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Sibelius Violin Pre-Concert Dinner Offers Concerto Exclusive to TSO Ticket Holders MASTER 3 Friday 12 April 7.30pm Federation Concert Hall Hobart

Alexander Shelley conductor INTERVAL Simone Lamsma violin Duration 20 mins BRAHMS BRAHMS Symphony No 2 Academic Festival Overture Allegro non troppo Duration 10 mins Adagio non troppo SIBELIUS Allegretto grazioso (Quasi andantino) – Violin Concerto Presto ma non assai Allegro moderato – Allegro molto Allegro con spirito Adagio di molto Duration 43 mins Allegro ma non tanto This concert will end at approximately Duration 32 mins 9.30pm.

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concerts are broadcast and streamed throughout Australia and around the world by ABC Classic. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping Two Course Set Menu $90pp coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off. landscaperestaurant.com.au 33 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Academic Festival Overture, Op 80 ‘Gaudeamus igitur’, a student song that Brahms had never been a formally- Suppé had also used in Flotte Bursche. enrolled university student, but during Given its grand sense of occasion and the spring and summer of 1853 he’d rousing spirit, it’s the kind of piece which had a rattling good time leading a suggests that Brahms may have written a terrific opera had he ever felt so inclined. Alexander Shelley is currently Music Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma has student-style existence in the university Director of the National Arts Centre appeared with orchestras such as the town of Göttingen. He’d particularly The fun starts right at the beginning, enjoyed gathering with the local student with a pompously-solemn opening in Orchestra, Ottawa (NACO). He has been Concertgebouw, Chicago Symphony and population for a beer and schnapps, and C minor, rapidly giving way to the high Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. Recent to sing drinking songs. spirits which characterise the piece as a Philharmonic Orchestra since January 2015 highlights have included her debut with the Many years later, when at the prompting whole. With rushing scales in the strings, and was Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg of the Breslau Orchestral Society Brahms brass chorales, and cymbals, triangle and New York Philharmonic performing Britten’s drum pounding away, Brahms parodies Symphony Orchestra (2009-2017). The was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Violin Concerto under Jaap van Zweden. the Wagner of the Mastersingers son of celebrated concert pianists Howard at the University of Breslau, the by- Past seasons have also been marked by now-famous composer responded with Overture, and towards the end it seems Shelley and Hilary Macnamara, Alexander Schumann’s Spring Symphony comes in premières of new works, such as the world a concert overture in honour of the Shelley first gained widespread attention occasion. (Breslau is nowadays better for the same treatment. première of a violin concerto by Matijs when he won the 2005 Leeds Conductors known by its Polish name, Wroclaw.) But The work was first performed in Breslau’s de Roo during the ZaterdagMatinee series Competition. Since then he has conducted rather than writing an ‘academic’ work Konzerthaus in January 1881 with the based on dry contrapuntal principles or composer conducting an all-Brahms orchestras around the work. Recent at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. In May 2018 Simone Lamsma was invited by King scholastic formulae, Brahms set out to program including the Second Symphony appearances have included debuts with the complete a jovial piece based on the and the Tragic Overture. According to Belgian National Orchestra and Montreal’s Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the convivial aspects of student life which he one report, the Breslau students were Orchestre Métropolitain, and concerts Netherlands to perform during their official had known first-hand. so impressed by the Academic Festival with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and state visit to Luxembourg. Simone Lamsma’s In 1880, the year following the award of Overture, they began singing their own obscene versions of the words during the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra. most recent CD features Shostakovich’s his doctorate, Brahms took four of his favourite student drinking songs and première. This year he tours the NACO to Europe First Violin Concerto and Gubaidulina’s worked them into a free sonata structure Martin Buzacott, Symphony Australia in programs including contemporary In Tempus praesens with the Netherlands using the largest and most percussion- © 1997 Canadian composers. He recently conducted Radio Philharmonic under James Gaffigan dominated orchestra that he had ever employed. His working title had been The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first the NACO and German National Youth and Reinbert de Leeuw. She is also a keen Viadrina (the Latin name for the University performed this work with conductor Sir Bernard Orchestra in a performance of Britten’s War Heinze in Hobart and Launceston on 28 February recitalist. Simone Lamsma began studying of Breslau), but he soon changed it to the Requiem to mark the centenary of the end of and 2 March 1951 and, most recently, with violin at the age of five and moved to the title by which it is known today, noting Brett Dean in Hobart on 9 November 2013. World War I. Operas he has led range from UK at age 11 to study at the Menuhin that it was ‘a very boisterous potpourri of The Merry Widow to Così fan tutte. Among student songs à la Suppé’ – a reference School. She made her debut with the his recordings is Deutsche Grammophon’s to Suppé’s opera Flotte Bursche of 1863, North Netherlands Orchestra performing which is constructed in the same way. Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood with Paganini’s Violin Concerto No 1 and Alice Cooper and the German National The four songs on which the work is continued her studies at the Royal Academy based are ‘Wir hatten gebauet ein Youth Orchestra and a recent recording of stattliches Haus’ (We had built a stately of Music with Hu Kun and Maurice Hasson. Walter Boudreau’s Concerto de l’asile with house), which is introduced in chorale-like Alain Lefèvre and the NACO. Active in Among her honours is an Associate of the fashion by the brass; ‘Der Landesvater’ several projects designed to inspire future RAM, for significant contribution to her (The father of our country), heard first on the second violins; the undergraduate field. Simone Lamsma plays the ‘Mlynarski’ generations of musicians and audiences initiation song ‘Was kommt dort von he is Founder and Artistic Director of the Stradivarius (1718) on loan to her from an der Hoh’, introduced by bassoons over Schumann Camerata’s 440Hz series. anonymous benefactor. pizzicato figures in the violas and cellos; and finally, a full orchestral version of

34 35 (1865-1957) Johannes Brahms

Violin Concerto in D minor, Op 47 The great violinist , on Symphony No 2 in D, Op 73 happy, Apollonian work in a major key Allegro moderato – Allegro molto hearing the première, damned it. Allegro non troppo with certain elements that we might Adagio di molto ‘Joachim seems no longer in tune with Adagio non troppo describe as pastoral. Brahms sneered Allegro ma non tanto the spirit of our time,’ wrote Sibelius. The Allegretto grazioso (Quasi andantino) – at such suggestions (which is not to A ‘show-off’ work for soloist was press was rather more enthusiastic. Even Presto ma non assai say they have no merit), and it is true anathema to Sibelius, who increasingly so, the work didn’t really establish itself Allegro con spirito that his orchestration in this work relies throughout his career sought the in the repertoire until the 1930s, when Defending Brahms against a common more than usually heavily on wind purest, most unselfconscious forms of Jascha Heifetz began to perform it. Since charge, American composer Charles Ives solos – particularly the bucolic sounds musical expression. And yet for all that that time it has been a yardstick by which observed that of oboe and horn, and that in the third aversion to merely ‘gestural’ instrumental violinists are measured. movement, in particular, there is that to think hard and deeply and reliance on vernacular music which effects, Sibelius harboured ambitions The opening of the concerto is one of say what is thought, regardless of becoming a violin virtuoso (and the most unmistakable in all music. Over reminds us of the peasants’ merry-making of consequences, may produce in Beethoven’s Sixth. occasionally appeared as second violin in the murmur of muted violins, the soloist a first impression either of great a string quartet at Conservatory). enters immediately with an intense and translucence or of great muddiness, But as Brahms well knew, ‘et in Arcadia His frustrated ambitions must have been brooding first subject, soon echoed but in the latter there may be hidden ego’: he joked to his publisher that compensated in part by composition and developed in the woodwind. This possibilities…The mud may be a form this was the saddest piece he had ever in 1903 of his only concerto, the Violin Allegro moderato theme is set against a of sincerity. written, and it is significant that the Concerto now acknowledged as one of series of fragmentary figures which form symphony begins, and ends, with the In fact, Brahms’ music sounds ‘muddy’ the greatest ever written in the form. a kind of second subject emerging out sound of trombones, instruments only only where we move too far from the In this work, written between the second of the depths of cellos and bassoons. dragged out of the church by Mozart (in original disposition of the orchestra he and third symphonies, Sibelius managed The movement itself doesn’t sit well with Don Giovanni) and into the concert hall used. Brahms wrote for a modest band to adapt the virtuoso vehicle to his standard sonata principles, however. by Beethoven. of two of each wind and brass instrument own expressive needs. The concerto The development and recapitulation (using the latter sparingly), though with The scoring at the start is, naturally, is not so much a demonstration of are actually combined, and the cadenza four horns and a matching complement ‘dark’ thanks to the trombones, creating fiendish virtuosity, rather an organic precedes them both. Yet there is a clear of strings. He uses forceful orchestral a slightly ominous atmosphere that is musical whole in which every single organic structure within the movement. effects to be sure, but if ever proof were swept away by the more high-spirited hemidemisemiquaver contributes to the The mood of the Adagio is more needed that Brahms’ orchestration could material, with its hint of the famous overall expressive intent. restrained, but the characteristic intensity be of the most refined, we need go no ‘Brahms lullaby’ stated first by the remains, as does the poignancy and The concerto had been inspired by further than the Second Symphony. lower strings. The overall vector of the Willy Burmester, former leader of the sense of regret. After a more agitated Brahms took a long time to produce his movement is upwards to the high wind Helsinki Orchestra. Burmester had been middle section, the movement ends with First Symphony, and to have it described scoring at its centre, which gives way to enquiring as to the concerto’s progress a return of the main thematic material. as ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’, as conductor some intensely Brahmsian counterpoint, and made various offers of technical The finale is a polonaise in all but name, Hans Richter called it, might well have two-against-three rhythmic figures and assistance and advice. In September and a bravura showpiece for the soloist. been a recipe for crippling stage fright; veiled warnings from the trombones. The 1903 Sibelius sent him a short score, Sibelius noted, ‘It must be played with nonetheless, the Second followed almost movement ends introspectively, paving to which Burmester replied, ‘I can only absolute mastery. Fast…but no faster immediately. The relationship between the way for one of Brahms’ most beautiful say one thing: wonderful! Masterly! than it can be played perfectly.’ the two offered another irresistible Adagios. The lovely, endless opening Only once before have I spoken in such Abridged from a note by Martin comparison with Beethoven, one which melody is stated in the low strings terms to a composer, and that was when Buzacott, Symphony Australia © 1998 the great British writer Donald Tovey and answered by simple falling scale Tchaikovsky showed me his concerto.’ passages from the higher instruments. The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first and others have seized upon: in the Sibelius actually offered the first performed this work with conductor Thomas case of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth (Paradoxically, in this movement there performance to Viktor Novácˇek, who on Matthews in Hobart and Launceston on Symphonies and Brahms’ First and are moments that sound like Brahms’ 8 February 1904, premièred the work 16 and 17 September 1965 and, most recently, Second we have pairs of works where rival Bruckner.) But again, there is no with Sibelius conducting. It was not with conductor Marko Letonja and soloist Alina serenity without the possibility of conflict, Ibragimova in Hobart on 22 November 2014. the first is a strenuous, dramatic, maybe a success, despite some favourable even tragic, work in the key of C minor and the pastoral calm is more than once reviews. Sibelius set about revising it. whose trajectory traces a metaphorical challenged by emotionally charged The new version was completed in June journey from darkness to light, whereas outbursts, particularly as the movement 1905, and premièred in Berlin by Karel the second is a contrastingly serene, reaches its final moments. Halír, with Richard Strauss conducting.

36 37 Here as elsewhere Brahms replaces the traditional scherzo with a lighter dance-movement. The Allegretto grazioso consists of three statements of a genial dance with two faster, possibly Slavic or Hungarian-inspired, episodes. The finale returns us to a purely Arcadian world, with the memory of the darker implications that have surfaced earlier, and an electrifying conclusion. It is formally straightforward, notionally a sonata design but with no especially rigorous development. Brahms balances the impulse to Lisztian Romantic rhapsody with a strong sense of formal design. The Second Symphony is conceived on a large scale, within classical norms; but Brahms never allows an idea to stand, or to be simplistically repeated. His technique of developing variation made him an unlikely hero to Schoenberg, and therefore a kind of grandfather to modern music. But Brahms doesn’t just transform his themes: his treatment of forms transforms them. As such it is one solution to the problem of late Romanticism. Gordon Kerry © 2015

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first performed this work with conductor John Farnsworth Hall in Hobart on 23 February 1953 Mini TSO and, most recently, with Marko Letonja in Hobart on 5 August 2016. Saturday 27 April Lively and entertaining, Mini TSO concerts are the 9.30 am & 11 am perfect introduction to orchestral music for young TSO Studio, Hobart children. The 15-piece Mini TSO ensemble performs on the floor of the TSO Studio and the audience, likewise accommodated on the floor, enjoys an up-close experience. Little ones are able to see the different instruments, notice how the sounds are produced and hear the various colours of the orchestra. They also get to sing, clap and, for the very eager, try their hand at conducting! Conducted by the irrepressible Gary Wain and Supported by featuring vivacious Jane Longhurst as presenter, Mini TSO concerts are interactive, informative and loads of fun.

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