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Niobe is the story of a strong woman brought Niobe is a 23-minute single span of symphonic NIOBE down by an even stronger woman, the goddess music that is connected to but independent of Leto. The story goes: the story narrative. I gave the following titles RICHARD BLACKFORD (b. 1954) to the four movements: Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and wife of King Amphion of Thebes, gave birth to seven sons I Niobe The Lover and seven daughters. At the annual celebration II Niobe The Blasphemer in honour of Leto, goddess of motherhood III Niobe The Pleader and protector of the young, Niobe boasts that IV Niobe The Mourner she is greater than the goddess by virtue of 1 Niobe The Lover [6.44] the fact that Leto only has two children, Apollo These four pillars support an extended, reverse 2 Niobe The Blasphemer [4.34] and Artemis, whereas she has seven times as sonata-form structure. Within that framework many. Leto, enraged, sends Apollo to kill all I have tried to portray in music Niobe’s 3 Niobe The Pleader [4.08] her sons and Artemis to kill all her daughters. sensuality, feistiness, pride, arrogance, remorse, 4 Niobe The Mourner [7.43] Her husband Amphion, devastated, kills himself. defiance as the story of her blasphemy Niobe is turned to stone on Mount Sipylus and, against the goddess Leto and her extraordinarily Total timings: [23.09] as she weeps ceaselessly, waters cascade down harsh consequent punishment unfolds. The her rock face. relationship of the violin soloist to the orchestra is inspired by the dramatic unfolding I discussed with Tamsin Waley-Cohen the of the myth: the sensual love music for Niobe plight of women in our own time who, and her husband King Amphion; her virtuoso under Sharia and other religious laws, are musical ambush of the goddess Leto’s cruelly and harshly punished for offences ceremonial music; her devastation at the of blasphemy, apostasy and non-conformity. murder of her fourteen children; her Our subsequent discussions included the transformation into a rock with tears that TAMSIN WALEY-COHEN VIOLIN double standards also applied to Western will flow for eternity. At times the soloist CZECH PHILHARMONIC women and how Niobe’s story mirrors the leads the orchestral texture, whipping it into BEN GERNON CONDUCTOR plight of unfairly treated women in a a frenzy, at others it is brutally bullied by wider context. the orchestra, literally hounded like the cello www.signumrecords.com - 3 - soloist in Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto. In petrified. An interlude in which the violin the theme is stretched to leaping intervals Niobe’s father, according to the myth, was discovering that sonata form could embrace slowly descends over arpeggiando multi-divided that cover the violin’s widest range. King of Phyrgia, so I built much of the material the entire span of the work I thought about strings and pianissimo brass countermelody on the Phyrgian mode. Despite extensive use of how the two principle themes of the exposition, almost evokes beauty in Niobe’s tragic Each movement incorporates the same opening Phyrgian, Locrian, whole-tone and pentatonic those of Niobe and Amphion, could be transformation. But, like an insect struggling chord sequence, which is made up of six-part scales the harmonic language of Niobe is recapitulated. After many developments and in the last seconds of its life to escape the woodwind chords based on major and minor chromatic. Clear tonal centres are defined transformations of the Niobe theme in the amber that will encase it for millennia, the thirds – the prevalent intervals of Niobe’s but harmony is often used non-functionally, first, second and third movements the point violin flails and struggles as the murmuring theme. Their recall in different guises (brass being made up instead of predominating at which Amphion dies of a broken heart, orchestra overpowers it in the final bar. fanfares in non-retrogradable rhythms in the intervals (the major and minor third for as he contemplates the bodies of all his second movement, stabbing wind and brass Niobe, the perfect fourth for Amphion, the murdered children, forms a climactic return Along with the sonata structure I make chords in the third, muted string chords tritone and descending sixths for Leto). of his theme that had started so full of extensive use of motivic transformation punctuated by soft wind in the fourth) give promise and confidence. The dying away of and development. Even the first thirty- them the function of ritornelli, their presence Regardless of whether the listener is even aware his theme leads to the fourth movement, six bars, the exposition of Niobe’s theme tying the musical material down implacably as of Niobe’s tragic story, let alone the progression in which the Niobe theme returns in a as an extended cantilena, see the theme Niobe moves inexorably towards her tragic of the four movements of this musical portrait, slow mournful, descending version, like her augmented, diminished and its intervals varied. destiny. The four movements each move I hope that the passion, drama and conflict of tears. I thought for a long time about how towards climaxes that define key elements the story will nonetheless be perceived as a to make the final movement, which is the The intervals undergo their greatest alteration of the story: the climax of the first movement taut musical structure in its own right. only proper slow movement of the work, in the second movement and at the end of builds from the combination of Niobe and emotionally climactic but still, timeless, the fourth, where the song-like contour of Amphion’s themes in a sort of love duet to the I am indebted to Tamsin Waley-Cohen for her point of sexual climax; the second movement’s encouragement and support as we developed climax is the point at which, at the height of her the concept for Niobe and her brilliance as a musical ambush of Leto’s theme, Niobe trumps soloist and interpreter of my music. Leto’s theme with her own; the third movement’s is the point at which, confronted by the © Richard Blackford murder of his fourteen children, Amphion’s heart breaks; the fourth is the final bars of the work in which Niobe struggles to break free from the orchestral barrage that petrifies her for eternity. - 4 - - 5 - RICHARD BLACKFORD TAMSIN WALEY-COHEN Richard Blackford studied at the Royal College Born in London in 1986, Tamsin Waley-Cohen of Music London, where he was awarded the enjoys an adventurous and varied career. In Tagore Gold Medal, then in Italy with Hans addition to concerts with the Royal Philharmonic, Werner Henze. He was subsequently first London Philharmonic, Hallé, Liverpool Composer-in-Residence at Balliol College Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic and BBC Oxford and later Composer-in-Residence at the orchestras, amongst others, she has twice Brno Philharmonic. His music, which includes been associate artist with the Orchestra of three operas, two ballets and many works for the Swan and works with conductors including orchestra, chorus and chamber ensembles, Andrew Litton, Vasily Petrenko, Ben Gernon has been performed and broadcast all over and Tamás Vásáry. She enjoys a duo partnership the world and has been recorded on Sony with Huw Watkins, whose Concertino she Classical, Warner Classics, Decca, Signum and premiered, and together they have recorded for Nimbus labels. His music has been performed Champs Hill and Signum Records, for whom and recorded by BBC Symphony Orchestra, she is a Signum Classics Artist. With her sister, Czech Philharmonic, Brno Philharmomic, BBC composer Freya Waley-Cohen, and architects National Orchestra of Wales, Bournemouth Finbarr O’Dempsey and Andrew Skulina, she Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Munich held an Open Space residency at Aldeburgh, Philharmonic, Philharmonia and the RPO. culminating in the 2017 premiere of In 2000 his four-hour choral and orchestral Permutations at the Aldeburgh Festival and score for CNN/BBC Millennium won an interactive performance artwork synthesising Emmy Award for Best Title Sequence and for music and architecture. Her love of chamber © Ben Russell which Richard was nominated for Outstanding music led her to start the Honeymead Festival, Achievement in Music. His three critically the world. In July 2015 Richard was awarded now in its tenth year. She is a founding Knussen’s Reflection, written especially for acclaimed choral works Mirror Of Perfection, Die Goldene Deutschland for services to music member of the Albion string quartet. In 2016- her and Huw Watkins. She studied at the Voices of Exile and Not In Our Time were all in Germany. 2017 she was the UK recipient of the ECHO Royal College of Music and her teachers subjects of television documentaries and have Rising Stars Awards, playing at all the major included Itzhak Rashkovsky, Ruggiero Ricci and been frequently broadcast and performed around www.blackford.co.uk European concert halls and premiering Oliver András Keller. - 6 - - 7 - CZECH PHILHARMONIC The 121 year-old Czech Philharmonic gave its As early as the 1920s, Václav Talich (Chief first concert – an all Dvořák programme which Conductor 1919-1941) pioneered concerts 1st Violin Viola Harp Trumpet included the world première of his Biblical for workers, young people and other voluntary Jan Mráček concert master Pavel Ciprys Barbara Pazourová Jaroslav Halíř Songs, Nos. 1-5 conducted by the composer organisations including the Red Cross, the Magdaléna Mašlaňová Dominik Trávníček Jiří Šedivý himself – in the famed Rudolfinum Hall on 4 Czechoslovak Sokol and the Union of Slavic Women Otakar Bartoš Ondřej Kameš Flute January 1896. Acknowledged for its definitive and, in 1923 gave three benefit concerts for Jan Jouza Jaroslav Kroft Andrea Rysová Trombone interpretations of Czech composers, whose Russian, Austrian and German players including Jiří Kubita Jaromír Páviček Sylvie Schelingerová Robert Kozánek music the Czech Philharmonic has members of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Pavel Nechvíle Ivan Pazour Karel Kučera championed since its formation, the Orchestra Orchestras.

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