opposed to the two violins and single viola used in the more modern style of Purcell’s Italian contemporaries. Unauthorised The title ‘Chacony’ (the anglicised form of ‘Chaconne’) indicates that it is a set of continuous variations over a repeated theme in the bass. This is a form which Purcell frequently used, not least in Dido’s “When I am laid notesin earth”, from the opera Dido and Aeneas. Like much of Purcell’s instrumental chamber music, it draws on the great English fantasia tradition going back to Byrd and Gibbons, and whose last great exponent, John Jenkins (1592-1678), Purcell may well have known personally. At the same time its sturdy rhythms and the twists and turns of its harmonies are as up-to-date as anything Purcell wrote.

Britten was a devoted admirer of Purcell’scopyright music throughout his professional life and, among other things, made a number of realisations for piano of the instrumental parts in several of Purcell’s songs (and used the chaconne and related forms in many of his own works). He first made his version of the Chacony, for string quartet or string orchestra, in 1948, and revised it in 1963.

Resounding Vaults use Duncan Ward (1989- )

The idea for this piece grew from the proposed premiere concert venue of Derby Cathedral - a majestic, resonant space with great potential for the antiphonalMike placement of instrumental groups. Ever since playing Gabrieli as a young horn isplayer I have been enchanted by the musical possibilities such a setting can create: in Gabrieli's case, brass choirs calling to each other from the opposing balconies of St Mark's, Venice. prohibited

I therefore leapt at the chance to compose a work showcasing the wind, brass and percussion forces required for Beethoven's Fourth Symphony to counterbalanceWheeler the strings-only concert opener of Purcell's heavenly Chacony in G minor. In 'Resounding Vaults', bell-like circling harmonic sonorities are juxtaposed with wilder contrapuntal fantasy for duos and trios within the ensemble. Distant choral-like windows in the texture pave way for soaring melody echoing around the space.

Les Illuminations, Op.18 Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) 1. Fanfare; 2. Villes; 3a. Phrase; 3b. Antique; 4. Royauté; 5. Marine; 6. Interlude; 7. Being beauteous; 8. Parade; 9. Départ. 2015 “I alone hold the key to this wild parade!” proclaims the solo voice three times during the course of Les IIlluminations. The wild parade in question is a bewildering kaleidoscope of images, nightmare visions of modern life jostling ecstatic love-poetry, taken from a collection of poems and prose-poems with the same title by the French writer Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). They were written in his teens in the mid-1870s and published in 1886, and ‘illuminations’, according to Rimbaud’s lover at the time, the poet Paul Verlaine, was meant to suggest a series of coloured photographic plates, or perhaps what we would think of today as a slide-show. Britten was introduced to Rimbaud’s work by his frequent collaborator in the late 1930s and early 40s, WH Auden. He set two of the poems, ‘Being Beauteous’ and ‘Marine’, in March 1939 for the Swiss soprano Sophie Wyss. After he and the tenor Peter Pears began their three-year stay in America he added the rest, and the work was completed in October. The first performance was given by Wyss with the Boyd Neel Orchestra conducted by Boyd Neel in the Aeolian Hall, London, on 30 January 1940.

In a number of respects, Les Illuminations represents an important stage in Britten’s self- discovery as both a person and a composer. His discovery of Purcell’s music had been an important factor in developing his approach to setting English texts, and which had already borne fruit in a number of works. Now he felt the need to step back from English for a while in order to find new ways of responding to poetic imagery. Rimbaud’s French gave him what he needed in this respect; as he later put it, “I felt bolder with another language.”

That boldness informs his writing for the string orchestra as much as his word-setting. The vivid sound-images that result – such as the trumpet-like figures in the opening, the glistening harmonics (the high-pitched whistling tone produced by just touching the string lightly at certain points instead of pressing it down) that support the voice in ‘Phrase’, and the guitar-like strumming for violas and cellos in ‘Antique’ – all suggest a composer working at an imaginative white heat to match Rimbaud’s own.

After ‘Fanfare’ has raised the curtain, the edgy restlessness of ‘Villes’ (Towns) reflects Rimbaud’s own repelled fascination with the endlessly churning activity of city life, to which the quiet, weightless ecstasy of ‘Phrase’ is the perfect response. ‘Antique’ (Antiquity) is the first of the work’s two sensuous hymns to physical beauty, the title suggesting a comparison with a classical Greek or Roman sculpture. Following the playful exuberance of ‘Royauté’ (Royalty) and the brightly-lit, choppy seascape of ‘Marine’, ‘Interlude’ marks the calm, expressive mid- point, as poet and composer quietly remind us who is in command of this parade of images.

‘Being Beauteous’ – the English title was Rimbaud’s own – is dedicated to Peter Pears, and its almost breathless sense of wonder balances that of ‘Antique’. Suddenly we are confronted with the unsavoury characters that inhabit ‘Parade’, a seedy urban landscape to match ‘Villes’, and again Rimbaud and Britten assert their ownership of the key that unlocks the meaning of the phantasmagorical dream-world we have experienced.

In ‘Départ’ that key turns to close the door on what we have seen and heard. The sights and sounds have been experience to the full, and we can take our leave, with the pulsing repeated notes of ‘Being Beauteous’ echoing behind the voice as we do so.

Cathedral images throughout this booklet © Graham Whitmore

Les Illuminations Les Illuminations

I. Fanfare I. Fanfare J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage. I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

II. Villes II. Towns Ce sont des villes! C’est un peuple pour These are towns! It is for the inhabitants qui se sont montés ces Alleghanys et of towns that these dream Alleghanies ces Libans de rêve! Des chalets de and Lebanons have been raised. cristal et de bois [qui] se meuvent sur Castles of crystal and wood [which] des rails et des poulies invisibles. Les move on rails and invisible pulleys. Old vieux cratères ceints de colosses et de craters, encircled with colossal statues palmiers de cuivre rugissent and palms of copper, roar melodiously in mélodieusement dans les feux. […] Des their fires. […] Corteges of Queen Mabs cortèges de Mabs en robes rousses, in robes red and opaline, climb the opalines montent des ravines. Là-haut, ravines. Up there, their hoofs in the les pieds dans la cascade et les ronces, cascades and the briars, the stags give les cerfs tettent Diane. Les Bacchantes Diana suck. Bacchantes of the suburbs des banlieues sanglotent et la lune brûle weep, and the moon burns and howls. et hurle. Vénus entre dans les cavernes Venus enters the caves of the des forgerons et des ermites. blacksmiths and hermits.

Des groupes de beffrois chantent les Groups of bell-towers sing aloud the idées des peuples. Des châteaux bâtis ideas of the people. From castles built of en os sort la musique inconnue. […] Le bones proceeds unknown music. […] paradis des orages s’effondre. Les The paradise of the thunders bursts and sauvages dansent sans cesse la fête de falls. Savages dance unceasingly the la nuit. […] Festival of the Night. […]

Quels bons bras, quelle belle heure me What kindly arms, what good hour, will rendront cette région d’où viennent mes restore to me those regions from which sommeils et mes moindres come my slumbers and the least of my mouvements? movements?

IIIa. Phrase IIIa. Phrase […] J’ai tendu des cordes de clocher à […] I have hung ropes from bell-tower to clocher; des guirlandes de fenêtre à bell-tower; garlands from window to fenêtre; des chaînes d’or d’étoile à window; golden chains from star to star, étoile, et je danse. […] and I dance. […]

IIIb. Antique IIIb. Antique Gracieux fils de Pan! Autour de ton front Oh, gracious son of Pan! Thine eyes – couronné de fleurettes et de baies tes those precious globes – glance slowly; yeux, des boules précieuses, remeunt. thy brow is crowned with little flowers Tachées de lies brunes, tes joues se and berries. Thy hollow cheeks are creusent. Tes crocs luisent. Ta poitrine spotted with brown lees; thy tusks shine. ressemble à une cithare, des tintements Thy breast resembles a cithara; tinkling circulent dans tes bras blonds. Ton sounds run through thy blond arms. Thy cœur bat dans ce ventre où dort le heart beats in that womb where sleeps double sexe. Promène-toi, la nuit, en Hermaphrodite. Walk at night, softly mouvant doucement cette cuisse, cette moving this thigh, this other thigh, and seconde cuisse et cette jambe de this left leg. gauche.

WE VALUE YOUR SUPPORT IV. Royauté IV. Royalty As a registered charity by supporting Sinfonia Viva you to get play a part in a range of Un beau matin, chez un peuple fort On a beautiful morning, in a country innovative artistic, education and community programmes taking place in concert halls and doux, un homme et une femme inhabited by a mild and gentle people, a hospital wards, from outdoor parks to school halls. superbes criaient sur la place publique: man and woman of proud presence “Mes amis, je veux qu’elle soit reine!” stood in the public square and cried You can make a real difference and support the work we do right away. It couldn’t be easier - “Je veux être reine!” Elle riait et aloud: ‘My friends, it is my wish that she just Text VIVA30 5 or Text VIVA30 10 to 700 70 to donate £5 or £10. tremblait. Il parlait aux amis de should be queen!’ ‘I should like to be

Alternatively you can make a donation securely online through BT mydonate révélation, d’épreuve terminée. Ils se queen!’ She laughed and trembled. To www.mydonate.bt.com/charities/sinfoniaviva pâmaient l’un contre l’autre. his friends he spoke of a revelation, of a test concluded. Swooningly they leaned You can become an Individual Supporter and enjoy a range of benefits by visiting: one against the other. www.vivaorch.co.uk/support-us/individual-support

Or send a cheque together with your contact details to: En effet ils furent rois toute une matinée And during one whole morning, whilst Make a Difference, Sinfonia Viva, Assembly Rooms, Market Place, Derby DE1 3AH où les tentures carminées se relevèrent the crimson hangings were displayed on sur les maisons, et toute l’après-midi, où the houses, and during the whole To discuss different ways you can help please call Simone Lennox-Gordon on 01332 207 566 ils s’avancèrent du côté des jardins de afternoon, while they advanced towards or email [email protected]. the palm gardens, they were indeed palmes. kings. THANK YOU

Special thanks go to our supporters V. Marine V. Marine Arts Council England Les chars d’argent et de cuivre – Chariots of silver and of copper – Derby City Council Les proues d’acier et d’argent – Prows of steel and of silver – Derbyshire County Council Battent l’écume, – Beat the foam, – Lincolnshire County Council Orchestras Live Soulèvent les souches des ronces – Lift the stems of the brambles – Rolls-Royce plc Les courants de la lande, The streams of the barren parts Et les ornières immenses du reflux, And the immense tracks of the ebb Trusts and Foundations Filent circulairement vers l’est, Flow circularly towards the east, Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation Vers les piliers de la forêt, – Towards the pillars of the forest, – The Bergne-Coupland Charity Vers les fûts de la jetée, Towards the piles of the jetty, Children in Need Dont l’angle est heurté par des tourbillon Against whose angles are hurled D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust de lumière. whirlpools of light. Foyle Foundation Freemasons of Derby Grassroots Fund VI. Interlude VI. Interlude Garfield Weston J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage. I alone hold the key to this savage Heritage Lottery Fund parade. Jessie Spencer Trust JR Halkes Settlement VII. Being Beauteous VII. Being Beauteous Lincolnshire Armed Forces Community Covenant Devant une neige un Être de Beauté de Against a background of snow is a Royal Philharmonic Society and PRS for Music Foundation haute taille. Des sifflements de mort et beautiful Being of majestic stature. Santander des cercles de musique sourde font Death is all round her, and whistling, Southern Derbyshire Learning Fund monter, s’élargir et trembler comme un dying breaths, and circles of hollow The Ernest Book Trust spectre ce corps adoré; des music, cause this adored body to rise, to The John Ellerman Foundation blessuresécarlates et noires éclatent swell, and to tremble like a spectre. The National Forest Company dans les chaires superbes. Les couleurs Scarlet and black wounds break out on The Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation propres de la vie se foncent, dansent, et the superb flesh. Colours which belong The Thomas Farr Charity se dégagent autour de la Vision, sur le to life deepen, dance, and separate The Wallbrook Fund chantier. Et les frissons s’élèvent et themselves around the vision, upon the The Waynflete Charitable Trust grondent, et la saveur forcenée de ces path. Shudders rise and mutter; and the Tom Carey Fund effets se chargeant avec les sifflements mad savour of all these things, heavy

Business Supporter mortels et les rauques musiques que le with dying groans and raucous music, is Principal Conductor position – Handelsbanken Nottingham City Gate Branch monde, loin derrière nous, lance sur hurled at our Mother of Beauty by the notre mère de beauté, – elle recule, ele world far behind us. She recoils, she Maestro Members Brian King, Peter Steer, Robin Wood se dresse. Oh! nos os sont revêtus d’un stands erect. Oh rapture! Our bones are nouveau corps amoureux. covered anew with a body of love.

Ô la face cendrée, l’écusson de crin, les Ah! The pale ashen face, the mane-like bras de cristal! Le canon sur lequel je hair, the arms of crystal! And there is dois m’abattre à travers la mêlée des the cannon upon which I must cast arbres et de l’air léger! myself through the noise of trees and light winds.

VIII. Parade VIII. Parade Des drôles très solides. Plusieurs ont These are very sturdy rogues. Many of exploité vos mondes. Sans besoins, et them have made use of you and your peu pressés de mettre en œuvre leurs like. Without wants, they are in no hurry brillantes facultés et leur expérience de to put into action their brilliant faculties vos consciences. Quels hommes mûrs! and their experience of your Des yeux hébétés à la façon de la nuit consciences. What mature men! Here d’été, rouges et noirs, tricolorés, d’acier are sottish eyes out of a midsummer piqué d’étoiles d’or; des facies night’s dream – red, black, tricoloured; déformés, plombés, blêmis, incendiés; eyes of steel spotted with golden stars; des enrouements folâtres! La démarche deformed faces, leaden-hued, livid, cruelle des oripeaux! – Il y a quelques enflamed; wanton hoarsenesses! They jeunes […] have the ungainly bearing of rag dolls! – There are youths among them […]

Ô le plus violent Paradis de la grimace It is a violent Paradise of mad grimaces! enragée! […] Chinois, Hottentots, […] Chinese, Hottentots, gypsies, bohémiens, niais, hyènes, Molochs, simpletons, hyænas, Molochs, old vieilles démences, démons sinistres, ils insanities, sinister demons, they mêlent les tours populaires, maternels, alternate popular or maternal tricks with avec les poses et les tendresses bestial poses and caresses. They can bestiales. Ils interpréteraient des pièces interpret modern plays or songs of a nouvelles et des chansons “bonnes simple naivety at will. Master jugglers, filles”. Maîtres jongleurs, ils transforment they transform places and people, and le lieu et les Personnes et usent de la make use of magnetic comedy […] comédie magnétique […]

J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage. I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

IX. Départ IX. Departure Assez vu. La vision s’est rencontrée à Sufficiently seen. The vision has been tous les air. met in all guises. Assez eu. Rumeurs de villes, le soir, et Sufficiently heard. Rumours of the town au soleil, et toujours. at night, in the sunlight, at all times. Assez connu. Les arrêts de la vie. – Sufficiently known. Life’s decrees. – Ô Rumeurs et Visions! Oh Rumours! Oh Visions! Départ dans l’affection et le bruit neufs! Departure in the midst of love and new rumours!

Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

The Orchestra Interval Programme Principal Conductor Soloist Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60

Duncan Ward Rebecca Bottone (Soprano) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

1. Adagio – allegro vivace; 2. Adagio; 3. Menuetto. Allegro vivace; 4. Allegro ma non troppo.

Violin 1 Flute Schumann once described Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, standing as it does between the heroic Ben Holland Rachel Holt Third and heaven-storming Fifth, as “a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants”, which Nic Fallowfield just goes to show that even the most astute critic can sometimes be misled by appearances.

Thea Spiers Oboe Clare Bhabra Beethoven wrote it in 1806, a remarkably productive year in which he also composed the Violin Emily Pailthorpe Concerto, the Fourth Piano Concerto, and the three Op 59 string quartets. It was commissioned Ken Mitchell Unauthorised Maddy Aldis-Evans by a Silesian aristocrat, Count Franz von Oppersdorf, and was given its first performance, together Caroline Bromley with the Fourth Piano Concerto and Coriolan Overture, at a private concert in March 1807.

Rebecca Allfree notes Clarinet Chris Windass The Fourth Symphony is on a noticeably smaller scale than the Third (‘Eroica’), and it is scored for Helen Bishop a smaller orchestra, including only one flute as opposed to the more usual (for this period) two. Matthew Dunn But the impression that Beethoven is pulling back from the Eroica’s huge advance in scale and Violin 2 style is misleading. At least one feature of the work suggests that, on the contrary, he is continuing

Philip Gallaway Bassoon to explore new ground. The slow introduction to the first movement is all mystery and hushed

Sian McInally expectation. After seeming to grope its way in the dark, the music suddenly erupts in a startling Adam Mackenzie Hazel Parkes fortissimo heralding the main allegro vivacecopyright part of the movement and telling us we’re in the right Rachel Simms key at last. The effect is like a sudden burst of sunlight, although Beethoven still leaves us Belinda Hammond guessing as to precisely where the allegro actually starts. Melissa Court Horn

Simran Singh The magical power of this transition is something he would go on to develop, not just in later David Tollington symphonies but also as early as the recapitulation – the climactic moment when music arrives Jose Lluna back at its starting-point – in this one. Theuse music reaches a very remote key indeed – B major – as Viola the music seems to hold its breath, with the strings playing very softly. Then a timpani roll on B flat Tetsuumi Nagata Trumpet begins to pull the music back to the home key – a bald, technical description for one of the most

Isobel Adams Tracey Redfern quietly and breathtakingly thrilling moments in all Beethoven.

Jackie Anthony Gordon Truman Mike The slow movement is based on the contrast betweenis the long, slowly unfolding main theme and Lucy Nolan its insistently rhythmic accompanying figure. The timpani, again, have two brief moments in the

Timpani spotlight, when they have that insistent rhythm all to themselves. Equally telling are the moments Cello prohibited Jeremy Cornes when it drops out, notably for two appearances of a lyrical new theme for solo clarinet.

Deirdre Bencsik

Peggy Nolan Beethoven called the third movement a minuet but it is nothing of the kind. There is not the Wheeler slightest hint of eighteenth-century elegance about this boundingly athletic scherzo, which gets a Freddie Collarbone lot of its energy from the rhythmic contradiction between notes grouped in pairs and the three-in-a- Lucy Wilding bar background. After the contrasting trio section Beethoven runs the entire sequence a second

time (another innovation) and the opening music starts to make a third appearance, but this is cut

Bass short by an emphatic gesture from the horns.

David Ayre Although the finale is marked “not too fast” it races away at breakneck speed, generating a sense Sian Holland of unstoppable momentum (spare a thought for the first bassoonist, faced with a short but hair-

raising solo about four minutes in). The music does, in fact, hesitate briefly just before the end,

with Beethoven slowing the opening theme down to half-speed, but this is simply to draw breath 2015 before the energetic final bars.

All programme notes © Mike Wheeler, 2015

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Duncan Ward Rebecca Bottone Principal Conductor Soprano

As well as taking up the position of Principal Born in Bedfordshire, Rebecca Bottone Conductor with Sinfonia Viva, the 2014/15 completed her studies at the Royal Academy season will mark Duncan Ward’s debut with of Music. the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Deutsche Concert engagements include Charmeuse Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Symphony Thais at the Châtelet, Paris conducted by Orchestra of India. He also returns to Baden- Eschenbach; Adès’ Five Eliot Landscape for Baden Easter Festival (Traviata), Britten Radio France; Handel Arias with the Kings Sinfonia, Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele, and Consort at the Wigmore Hall and the St John MIAGI – a specialist youth music organisation Passion with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano in South Africa. Giuseppe Verdi at the Teatro degli Archimboldi. Recent highlights include conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker in their Britten100 She has sung Adelaide di Borgogna with the concert with Ian Bostridge, International Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which was Contemporary Ensemble in the Acht Brucken recorded for Opera Rara; Beethoven’s C Festival, Cologne and conducting a special Minor Mass and Christ on the Mount of Olives arrangement of “Kleine” Manon Lescaut at the with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Baden-Baden Easter Festival. Cleone in Rossini's Ermione at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic He has also made successful debuts with the Orchestra; Haydn’s Creation with the Iceland Bamberg and Lucerne Symphony orchestras, Symphony Orchestra under Paul McCreesh; Northern Sinfonia, Royal Scottish National, Mozart concert arias and Britten’s Les Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele with Igor Levit, illuminations for the Manchester Camerata; Southbank Sinfonia, Ulster Orchestra and Handel arias and Imeneo with the Academy of BBC National Orchestra of Wales as well as Ancient Music at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls; a concert performance of Sweeney Todd conducting the Chinese premiere of Peter Grimes in Beijing with a stellar international cast. with the Bayerische Rundfunk, Munich; Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang for the RAI, Turin; Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience at the BBC Proms; Conti’s L’issipile for La nuova musica and Sir Peter Duncan won the 2005 BBC Young Composer of the Year and is now published by Peters Maxwell Davies’ Revelation and Fall at the BBC Proms. Edition. Recent composing highlights include a work for the LSO as part of their Panufnik Scheme and “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” performed by members of the National Youth Her operatic career to date has seen her working with conductors that include Sir Colin Davis, Orchestra at the Southbank’s “Imagine” Festival in 2014. His works have also been performed Sir Charles Mackerras, Richard Hickox and Marc Minkowski. by groups such as the Endymion Ensemble, BBC Singers and The Sixteen. He was appointed Composer for Coutts Bank's Family Business Awards in 2008. She has sung the Maid in Ades’ Powder Her Face at the Linbury Studio; the First Innocent in the world premiere of Birtwistle's Minotaur for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Cricket He is passionate about working with young people and local communities. Following a month and Parrott in the world premiere of Jonathan Dove's Pinocchio for Opera North and for working in India in 2006, Duncan subsequently co-founded the WAM Foundation which sends Minnesota Opera; Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail for the Aix-en-Provence Festival young UK musicians each year to teach Western classical music in schools across Delhi, and Scottish Opera; Despina Cosi Fan Tutte, Melia Apollo and Hyacinthus, Elisa Il Re Pastore, Mumbai, Kolkata and Kerala. The charity attracted the attention of the great late Ravi Shankar, Sabina Adriano in Siria, Sifare Mitridate Re di Ponto, and Servilia Gluck’s La clemenza di Tito who invited Duncan to study with him in California in 2010. for Classical Opera; Amanda in Ligeti’s Grand Macabre for English National Opera; First Niece in Peter Grimes for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Anne A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd In Summer 2012, he conducted at the Royal Opera House as part of the London 2012 Festival and The Sound of Music for the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris; Tytania A Midsummer Night’s with members of Streetwise Opera and in 2013 was Music Director of their critically acclaimed Dream for Garsington Opera and Mabel Pirates of Penzance for Scottish Opera. production “The Answer to Everything”. Forthcoming engagements include concerts with the Hallé and Britten’s Les illuminations with Duncan Ward was educated in Kent, attended Junior Trinity and was a member of the National Duncan Ward; La Cenerentola for Scottish Opera; and her debut for Welsh National Opera as Youth Orchestra. He went on to Manchester to study jointly degrees at the University of Michael Darling in Richard Ayres’ Peter Pan and Yniold Pelléas et Mélisande. Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music and has since worked with some of the top international orchestras.

Photo credit: Rachel Shakespeare

Duncan Ward Rebecca Bottone Principal Conductor Soprano

Photo credit: Rachel Shakespeare

The Orchestra Interval Programme Principal Conductor Soloist Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60

Duncan Ward Rebecca Bottone (Soprano) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

1. Adagio – allegro vivace; 2. Adagio; 3. Menuetto. Allegro vivace; 4. Allegro ma non troppo.

Philip Gallaway Bassoon to explore new ground. The slow introduction to the first movement is all mystery and hushed

Isobel Adams Tracey Redfern quietly and breathtakingly thrilling moments in all Beethoven.

Deirdre Bencsik

time (another innovation) and the opening music starts to make a third appearance, but this is cut

Bass short by an emphatic gesture from the horns.

raising solo about four minutes in). The music does, in fact, hesitate briefly just before the end,

with Beethoven slowing the opening theme down to half-speed, but this is simply to draw breath 2015 before the energetic final bars.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ se dresse. Oh! nos os sont revêtus d’un stands erect. Oh rapture! Our bones are nouveau corps amoureux. covered anew with a body of love.

J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage. I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

Les Illuminations Les Illuminations

I. Fanfare I. Fanfare J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage. I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

Britten was introduced to Rimbaud’s work by his frequent collaborator in the late 1930s and early 40s, WH Auden. He set two of the poems, ‘Being Beauteous’ and ‘Marine’, in March 1939 for the Swiss soprano Sophie Wyss. After he and the tenor Peter Pears began their three-year stay in America he added the rest, and the work was completed in October. The first performance was given by Wyss with the Boyd Neel Orchestra conducted by Boyd Neel in the Aeolian Hall, London, on 30 January 1940.

Cathedral images throughout this booklet © Graham Whitmore Chacony in G minor, Z730 Henry PurcellProgramme (1659-1695) arranged for string orchestra by Benjamin Britten

Resounding Vaults use Duncan Ward (1989- )

Principal Conductor : Duncan Ward Principal Guest Conductor : Nicholas Kok Leader/Artistic Advisor : Benedict Holland Choral Advisor : David Lawrence

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Britten Les Illuminations, Op.18

Beethoven

Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60