Symphony & Melbourne Recital Centre present

Metropolis New Music Festival 2018

19 & 21 APRIL 2018 CONCERT PROGRAM

Presented in association with Melbourne Recital Centre and Monash University, the MSO’s Metropolis New Music Festival Education Partner. MEET THE ARTISTS METROPOLIS 1 THURSDAY 19 APRIL Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Clark Rundell conductor Wu Wei Australian Ligeti String Quartet No.1 Métamorphoses nocturnes Chin Šu – Australian premiere MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INTERVAL Established in 1906, the Melbourne Unsuk Chin’s music has been performed by Vincent Hood Yourself In Stars – world premiere Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an arts ensembles such as the Philharmonic, Chin ParaMetaString leader and Australia’s longest-running Boston Symphony, Deutsches professional orchestra. Chief Conductor Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Ensemble Sir Andrew Davis has been at the helm intercontemporain, Kronos Quartet, ___ of MSO since 2013. Engaging more than Hilliard Ensemble, and Klangforum Wien, 3 million people each year, the MSO and conducted by Kent Nagano, Simon METROPOLIS 2 reaches a variety of audiences through Rattle, and Neeme Järvi, among others. live performances, recordings, TV and Awards include the 2004 Grawemeyer for SATURDAY 21 APRIL radio broadcasts and live streaming. her Violin Concerto and last year’s Wihuri Melbourne Symphony Orchestra The MSO also works with Associate Sibelius Prize. The Bavarian State Clark Rundell conductor Conductor and Cybec production of Alice in Wonderland was Assistant Conductor Tianyi Lu, as well as selected ‘Premiere of the Year’ in 2007 by Jennifer Koh violin with such eminent recent guest conductors the German opera magazine Opernwelt. Allison Bell soprano as , , Jakub Hrůša and Since 2006, she has overseen the Jukka-Pekka Saraste. It also collaborates contemporary music series of the Seoul Chin Rocaná – Australian premiere with non-classical musicians such as Elton Philharmonic, and, since 2011, served as Chin Puzzles and Games from Alice in Wonderland – Australian premiere John, Nick Cave and Flight Facilities. Artistic Director of the Philharmonia’s ‘Music of Today’ series. Forthcoming performances include the UK premiere of INTERVAL cosmigimmicks, and Japanese premieres of the cello concerto, concerto, Ligeti Atmosphères and Mannequin. Chin Violin Concerto – Australian premiere

Running time for each concert is approx. 1 hour and 45 minutes, including a 20-minute interval

3 Courtesy Jacqui Way

ADE VINCENT CLARK RUNDELL AUSTRALIAN WU WEI COMPOSER CONDUCTOR STRING QUARTET SHENG

Ade Vincent is a prolific and diverse Clark Rundell’s repertoire ranges from Dale Barltrop violin Master of the sheng, Wu Wei has helped composer. His music has been heard on 18th century music to the present day. Francesca Hiew violin develop this 4,000 year-old instrument television, radio, digital media and film, Recent appearances have included the Stephen King into a force for contemporary music. as well as performed in a range of venues: BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Sharon Grigoryan cello Wu Wei studied at Shanghai Conservatory from intimate bars to major music festivals Residency Orchestra of The Hague, Dedicated to musical excellence with a before attending the and concert halls. Ensemble 10/10 and BBC Philharmonic. distinctly Australian flavour, the Australian Academy in Germany. He has won He fronts and writes music for indie-pop In June 2017, he conducted the European String Quartet creates unforgettable numerous competitions for traditional quartet The Tiger & Me who have toured premiere of Daniel Snyder’s opera Charlie experiences for audiences worldwide. Chinese music as well as Musica Vitale Australia extensively, signed to the ABC Parker’s Yardbird. He has premiered Competitions in Germany and the Global The Quartet’s transcendent sound is label Four|Four. by James MacMillan and Orlando Gough. Root folk prize in 2011. enhanced by a matched set of 18th century Other operas he has conducted include In 2015 he co-founded Kaleidoscope Guadagnini instruments, handcrafted by Wu Wei has appeared at festivals Albert Herring, Carmen, and The Cunning Audio, specialising in music and sound Giovanni Battista Guadagnini between including the Berliner Festspiele, Munich Little Vixen. He has recorded works by for videogames. c.1743 and 1784 in Turin and Piacenza, Italy. Biennale, Edinburgh Festival, and such as Peter Dickinson, The instruments are on loan to the ASQ for Donaueschingen Music Days, as well Soon after obtaining his Masters in arranged suites from ’s their exclusive use through the generosity as with such as the Berlin Composition he became the Melbourne operas, and presented cross-genre of UKARIA. Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and Seoul Symphony Orchestra's Young Composer collaborations with Elvis Costello and the Philharmonic. He has premiered over in Residence and is now working on three Wayne Shorter Quartet, among others. In 2018, the ASQ embarks on national and 150 works by composers such as John new works for the orchestra. international tours, delivers exhilarating Raised in Minnesota, he now lives in Cage, Jörg Widmann, and Tan Dun, and concerts, festivals, regional and metro- He is currently completing a PhD in Manchester where he heads Conducting recorded Unsuk Chin’s Šu. He is also a politan residencies, new Australian Composition at The University of at the Royal Northern College of Music. prolific composer for sheng. recording initiatives, as well as ground- Melbourne where he also teaches. breaking live digital experiences.

4 5 PROGRAM NOTES

METROPOLIS 1 he could now write Bartók’s Seventh and Eighth quartets, and the thematic motif GYÖRGY LIGETI that is the germ of the piece is, as scholar (1923-2006) David Mitchell observes, borrowed from String Quartet No.1 Bartók’s Fourth Quartet. It is that motif Métamorphoses nocturnes that undergoes the metamorphoses of the title; the adjective ‘nocturnal’ inevitably Australian String Quartet reminds us of the numerous ‘night-pieces’ Courtesy Juergen Frank in Bartók’s work, and as Richard Toop Allegro grazioso writes, ‘seems rather appropriate to the Vivace, capriccioso clandestine circumstance’ of the work’s ALLISON BELL JENNIFER KOH Adagio, mesto origin. Toop also points out, however, that SOPRANO VIOLIN Presto Ligeti’s choice of variation form here is in Andante tranquillo sharp contrast to Bartók’s preference for Allison Bell is one of the leading Jennifer Koh made her debut with the Tempo di valse symmetrical structures such as sonata performers of 20th and 21st century music Chicago Symphony Orchestra, aged 11. Allegretto, un poco gioviale or ‘arch’ form. Variation, unlike those, is of her generation. Awards include the She won the International Tchaikovsky Prestissimo La Scala Prize at the Viñas Competition Competition in Moscow in 1994 and has (theoretically at least) infinitely extensible, in Barcelona and an Orphée d'Or from the since recorded Tchaikovsky with the Like many artists in totalitarian societies, though Ligeti chooses to restate his Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris for Odense Symphony Orchestra conducted Ligeti created a number of works ‘for the thematic cell at the end. the CD Ensemble Linea plays Eötvös. by Alexander Vedernikov. bottom drawer’. In the early 1950s, the This cell is made up of two major seconds Hungarian regime’s attitude to the arts Her recent recording of 's Jennifer Koh believes strongly in music’s linked by a semitone, not unlike the shape was, as Ligeti put it, ‘insane’: the Budapest Second String Quartet "And once I played continuity from past to present. This belief of the BACH signature, or Shostakovich’s Museum of Art was obliged to put its Ophelia", received wide critical acclaim. underlies several of her commissioning DSCH motto. Ligeti’s metamorphoses considerable collection of Impressionist In 2018 Allison joins Vladimir Jurowski projects, such as Bach and Beyond which take the form of the gradual opening out paintings into storage, and while Bartók and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin explores the solo violin repertoire from of these intervals in a sequence of eight, was regarded as the great national to sing works by Shostakovich, Berg and Bach’s sonatas and partitas to the present- short, contrasting sections. The second composer and anti-Fascist hero…most of Dean at the Berlin Philharmonie, Ensemble day. Other projects include New American section, vivace, for instance, gives way to his works fell victim to censorship, as would United Berlin/Jurowski for 's Concerto which was launched mid-2017 a Bartókian adagio, mesto (slow and sad) this piece had it been performed. Bouchara, the Auckland Philharmonia and with her premiere of Vijay Iyer’s Trouble, that explores the effect of minor thirds on BBC Symphony Orchestras for the World a co-commission of the Ojai Festival, Ligeti wrote his first quartet in 1953-54, the theme. Despite an overall rhythm of and UK premieres of Face by Ross Harris. Berkeley’s Cal Performances and the before the brief experiment in liberalisation slow movements alternating with fast ones, Further 2018 highlights include her WDR Boston Symphony. Recent performances that was so comprehensively crushed each slow movement, and each fast one, is Sinfonieorchester debut at the Cologne include Limitless, a project in which she by Moscow in 1956 and his flight from relatively faster than the one that precedes Philharmonie under Emilio Pomerico to brings composers onstage to perform Hungary soon after, and it is his response – it, and within and between sections there sing the role of Marie in Zimmerman’s their commissioned works with her. part homage, part assimilation – to Bartók’s is a huge range of variation of speed, Soldaten-Sinfonie, create the role of Lei quartets (particularly the Third and Fourth, dynamics and colour – the tempo di valse for the UK premiere of Pascal Dusapin’s which Ligeti, of course, had never heard, has a decidedly Balkan ‘trio section’. opera, Passion, with the London but studied in score). So thorough was © Gordon Kerry 2013 Sinfonietta/MTW/Geoffrey Petterson this assimilation that Ligeti is said to have This is the first performance of this work by the and perform concerts featuring the music quipped that having written this work, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. of Verdi, Puccini and Ligeti in Seoul with Shinik Hahm and Symphony SONG.

6 7 UNSUK CHIN Unsuk Chin relates that she first This is an example of how Unsuk Chin in the sheng, which dominates a whole (born 1961) experienced the saenghwang (the sheng's amalgamates the influences of traditional section in dialogue with spatially disposed Korean counterpart) as a child, when she extra-European musical cultures and . A section exploring the Šu – Australian premiere heard someone playing it in the distance, “Occidental” musical history (up to the borderlines between noise and sound and on a mountain. This was unusual, since avant-garde) in equal measure into her evoking spatial expanse and temporal Wu Wei sheng the 's role in Korean music personal style. paralysis follows. From these textures, is merely that of an accompaniment an animated rhythmic pattern develops Up to now, Unsuk Chin has largely avoided Šu is based on a strict harmonic and instrument. Ms. Chin associated this in the sheng, which, in four attempts, composing for instruments from traditional formal plan: main notes, which form experience with the image of a "yearning pushes higher and higher each time. non-European musical cultures: the the harmonic foundation of this music, for a distant sound,” which constitutes This concept derives from Korean dangers of musical exoticism seemed too traverse a circle during the course of the another motivation for the composition of peasant or “Samulnori” music, whereby great to her. She changed her mind only piece, and in doing so are continually Šu (Shu). The title derives from Egyptian that what the composer makes of it has after hearing the sheng virtuoso Wu Wei. redefined in relation to one another. Other mythology in which it represents a symbol little if anything to do with the model. A prolific musician, who feels equally devices in the temporal organisation are for air. Indeed, as a result of the spatial Two worlds collide in this quasi-cadenza, home in many different musical styles, certain numerical proportions, whereby aspect and the timbre, one often has the resulting in a high level of energy: the Wu Wei has contributed like no other to the the number seven plays a significant role. impression here of an open-air music, of sheng plays a continuous, repetitive, popularisation of the Chinese mouth organ The following pattern appears particularly sound that has become nature, albeit in strictly rhythmic figure that is commented outside of his native country. The premieres often: a measure is subdivided into 4+3 a non-naturalistic manner. upon by quasi-aleatoric orchestral of some 130 contemporary works testify to units and mirrored by a measure with patterns. Initially answered by rhythmical his desire to expand the sheng's technical The traditional idea of the concerto as a which it is coupled. interjections from the membranophones and expressive possibilities. competition or contest yields to a game The one-movement work begins very and other percussion instruments, a great with constantly changing perspectives The sheng dates back more than 3000 simply: time and again, the sheng gently variety of flitting sounds, colours, and that takes advantage of camouflage, years, and is thus one of the oldest circles a tone that is encompassed by characters flash up during the sheng’s mimicry, and morphing. The instruments instruments based on the principle of glistening, halo-like string harmonics. perpetuum mobile. After a short general of the orchestra, which are employed as a the free (which found application From these fragments, Chin “generates” pause, the stretto devolves increasingly group, in -like formations in church organs and the only broad, organic musical processes flowing into chaos and noise, to then ultimately act as the soloist’s shadow and echo, or in the eighteenth century). In recent in time, whereby various instrumental lead into a rampant orchestral tutti that form contrasts. At times they also blend times it has been radically modernised. groups alternating with one another, simultaneously introduces a kind of with the sheng, to then run riot in striking The key mechanism has made possible melodic fragments, and motivic recapitulation. The tutti sound implodes; passages and – like acoustic elemental chromaticism, polyphony, and a very snippets are introduced. A continually an alienated, fluctuating contrabass note forces – threaten to overwhelm the tonally wide ambitus that, in connection with the recurring, percussion-dominated, emerges from the texture. The sheng powerful soloist. By means of exceptional tonal versatility and the variability of its rhythmically agitated motif, which is takes up the motifs of the beginning, playing techniques and unusual-subtle dynamics, contributes to the fascination like an agglomeration of energy, attains reflected by strings, which are located instrumentation, both the solo instrument of this instrument. Moreover, formidable particular importance. A percussion in the auditorium: the music returns in as well as the symphonic apparatus are skills are demanded of the sheng player, attack and a noisy interlude lead to an mutated form to its beginning and sinks challenged anew. That which the latter in as much as the sound is produced by unexpected caesura, as if the preceding into silence.´ alternately blowing and sucking in the air. traditionally suppresses, the sound verging musical processes were revealed to be an © Maris Gothóni In terms of timbre, finally, the sheng is a on noise, becomes – in dialogue with “more illusion. However, this calculated chaos in This is the first performance of this work by the source of amazement with its various normal” means of expression and ways of turn “generates” organically developing Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. playing – a source of idiosyncratic beauty. tonal facets, for example, when the processes. Out of wildly proliferating Specific tone colours and, in particular, the sounds produced on it resemble those orchestral textures that ultimately collapse treatment of the percussion group distantly of . into themselves, a hurdy–gurdy-like, resemble traditional Korean music. rhythmically four-square motif emerges

8 9 ADE VINCENT UNSUK CHIN ParaMetaString was commissioned by the associations in the composition process. (born 1982) Kronos Quartet. The original string sounds Ólafur Elíasson’s installations The Weather ParaMetaString – Australian premiere were recorded by Eunryung Chang (cello) Project and Notion Motion provided Hood Yourself in Stars – world premiere Australian String Quartet and Matthias Leupold (violin). The tape additional extra-musical inspiration. Pull the Sky Down recording was produced in the electronic The music in Rocaná flows uninterruptedly. ParaMetaString is a study based on studio of the Technical University, Berlin As the Fever Breaks The overall picture and the overall string sounds. Its four movements can (under the direction of Folkmar Hein), structure are one entity, one “tonal And Hood Yourself in Stars be characterised as follows: between November 1995 and April 1996. sculpture’. However, one can look at Hood Yourself in Stars explores the cyclical The first movement uses blocks of sound © Unsuk Chin it from various angles, since the inner nature of time and generations. The first from artificially condensed tremolo This is the first performance of this work by the structures are constantly changing. Even if Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. movement represents age, wisdom, sounds. While these blocks are heard in the music at times gives the impression of knowledge and reflection. The second is alternation, a subliminal rhythmic structure stasis, subtle impulses, interactions, and the stuttering chaos and colours of a life in is gradually established, creating an ______reactions are continually present. Certain motion. The third is new life and promise. expanding time structure. Layers of sound elements appear time and again, yet A single primary motif carries all three which would be covered up by the sound always in varied form. movements; that which is passed down of unmanipulated strings are brought into They are not developed: they instead through generations is recognizably the the foreground through a filtering process. METROPOLIS 2 lead seamlessly into one another and same but also strikingly different. UNSUK CHIN The second movement revolves around blend, forming new interactions and (born 1961) The title and much of the inspiration the study of the structure of harmonics. processes. Orderly structures suddenly for the work comes from Amy Lowell’s The col legno beats of the cello on the note Rocaná (Room of Light) turn into turbulence and vice versa. poem Generations: C, which gradually become slower and Pointillist structures transform into heavier, are used as an ostinato bass. The title is Sanskrit and means “room cloudlike aggregates of sound and You are like the stem In contrast to this, a structure of harmonics of light”. For Unsuk Chin, the title vice versa. These processes are often Of a young beech-tree, unfolds, the rhythm of which is divided up does not have any specific religious or distinguished by self-similarity. Straight and swaying, into smaller and smaller units. These two mythological meaning. Instead, it refers Breaking out in golden leaves. The composer once pointed out that lines develop in a complementary way – in many respects to the character of Your walk is like the blowing of a beech-tree because of her cultural background the slower the bass, the finer the division the work as well as to the composition On a hill. she has "a certain aversion to the sound of the trebles. techniques employed. The composer tells Your voice is like leaves that in Rocaná she was concerned with world produced by traditional symphony Softly struck upon by a South wind. The third movement focusses on the the behaviour of beams of light – their orchestras rooted in 19th-century Your shadow is no shadow, but a scattered diverse micro modulations within a cello distortion, refraction, reflections, and aesthetics, and I feel a great deal of affinity sunshine; note that slowly glides downwards, and, in undulations. This was not a matter of for non-European musical cultures. That is And at night you pull the sky down to you contrast to this, on the ‘fluctuating’ fifths mere illustration, but of their depiction by why I always try to introduce a completely And hood yourself in stars. within the upward modulations of the other musical means: “Art as harmony parallel different colour into my compositions strings. The key note is D. based on my experience of non-European But I am like a great oak under a cloudy sky, to nature” (Cézanne). Since soundwaves – music." In Rocaná, the instrumentation Watching a stripling beech grow up at The fourth movement is, in essence, the as the physical phenomenon of a bodiless is more or less standard, but an attempt my feet. development of the first. The rhythmic oscillation – are similar to light waves, has been made to treat the orchestra patterns of the first movement are used to music seems the appropriate medium © Ade Vincent (2018) like a "super-instrument" as well as like a create the rhythm of balls falling down and for a “translation” of light phenomena. Ade Vincent’s Hood Yourself in Stars has been virtuoso “illusion machine” that creates commissioned through the MSO’s Cybec 21st Century bouncing back, while the tempo increases Furthermore, physical phenomena like something new out of that which is familiar. Australian Composers Program. and gravitation reverses its direction. depth and density, spatial perceptions and illusions of various sorts were important

10 11 Primarily through the combination of Reprinted from a note by Stefan Fricke © 2017 intervals were boring for me, and therefore Atmosphères was ‘retrospectively Translation © Brian Long various instrumental techniques, through I destroyed them’, creating, in Atmosphères, commissioned’, as Toop put it, by South This is the first performance of this work by the rhythmic development and the interplay of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. an ‘uninhabited, imaginary musical space’. West German Radio for the prestigious overtone structures and microtones, shifts Donaueschingen Festival and premiered The space, though, is one through which and changes of timbre are achieved; light there in 1961. the listener moves, if, largely, at seemingly and colour phenomena playfully alternate glacial speed. The piece begins with what © Gordon Kerry 2018 with one another. GYÖRGY LIGETI would become staple gesture – a tone The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed (1923-2006) Atmosphères on 6 March 1971 at a Proms concert © Maris Gothoni (translation by Howard Weiner) cluster consisting, as Alex Ross notes, conducted by , and most recently on This is the first performance of this work by the Atmosphères of 59 notes spread over five-and-a-half 14 June 1997 under the baton of Stephen Barlow. Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. octaves. Marked pp and dolcissimo, the Atmosphères is Ligeti’s second ‘mature’ effect is, as Ross puts it, ‘mysterious rather work for orchestra, and, thanks to Stanley than assaultive, a seductive threshold UNSUK CHIN UNSUK CHIN Kubrick’s inspired, if unauthorised, use of it to an alien world’. The fabric of sound is in 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the pieces almost always continuous (most unusually Violin Concerto – Australian premiere Puzzles and Games from Alice in that brought him international fame. for a composer of his generation, Ligeti Wonderland – Australian premiere Jennifer Koh violin After escaping from communist Hungary includes no percussion), but with subtle and in 1956, Ligeti went first to Vienna and then gradual changes of colour and dynamics Allison Bell soprano Not only is the orchestration primarily to Cologne. In Hungary, Ligeti’s exposure within the cloud of sound, so that more classical, but the structure as well – For Puzzles and Games, Unsuk Chin to modernist Western music had been or less diatonic chords occasionally take with the opening movement followed by compiled passages from her opera Alice severely limited by official disapproval. shape before dissolving and leaving not a a slow one, then a scherzo and finale, in Wonderland (2004-07) and added a Vienna, by contrast, had latterly been the wrack behind. The piece consists of some which contains references to the first song from her song cycle snagS&Snarls city of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, 20 sections that Ligeti describes as ‘built movement. The solo violin part is extremely (2003-04). The Puzzles and Games cycle while music in Cologne was dominated on very clear proportions with a certain demanding, with extraordinary technical comprises eleven sections. The texts are by the precociously brilliant Karlheinz construction’, which are technically, if not challenges and yet the soloist forms more either taken directly from (songs 1 to 6) Stockhausen. necessarily audibly, discernible. Some, of a partnership with the orchestra, rather or based on Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s however, are dramatically articulated: one Cologne was also home to a vital electronic than being in opposition. Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and section culminates in a famously thrilling music scene where Ligeti quickly mastered Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice passage for four before the The work commences softly, but soon the new technologies that enabled him to Found There (1871). Librettist David Henry abyss opens to leave a rumbling texture significance of the variety of percussion create sounds unimagined by him a few Hwang and Unsuk Chin worked together of low strings that supports a passage of instruments becomes apparent – with years before. Colleagues like Boulez and on the texts for songs 7, 8, 10 and 11. Part micropolyphony. This technique, which the contributing a special Stockhausen explored abstract and often 9 is purely instrumental and was originally creates something of the intricately chaotic atmosphere. Gradually more and more highly complex models to determine the the prelude to A Mad Tea Party, scene five effect of aleatoric counterpoint, is in instruments join in, and eventually the structure of their works, while Ligeti, of the Alice opera. In it, the protagonist is fact notated with absolute precision. virtuoso violin becomes more subdued perhaps in relieved revolt against the formal meant to solve an unsolvable riddle. In one such passage, the late Richard Toop as the orchestra displays its virtuosity. constraints of socialist realism, wanted ventured to hear a reference to the ‘sheep’ This orchestral song cycle by Unsuk Chin The second movement starts on open to write ‘music without beginning or end’. music from ’ Don Quixote, is a kaleidoscope of scenes, episodes and strings, with delicate and colourful The possibilities offered by the electronic a piece that the young Ligeti much moments from her opera. It portrays the plucking, Primarily a slow and quiet studio allowed him to experiment with admired, as well as other moments that Mad Tea Party, the Mouse’s Tale, the story movement, there are however brief fast pure texture, which he transferred to the recall Schoenberg and Berg. The final of the baby that turns into a pig, and many sections reminiscent of the first movement. orchestral palette with his characteristically moments of the piece constitute another other moments of comic confusion. These precise ear for sound. As he wryly put it, moment of discontinuity, in that their really are Puzzles and Games. ‘rhythmic patterns and harmonies and music is derived from Ligeti’s immediately previous work, Apparitions.

12 13

Fleeting passages in the strings highlight UNSUK CHIN 3. What a curious feeling for her hair goes in such long ringlets, the virtuoso solo part, and the effect of the Alice mine does not go in ringlets at all; Puzzles and Games from Alice in percussion is further enhanced by clusters What a curious feeling! I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, Wonderland for soprano and orchestra in harp and celeste parts, I must be shutting up like a telescope. for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh she knows such a very little! The third movement immediately makes 1. Alice – Acrostic Shutting down? Besides, she’s she, and I’m I - references to the second movement – Closing up! Voice this time using percussive, short notes No, closing down. Who in the world am I? A boat, beneath a sunny sky – and the strings play extensive pizzicato That’s not right. Was I the same when I got up this morning? Lingering onward dreamily passages. The shortest of the four “Use your words,” Ah, that’s the great puzzle! In an evening of July movements, it is close to being a traditional Nanny tells me. Four times five is twelve, 'scherzo' movement. Children three that nestle near, Well, I’d like four times six is thirteen, Eager eye and willing ear, to see her try, four times seven is fourteen, The four open strings and their tonal Pleased a simple tale to hear-- If she were standing four times eight is fifteen, relationship form the basis of the first where I am now. four times nine is sixteen, three movements, and the fourth provides Long has paled that sunny sky; No, not standing, four times ten is seventeen, a contrast. The solo part starts very Echoes fade and memories die; sinking. four times eleven’s eighteen, high, then gradually expands towards Autumn frosts have slain July. That’s not right either. - Oh, dear! I shall never get to twenty! the lower register. Reminders of the Still she haunts me, phantomwise, This may lead previous movements keep re-surfacing “How doth the little crocodile Alice moving under sky to my going out altogether and culminate in an ending distinctly improve his shining tail, Never seen by waking eyes. like a candle. reminiscent of the opening of the work. I wonder what I should be like then? And pour the waters of the Nile The circle closes, and with it a concert form Children yet, the tales to hear; on every golden scale! in which tonal colour and the flow of time Eager eye and willing ear, How cheerfully he seems to grin, have created an individual type and mode Lovingly shall nestle near. 4. Curiouser, curiouser how neatly spreads his claws, of expression. Unsuk Chin's composition, Alice and welcomes little fishes in, In a Wonderland they lie, through her soundworld, opens windows “Eat me.” With gently smiling jaws!” Dreaming as the days go by, to different periods of music history – both Curiouser and curiouser! Dreaming as the summers die; I’m sure those are not the right words, younger and older – than those within the Now I’m opening out I’m sure those are not the right notes, classic tradition. The ear is not provoked, Ever drifting down the stream like the largest telescope that ever was! I must have been changed for Mabel - but at the same time it cannot depend on Lingering in the golden gleam Goodbye foot! Who am I, then? what is familiar. The fact that time must be Life, what is it but a dream? Now you must manage Tell me that first! filled with a flurry of events has become on your own If I like being that person, I’ll come up: such standard practice that a work of art as best you can, 2. If I never reach the garden if not I’ll stay stay down here till I’m which resists the temptation to be over- for I shall be a great deal too far off somebody else - inflated deserves highest praise. Alice to trouble myself about you. Oh dear, who in the world am I? If I never reach the garden I shall buy you a new pair of boots © Habakuk Traber; translated and adapted from his Ah, that’s the great puzzle! text which appeared in the programme booklet for the will I ever come to leave it? every Christmas. world premiere, 20 Jan 2002. If I turn and walk away, Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking. Was I the same when I got up this morning? This is the first performance of this work by the Melbourne will I ever start to go? How puzzling it all is! Symphony Orchestra. One day I was a grown-up Tell me who I am! 5. Who in the world am I? then I grew into a baby. Tell me! It’s always too late Alice Tell me! it’s always too soon Who in the world am I? Tell me! But it’s never, ever now Ah, that’s the great puzzle! “Drink me!” I’m sure I’m not Ada, Please turn your pages as quietly as possible. 14 Thank you for your cooperation. 15 6. The tale-tail of the mouse So smile, wretched child! Prinkle, flinkle, little-riddle, Wow, wow, wow… Go through the world, Drizzle, dribble, ripple star! Mouse I speak severely to my boy, without pause to wonder Fury said to the mouse Twinkle, twinkle, little star! And beat him, shake him, push him or question. that he met in the house How I wonder what you are! when he cries; Let us both go to law: I will prosecute you For if you wait Twinkle, sprinkle, prinkle Pat, For he can thoroughly enjoy Come, I will take no denial till matters make sense, How I wonder how you’re fat! the pepper when he please’! you will soon become We must have the trial Twinkle, twiddle, fiddle-faddle, crinkle, Wow, wow, wow… only a grin. for really this morning, I’ve nothing to do Prinkle, wrinkle, sprinkle, shrinkle, Ah… There is nothing like pepper, says I… Riddle-liddle, twinkle, twingle, gingle, Said the mouse to the cur, Not half enough yet. Nor a quarter enough. Trinkle, twinkle, tickle-tackle, “Such a trial, dear Sir, One for Missus, two for the Cat, 9. Overture Twinkle, wrinkle, riffle-ripple, with no jury or judge, would be wasting Three for Baby, four for Duchess, Spinkle, crinkle, giggle-goggle, our breath.” One! Two!! three!!! Prinkle, needle-ladle, feeble-dibble, 10. Twinkle, twinkle, little star Boil it so easily “I will be judge, I will be jury,” nibble-niggle, said cunning old Fury Voice Mix it so greasily, “I will try the whole cause, and condemn Twinkle, twinkle, little star! Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle star! Stir it so sneezily, you to death” How I wonder what you are! How I wonder what you are! One! Two!! Three!!! Twinkle, sprinkle, brittle stew! Twinkle, crinkle, brinkle Bill! Wow, wow, wow… How I thunder what you are. How I wonder what you fill! Speak roughly to your little boy! 7. Sleep tight, my ugly baby Twinkle, twinkle, little star! It’s love be sure to gain; Alice Twinkle, twinkle, little star! How I wonder what you are! Teach it in accents rough and wild; Sleep tight, my ugly baby How I wonder what you are! Twinkle, twiddle, griddle Ed! It may not long remain. so beautiful and fine. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder how you’re mad! Speak roughly to your little boy No longer ugly, baby, How I wonder what you’re at! Twinkle, riddle, fiddle-faddle, dibble-double, Push him, pinch him, shake him since you became a pig Twinkle, sprinkle, wrinkle, crinkle, Shrinkle, sprinkle, tickle-tackle, when he sneezes, Sleep tight, my beautiful pig, Triple, treacle, scramble, scribble, Twinkle, scrinkle, sprinkle, nibble-dibble, He only does it to annoy, and dream of mud and play. Twinkle, shrinkle, prickle, trickle, needle-noodle, because he knows Too young to become bacon, Crackle, scrabble, sparkle star! Riddle-liddle, wrinkle, prinkle, tinkle, Wow, wow, wow… so breakfast is far, Twinkle, sprinkle, wrinkle, crinkle, Tingle, trickle, feeble-fizzle, fiddle-faddle, Triple, treacle, fiddle-faddle, far away Riddle-liddle, middle-meddle, giggle-goggle, Text by David Henry Hwang and Unsuk Chin based Fiddle-faddle, twinkle, shrinkle, Nibble-niggle, twiddle-riddle, on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Frinkle, giggle-gingle trifle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. 8. Cat’s Aria Twiddle-liddle, wriggle star! Cat Twinkle, twinkle, little star! My world is a box 11. Speak roughly to your little boy How I wonder what you are! My box is the world Duchess Twinkle, tangle, gingle pig! and in it I am How I wonder how you dig! Speak roughly to your little boy, either dead or alive And beat him, push him when he sneezes! Twinkle, scrinkle, trickle, truckle, So I am here Speak roughly to your little boy Brinkle, prinkle, trinkle, crinkle, by not being here, And beat him, push him, pinch him Twinkle, tiddle-taddle, frinkle, prinkle, alive through death; when he screams: Spinkle, sizzle-fizzle, frizzle star! and dead through life; He only does it to annoy Twinkle, dwindle, twindle, twindle, all the while here and not-here because he knows it tease’. Twinkle, twiddle-twaddle, trinkle, trunkle,

16 17 MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Sir Andrew Davis Mary Allison Rachael Tobin Alexander Morton* HARP Chief Conductor Associate Principal Isin Cakmakcioglu Andrew Macleod Timothy Skelly* Yinuo Mu Benjamin Northey Freya Franzen Nicholas Bochner Principal Phoebe Smithies* Principal Associate Conductor Anonymous# Assistant Principal Anthony Pratt # Paula Rae* Ian Wildsmith* Mary Anderson* Cong Gu Miranda Brockman Guest Principal Tianyi Lu Geelong Friends of the MSO# Cybec Assistant Conductor Andrew Hall Megan Reeve* Andrew and Judy Rogers# Rohan de Korte Hiroyuki Iwaki Andrew Dudgeon# Jeffrey Crellin Shane Hooton Clare Miller* /CELESTE/ Conductor Laureate Keith Johnson Principal Associate Principal (1974-2006) Matthew Rigby* Sarah Morse Thomas Hutchinson Tristan Rebien* Isy Wasserman Associate Principal Guest Associate Principal Leigh Harrold* Angela Sargeant FIRST VIOLINS Philippa West Ann Blackburn William Evans Donald Nicholson* Michelle Wood The Rosemary Norman Dale Barltrop Patrick Wong # Rosie Turner Andrew and Theresa Dyer Foundation# Concertmaster Roger Young Fletcher Cox* MANDOLIN Rachel Atkinson* Emmanuel Cassimatis* Sophie Rowell Amy Brookman* Doug de Vries* Concertmaster Svetlana Bogosavljevic* The Ullmer Family Foundation# Jacqueline Edwards* Zoe Knighton* ACCORDION Peter Edwards Madeleine Jevons* Kalina Krusteva-Theaker* Brett Kelly Michael Pisani Principal Assistant Principal Mee Na Lojewski* Principal Philip Mcleod* John McKay and Lois McKay# Ashley Carter* Eliza Sdraulig* Kirsty Bremner Guest Associate Principal Christopher Moore Daniel Smith* Sarah Curro Principal Richard Shirley MSO BOARD Michael Aquilina# Di Jameson# David Thomas Mike Szabo DOUBLE BASSES Principal Chairman Peter Fellin Fiona Sargeant Principal Bass Associate Principal Steve Reeves Philip Arkinstall Michael Ullmer Deborah Goodall Associate Principal Lauren Brigden Principal Lorraine Hook Managing Director Mr Tam Vu and Andrew Moon Craig Hill Cameron Jamieson* Timothy Buzbee Sophie Galaise Dr Cherilyn Tillman Associate Principal Principal Anne-Marie Johnson Katharine Brockman Sylvia Hosking Scott Watson* † Board Members Kirstin Kenny Christopher Cartlidge Assistant Principal Jon Craven Nelson Woods* Andrew Dyer Ji Won Kim Michael Aquilina# Damien Eckersley Principal Danny Gorog Eleanor Mancini Beth Condon* Benjamin Hanlon Margaret Jackson AC Mark Mogilevski Anthony Chataway Suzanne Lee + # Tony Bedewi* Di Jameson Michelle Ruffolo Dr Elizabeth A Lewis AM Stephen Newton Jack Schiller Lady Potter AC CMRI# Gabrielle Halloran Sophie Galaise and Principal David Krasnostein Kathryn Taylor # Michael Aquilina# Trevor Jones Clarence Fraser David Li Elise Millman PERCUSSION Tiffany Cheng* Cindy Watkin David Barlow* Associate Principal Hyon-Ju Newman Robert Clarke Oksana Thompson* Elizabeth Woolnough Esther Toh* Natasha Thomas Glenn Sedgwick Principal Nicholas Waters* Caleb Wright Helen Silver AO FLUTES CONTRABASSOON John Arcaro William Clark* # Tim and Lyn Edward Company Secretary SECOND VIOLINS Simon Collins* Prudence Davis Brock Imison Robert Cossom Principal Principal Oliver Carton Matthew Tomkins Helen Ireland* Anonymous# Brent Miller* Principal Isabel Morse* Greg Sully* The Gross Foundation# Wendy Clarke HORNS Katie Yap* Associate Principal Robert Macindoe Saul Lewis Sarah Beggs Associate Principal Principal Third CELLOS Jessie Gu* Monica Curro Abbey Edlin # Position supported by Assistant Principal David Berlin Taryn Richards* Nereda Hanlon and * Guest Musician Danny Gorog and # Principal Michael Hanlon AM † Courtesy of University of Kansas Lindy Susskind # MS Newman Family# Trinette McClimont + Courtesy of London Symphony Orchestra

18 19 Melbourne Recital Centre presents

Atlas of the Sky is a new work of dramatic and ritualistic power by the award-winning, internationally acclaimed Australian composer Liza Lim.

Featuring Speak Percussion’s virtuosic instrumentalism and Jessica Aszodi’s vast palette of vocal colour, Atlas of the Sky tells stories about the stars, the power of crowds and changing constellations of memory combining driving rhythms with swarming percussion and vocal sounds from a ‘crowd’ of performers. MONDAY 18 JUNE 7.30PM

Speak Percussion Jessica Aszodi soprano Tickets $45 ($35 conc)

TO BOOK melbournerecital.com.au 9699 3333 Transaction & delivery fees may apply

Cnr Southbank Blvd & Principal Government Partner Sturt St, Southbank