Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited

October 2012 2012/3 Holloway Britten100launched in San Francisco Included in this issue: Celebrations for Britten’s centenary in 2013 include performances in 140 cities around the world. Robin Holloway travels to Turnage San Francisco on Interview about new works: Highlights in Aldeburgh, where Britten lived including three by the Berliner Philharmoniker 10 January for the world Cello Concerto and Speranza and worked most of his life, include and Simon Rattle. A series of events at premiere of his new performances of on the beach Carnegie Hall in New York will be announced Debussy song and six new works specially commissioned in early 2013. orchestrations for by the Britten-Pears Foundation and Royal soprano Renée Fleming. New books for the centenary include Paul Philharmonic Society. A week-long festival in Michael Tilson Thomas Kildea’s - the first major Glasgow sees Scotland’s four leading Photo: Charlie Troman conducts the San biography for twenty years (Penguin’s Allen orchestras and ensembles come together Francisco Symphony in ten settings of Paul Lane), a collection of rare images from The in April 2013. Verlaine’s poetry, which Holloway has titled Red House archive entitled Britten in Pictures, C’est l’extase after one of the chosen songs. Britten’s global appeal is demonstrated with and the sixth and final volume of Letters from Orchestra and conductor have long territorial premieres of his operas staged in a Life (Boydell & Brewer). BBC Radio and championed Holloway’s music, Brazil, Chile, China, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Television honours Britten with a year-long commissioning a sequence of works Japan and New Zealand. A Britten festival in celebration including broadcasts of all his including Clarissa Sequence, the Fourth Moscow includes operas, four concerts with operas and new TV documentaries. New Concerto for Orchestra and the earlier the Russian National Orchestra and an films are planned by Tony Palmer, Tony Debussy arrangement En blanc et noir, and exhibition at the Pushkin Museum. Special Britten and Margaret Williams, and the British Stravinsky presenting the US premieres of the centenary series are mounted by Deutsche Film Institute presents a Britten season. Rite of Spring centenary Third Concerto for Orchestra and the Oper am Rhein and Opéra de Lyon, each celebrated worldwide For full details on the centenary visit Viola Concerto. presenting four Britten operas. War Requiem in 2013 www.britten100.org travels widely with over 50 performances, Holloway writes of the new work:

Photo: Britten-Pears Foundation “From nearly 20 Verlaine settings made by Britten at Snape Maltings, 1969 Debussy early in his career I selected the Ariettes oubliées, six songs which by The Britten-Pears Foundation has launched common consent don’t function as a cycle, Britten 100, celebrating the centenary in 2013 together with another group of three and a of one of the 20th century’s greatest cultural Glanert Solaris premiere singleton. The ten songs are reordered into a figures. Over 1200 performances of Benjamin key scheme, with a trajectory of moods and Britten’s music in 30 countries have already tempi, and I’ve composed transitions of been announced for the centenary seasons, between 6 and 20 bars where necessary. amounting to the widest ever global The last song is prefaced by a longer celebration of a British composer. His introduction and an extended coda which significance in British cultural history is captures the surge of the sea in the poem to recognised by the Royal Mint’s provide a brilliant and sonorous conclusion. Adams announcement that a new 50 pence coin As with En blanc et noir, and my Mary Queen The Gospel according to depicting Britten will go into circulation ready of Scots Schumann songs orchestration the Other Mary premiere for 2013. Reliquary, my aim has been to capture not in Los Angeles In the UK all 14 of Britten’s major operas will the letter of Debussy’s music, but its spirit.” be performed, including a new staging of Holloway in China Gloriana, which returns to The Royal Opera Also in the New Year the National Centre for 60 years since it was first given to celebrate the Performing Arts in Beijing plays host to the Queen’s Coronation. This co-production the world premiere of Holloway’s 15-minute with Hamburg Opera will be screened in orchestral work In China. This is the musical cinemas worldwide. Four Britten operas will fruit of the composer’s trip to China in 2011, be staged by Opera North, and Birmingham as part of the Composing China project. Royal Ballet presents a new choreography of Along with four other composers Holloway

The Prince of the Pagodas produced with Photo: Bregenzer Festspiele / Karl Forster travelled around the country, on plane, bus, National Ballet of Japan. World premiere staging of Detlev Glanert’s Solaris at the Bregenz Festival boat and train, visiting sprawling cities and remote rural villages. Detlev Glanert’s new opera Solaris, based on one of the most, perhaps the most, practical of the the novel by Stanislav Lem, opened at the current generation of opera composers.” Holloway’s resulting score is more a Chin Vivier new guide Bregenz Festival in July, and travels to the Münchner Merkur response to visual stimuli, ranging from the Alice in Wonderland A new Boosey & Hawkes guide to the music Komische Oper in Berlin next May. The The Glanert feature at the Bregenz Festival vastness of the physical landscape to the receives US premiere of Claude Vivier (1948-1983) looks set to production by Moshe Leiser and Patrice also included Nijinsky’s Diary, which fuses exploding urban chaos, than to the Chinese in St Louis further the rediscovery of one of the most Caurier, conducted by Markus Stenz and opera, theatre and dance, and the Austrian folk music he experienced. In China, which original voices of the latter half of the 20th with Dietrich Henschel in the lead role, premiere of Theatrum bestiarum. Other will be premiered by the NCPA Concert Hall century. Since the Canadian composer’s explores themes of human communication in summer highlights were the UK premiere of Orchestra, joins a series of Holloway works works joined the B&H catalogue in 2005 over Lem’s metaphysical book, set on a space Caligula at English National Opera in initiated by travel to countries or cities, 400 performances have taken place. station circling the planet Solaris. As the London and the world premiere under the including the Third Concerto for Orchestra’s scientists probe the planet’s ‘thinking ocean’ baton of Ivan Fischer of a new ten-minute impressions of South America and Scenes The comprehensive guide is the first to cover from Antwerp. Vivier’s complete output, featuring the Solaris retaliates by recreating figures from orchestral Nocturne commissioned by the composer’s original thoughts and writings their memories, prompting disturbing journeys Berlin Konzerthaus. Holloway’s 70th birthday is celebrated in 2013. about his music, together with repertoire of self-discovery. notes by Vivier expert Bob Gilmore in English, “[Glanert] has an exceptional knack for music French and German. Complementing this is a drama. His score reflects the cosmic solitude just roles as Chairman of the Society for the CD sampler providing audio excerpts from 18 as well as the psychological terror which the Promotion of New Music, trustee of the Royal works -– these Vivier audio clips are also scientists on Solaris repeatedly experience, College of Music, and board member of available online at www.boosey.com/av. exposed through the personification of their own feelings of guilt. At the same time, Glanert places English National Opera. She is currently a great emphasis on the comprehensibility of the update Trustee of the Britten-Pears Foundation and text, and finds a skilful balance between the has recently joined the board of the recitative-like arioso and the musico-dramatic International Artist Managers’ Association. elements, which are allowed to flow in and out of Boosey & Hawkes’s sister company each other perfectly.” Südkurier Janis Susskind has been promoted to Managing Rodgers & Hammerstein is expanding with “In his portrayal of Solaris with orchestra and a Director of Boosey & the creation of a new European large chorus, Glanert has created his own Hawkes Music Publishers, branch headquartered in the soundworld for the work: alongside sections of London offices of Imagem UK. overwhelming intensity, there is much translucent recognising her responsibility for all classical music R&H Theatricals Europe will chamber music. The music is stylistically flexible, manage and license a catalogue of over 100 dramatically precise… and it creates both publishing on the Board of musicals, including The Sound of Music, The atmosphere and tension.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung Imagem UK. Joining Boosey & Hawkes in 1980, Janis Susskind learnt the King and I, and White Christmas, throughout “Glanert’s art of allowing the orchestral colours to the UK and across Europe. shimmer is shown here anew. In masterly fashion publishing business from the ground up, he gives choral voice to the planet, from the first becoming a B&H director in 1997 and joining Vivien Goodwin has been appointed stuttering syllable to fully-formed language.” its board as Publishing Director in 2004. She Managing Director of the new R&H division to Badische Zeitung has fostered an international approach to be launched in January 2013. Formerly of the “[Glanert] delivers what is missing in most modern catalogue promotion and has expanded the prestigious licensing house and publishing operas. He is accomplished in the world of the list of contemporary composers with many of firm Samuel French Ltd, where she has been theatre. He has an instinct for the structure of a today’s leading figures. Managing Director for 13 years, Vivien work. He is able to conjure up orchestral colours Goodwin will work with current R&H and atmospheres. He can make scores Janis Susskind has been active in the UK representatives Josef Weinberger Ltd to comprehensible to first-time listeners… But above music scene since the early 1980s, including ensure a smooth transition. all, he knows how to write for singers. Glanert is Turnage Cello Concerto and Speranza Adams This season brings four European performances of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new Cello Concerto for Gospel in LA Paul Watkins and the premiere of Speranza by the London Symphony Orchestra ’s new full-evening oratorio, The Gospel According to the Following string concertos for violin and Each movement is headed by ‘Hope’ Turnage Other Mary, premiered in May by the viola, what particular challenges does a in a different language. Is the music Cello Concerto (2010) 20’ Los Angeles Philharmonic and cello concerto present? flavoured by the nationality? for Paul Watkins Gustavo Dudamel, was summed up The concertos for violin and viola both No, not at a conscious level. It’s by The New Yorker as “an immensely used fairly large orchestras and I had to certainly not an Olympic-style piece, 13 October 2012 (world premiere) Photo: Margaretta Mitchell potent work, one that may prove De Singel, Antwerp be cautious about balance. But with travelling to five countries. That said, pivotal in the composer’s output.” Scored for three Royal Flemish Philharmonic/Edo de Waart cello the issue is even more acute – it’s there may be some elements of folk soloists, a trio of countertenors, chorus and orchestra, partly to do with the range, which is music, for instance Arabic in the first 18 January 2013 (Finnish premiere) the cast included Kelley O’Connor, Tamara Mumford, wide but centred in the middle of the movement and Jewish in the last, Tampere Hall Russell Thomas and the LA Master Chorale. orchestra, and partly that on some cello which may relate to the original poetic Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra/Hannu Lintu strings the instrument doesn’t cut sources, but they are so absorbed The Other Mary of the title is Mary Magdalene, who 7 February 2013 (UK premiere) along with her siblings Martha and Lazarus, offers an through. Olly Knussen suggested I look you can’t really hear them at all. The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool at what Elgar does technically in his work overall is dedicated to my original perspective on Christ’s final days. The libretto Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/ by assembles texts from the Old and cello concerto, and I took this advice to younger kids Milo and Amelie, who for Vasily Petrenko heart. You notice Elgar doesn’t have a me are a real hope for the future. New Testaments together with poetry on religious Photo: Philip Gatward lot going on in the orchestra. He avoids 20 June 2013 (German premiere) themes by Louise Erdrich, Rosario Casetllanos, Both the Cello Concerto and Gewandhaus, Leipzig Hildegard of Bingen, Primo Levi and Ruben Dario. doubling and only allows the orchestra to be heavy Speranza are five-movement works. Have your recent when the soloist isn’t playing. So I’ve used a smaller Gewandhausorchester/Andris Nelsons Writings by the social activist Dorothy Day provide a ballet scores, built from smaller units, influenced your strong contemporary slant, shifting the drama into orchestra than my other string concertos and have orchestral writing? tried to take special care of the soloist. Speranza (2011–12) 45’ what the composer describes as “the eternal present”. Yes. In the past I’ve often tended to link the musical for orchestra Paul Watkins has played a lot of your music over the flow together into a single sweep. So, if you think of “A dozen years ago, composer John Adams and librettist 7 February 2013 (world premiere) Peter Sellars reinvented the Nativity oratorio with El Niño, a years. How did the collaboration develop? my last big purely orchestral piece, Chicago Remains, brilliantly innovative work that fused biblical and contemporary I’ve got to know Paul’s style of cello playing over many it is continuous music, building from start to finish. I Barbican, London London Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding texts in revelatory ways. Now they’ve given the piece a years when he performed a lot of my music with the had to think differently for the ballets Undance and fittingly dynamic counterpart. The result is by turns fierce and Nash Ensemble. As well as having an amazing Trespass, which demanded shorter movements that lyrical, a twin meditation on charity and death. And both technique, he’s always been incredibly sympathetic to had to express different characteristics fully within a formally and thematically, it serves as a reply to Bach’s what I wanted. I’ve been stung once or twice by short span. This forced me to compose in a very Passions in much the same way that El Niño did for Handel’s soloists who’d never done my stuff before. But with a different way. I knew with Speranza that I had to Messiah.” San Francisco Chronicle cello concerto I knew that if I wrote one it just had to create 45 minutes of orchestral music with no words Weinberger be for Paul. We haven’t needed to talk much so far, as and no chorus. So the five resulting movements exist “Adams at his most evocative I know his style so well, but I’m looking forward to the as worlds in themselves, with the development in each Schwanda in and inventive” San Francisco Chronicle collaboration up to the premiere. happening in a much denser timeframe. The fourth movement is titled Prayer for a Great Man. Dresden Like El Niño, the new work is intended as an oratorio Who is that? that can either be performed in concert or staged. Next He was Neil Swallow, my father-in-law, who died a “Schwanda lives again” wrote the Frankfurter year brings the Other Mary’s stage premiere in a couple of years back and was an inspiring man for Rundschau of the major revival in March of production by Peter Sellars to be unveiled in Los me. I wrote a version of this Prayer for his funeral. In Weinberger’s stagework at the Dresden Semperoper, Angeles on 7 March. It will then be toured by the Los the concerto it takes the form of a duet for horn and described as “a reawakening of a sumptuous, Angeles Philharmonic and Dudamel to the Barbican in cello and takes the place of where a cadenza would immensely accomplished opera”. This “hellishly good London, the Lucerne Festival at Easter, Cité de la normally appear. It’s not flashy at all though, and is premiere” (Das Bild) was the latest step in the Musique at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, and Lincoln Center instead lyrical and meditative. I wondered whether to rehabilitation of one of the hits of the 1920s, following in New York (16-27 March). As a co-commissioner, the orchestrate it but decided it said everything that was a production at the Wexford Opera Festival in 2003 ZaterdagMatinee series in Amsterdam will present a needed in its pared back form. which was also released on CD by Naxos, and recent concert performance conducted by Markus Stenz on stagings in smaller German houses including Your major new orchestral work is titled Speranza. 8 June as part of the Holland Festival. Augsburg and Görlitz. The new Dresden Schwanda by Why? “The composer has put everything he knows into this score Axel Köhler put the opera back on a major stage, Sometimes the title comes early but here it came late. about the final days of Christ, which means he includes some winning new friends to its unique blend of folk tradition This was because my first intentions were to write a of the most stunning, probing, questing…music of his and modern theatrical verve. big, dark, despairing work as I’d been through a tough important career. Adams’ use of the orchestra is multi-tiered, the writing having many, many small solos but also producing time. The piece was to have been in memory of poets “One of the craziest scores in operatic history: brimming with melodies, scrambled with anarchic counterpoint, raucous an ever changing tapestry of effective atmospheric effects.” and writers who’d committed suicide including Paul Los Angeles Times Celan, Primo Levi and Sadegh Hedayat. But I soon and blissfully operetta-like, virtuoso and naïvely showy. Jaromír Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper was a “In rough parallels to Bach’s Passions, Adams writes fugue- realised this all seemed a bit gloomy and not exactly a sensational success in the late 1920s, making the rounds like passages, chorale equivalents, dramatic and fun evening in the concert hall, especially with a piece through theatres all over the world. Was it possible back contemplative arias, and turba (crowd) choruses. But his lasting 45 minutes. So I started brightening things up then to gauge the uniqueness of this musical language language is entirely his own, with, powerful motor rhythms and it soon became more upbeat, extrovert and which lifted the genre of popular opera to almost absurd and passages of luminous lyricism, achieving a natural optimistic. Eventually the work turned completely heights? Czech folklore, both raised and at the same time textural flow.” Musical America round and became a positive piece about hope – repressed, as an illusion and as a ‘broadband’ vision; the “…some of the strongest, most impassioned music of I guess it was something of a personal transformation. dance and folksong characters kaleidoscopically rolled Adams’s career… running the gamut from the neo-medieval together and peppered with modern nervosity, and at the

Although Speranza shimmers a lot, I suspect the dark Photo: Johan Persson harmonies of the high male voices to the end-times funk of same time always in the mysterious undertow of a lyrical, heart of the original idea still peeks through. Turnage’s Trespass at the Royal Ballet in London the bass guitar, with the twang of the cimbalom lending a catchy theme tune (in 3/4 time) – as in a classic movie gritty exoticism to almost every page…” The New Yorker score.” Frankfurter Rundschau Adams is currently embarking on a new saxophone The Weinberger reappraisal has also embraced his concerto written for Timothy McAllister for premiere in operatic version of Schiller’s Wallenstein trilogy, August 2013 by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra including its first modern staging in Altenberg-Gera in conducted by the composer. 2009 and a concert performance this June at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, with plans for a recording to Stravinsky Rite at 100 be released next year. The opera was premiered in 1937 in Vienna, but further performances were “Written 10 years after Schwanda, Wallenstein offers ’s The Rite of Spring, the 30-minute documentary film is released considerably richer musical content. The score is densely work most often topping polls for the with archive footage of Bausch thwarted by the Nazi rise to power and Weinberger crafted… There are but few references to Weinberger’s greatest classical score of the rehearsing the ballet. The Polish and his wife fled to Florida. ConcertoNet, reviewing Bohemian heritage, and more to the late works of Richard 20th century, reaches its centenary National Ballet revives its triple-decker the Vienna performance, noted how “this Czech Strauss and Alexander Zemlinsky. Strictly tonal, Weinberger on 29 May 2013. Dance companies and Rite programme in Warsaw in April composer seemed all his life to have been at the uses a rich harmonic language, with original chord orchestras around the world are giving with choreographies by Nijinsky, Emanuel wrong place at the wrong time”. progressions… A revival long overdue.” ConcertoNet celebratory performances, with attention Gat and Béjart all in a single evening. focusing on Paris where the premiere by Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper at the Dresden Semperoper, staged by Axel Köhler The largest Rite event in the New World is the Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes resulted in a season-long festival mounted by Carolina legendary riot with rival audience factions Performing Arts at Chapel Hill, exploring the acclaiming or denigrating the ballet’s primitivist break lasting impact of Stravinsky’s work. As well as from 19th century tradition. performances by the Joffrey Ballet and Martha Graham The Parisian celebrations at the Théâtre des Champs- Dance Company – Graham’s choreography has not Elysées total 14 performances of the Rite in various been seen for 20 years – the series includes 11 new guises, opening on the centenary day itself with a visit works inspired by the Rite. These include by the Ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre. Photo: BRB/Steve Hanson commissioned ballets from Bill T.Jones/Arnie Zane and conducts the original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky by Medhi Walerski for the Netherlands Dans Theater. in its recreation by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth For full information visit www.theriteofspringat100.org Archer, followed by a new choreography by Sasha Waltz. Tanztheater Wuppertal dances the iconic Centenary Edition choreography by Pina Bausch, and Akram Khan In honour of the centenary the Paul Sacher Foundation creates a new dancework inspired by The Rite of in Basel, which houses the Stravinsky archive, is Spring. Orchestral concerts include performances of issuing a special Centenary Edition. Three volumes are the score by the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre to be published for the first time: an annotated National de France and Rotterdam Philharmonic. facsimile of the magnificent autograph full score, In Russia the Bolshoi Ballet mounts a special festival another of the composer’s version for piano four- celebrating the Rite centenary, with four choreographies hands and a new collection of essays by leading of the work (27 March – 21 April). The festival in Stravinsky scholars. Due to be published in May 2013, Moscow opens with a new choreography by Wayne the three volumes are available – individually and as a McGregor, followed by the versions by Nijinsky, Béjart collection – at special introductory prices. and Bausch. In addition to the Paris and Moscow For details and pre-order prices of these historic performances, the Bausch choreography also travels limited edition publications visit to Taipei, Gothenburg and Naples, and a new www.boosey.com/rite100edition Photo: Dresden Semperoper/Matthias Creutziger Carter controversies Golijov Ainadamar in Madrid Elliott Carter’s Two the piano which ends the Osvaldo Golijov’s opera Ainadamar, outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Controversies and a movement in a flourish.” which has received nearly 90 The fountain not only acts as the site Conversation, the recently “Carter’s Two Controversies performances worldwide, was staged of the central tragedy in the opera but expanded version of and a Conversation, emerges for the first time in Madrid in July, a also symbolises a hope for future Conversations, was as a genial, economic significant production in Lorca’s transformation as voices sing of premiered in New York in rumination on percussive country of birth and death, embracing freedom. The Sellars production June, with Eric structures and strictures… the the “long shadow of a universal stresses the ongoing contemporary Huebner, percussionist soloists trade snappy, tricky rhythmic impulses on a piano subject” (ABC). This builds upon relevance of the drama, enhanced by Colin Currie and members growing interest in the Argentinian- the urban-style murals of the Chicano of the New York plus numerous tapping/ stroking/banging devices. born composer’s music in Spain, artist Gronk. Golijov’s music focuses Philharmonic conducted Supporting instruments add following a production of Ainadamar on the three female voices of the by David Robertson. The unpredictable commentary at the 2011 Granada International actress Margarita Xirgu, her student 11-minute work was Photo: Jeff Busby and echoes. As always, Festival which is set to travel to the Nuria, and the trouser role of Lorca, summed up by the New Carter ignores aesthetic The Australian premiere of Elliott Carter’s What Next? Oviedo Opera and Santander Festival, sung in Madrid by Jessica Rivera, York Times as “a pocket- concessions and stylistic and an extensive Golijov feature last Nuria Rial and Kelley O’Connor, sized double concerto”, and future performances compromises.” Financial Times year in the Orqesta Nacionales de joined by the flamenco musicians include the French premiere at the Salle Pleyel in Paris “Two initial movements engaged the soloists in volleys of Espana’s Carta Blanca festival in Gonzalo Grau and Adam del Monte. on 22 February with Currie joined by Pierre-Laurent brittle one-upmanship, with no small show of athleticism from Madrid. Aimard as pianist and the Orchestre de Radio France the constantly sprinting Mr. Currie. The last and longest “The composer Osvaldo Golijov has a fluid technique, applied to an intriguing act of with Jukka-Pekka Saraste. eased them into more involved exchanges. The applause for The Teatro Real presented a new Mr. Carter, wheelchair bound but characteristically animated, version of the original Peter Sellars intermingling, where arias and popular Photo: Teatro Real Madrid © Javier del rhythms are in dialogue with choral writing The composer has described the genesis of the new resounded thunderously.” New York Times staging from Santa Fe Opera, inspired by Stravinsky. The result shifts version: “After the premiere of Conversations at the incorporating the famed actress Nuria Espert as an Carter’s one-act opera What Next? is enjoying two between a true hybrid and a search for individual styles; it is Aldeburgh Festival in June of 2011, Oliver Knussen acting double to the singing role of Margarita Xirgu, stage productions this season. The Australian to his merit that the origin of each source of inspiration is suggested that I expand this piece. I decided to add framing the action with her memories of the young premiere by Victorian Opera in Melbourne in August distinguished, expertly poured into a common musical flow.” two more movements, which became the two author Lorca 40 years earlier. At key points in the paired the Carter with Falla’s Master Peter’s Puppet El Mundo controversies. The first of the two controversies has the drama Espert declaimed Lorca poems drawn from the Show – the first time What Next? has been seen in the percussion in the leading role and the second features Divan del Tamarit, and El Pais praised her total coupling originally suggested by the composer. The “…flamenco music, twisting identification with the writer: “the text in her voice, French stage premiere follows on 30 November with thanks to her intelligence, sounds with crystal clarity… jazzy melismas and rhythmic the Opera National Montpellier: Carter’s continuing Her appearances provided some sublime moments, La Razon Rautavaara importance in the French musical world was recently ostinati…” with the ring of truth and the sense of history.” recognized with his naming as a Commandeur de la heart of Legion d’Honneur. The title Ainadamar is Arabic for ‘fountain of tears’, Further Spanish performances of Golijov take place in referring to the place near Granada where Lorca was February at the Bilbao Carnaval with Lawrence Foster “…five adults and a child awake in an apocalyptic world in conducting two programmes with Last Round and Photo: Maarit Kytoharju light which at first they can barely speak… five minutes after that, allegedly executed by Falangists soon after the its fascinating sound world and extremely clever libretto, full of The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. Einojuhani Rautavaara’s new work for string orchestra, word games, had drawn me in, and I was captivated.” The Age Into the heart of light, was premiered in Kokkola in Carter’s Dialogues II for piano and orchestra will September. Commissioned by the Ostrobothnian receive its world premiere at La Scala Milan on Chamber Orchestra to celebrate its 40th anniversary 25 October with Daniel Barenboim as soloist and and dedicated to its director Juha Kangas, the 15- Gustavo Dudamel as conductor. The German minute work is the fifth in the composer’s Canto Chin Alice in St Louis premiere of the five-minute work follows in Berlin on series. During its composition, ideas and motives took 15 November with Barenboim and the Staatskapelle on an inner life as Rautavaara describes: “As a natural conducted by Zubin Mehta. scientist would say: an emergence takes place. And something began to brighten up gradually, a certain kind of light towards which this music was moving.” “Rautavaara’s music is easy to like and Into the heart of light is no exception. The harmonies and chords are fascinating, MacMillan the music flows, undulates and strives purposefully towards the light. The music creates the illusion of being underwater in Woman of the the darkness, looking upwards towards a distantly shining

light… The strings sound magnificent... Impressive!” Photo: Philip Gatward Apocalypse Keskipohjanmaa James MacMillan’s newest orchestral score is a large- “Into the heart of light is almost surprisingly melodic with scale fusion of symphonic poem and concerto for beautiful string lines that form a pleasing symmetry. Under orchestra, entitled Woman of the Apocalypse. The the compact surface it bubbles with life and energy.” Österbottens tidning work was commissioned for the Cabrillo Festival’s 50th anniversary and the composer travelled to A further Finnish performance is scheduled by the Pori California for the premiere in August conducted by Sinfonietta on 31 October, and the work’s UK Marin Alsop. The title refers to a female figure in premiere is on a four-city Scottish tour by the Scottish Revelation whose exact identity has been open to a Chamber Orchestra and John Storgårds in December. number of interpretations, including the Virgin Mary, This month brings the Australian premiere of the Mother of Jesus, and a matriarchal symbol for the Rautavaara’s recent Missa a cappella on a five- Church. MacMillan describes his score as being concert tour by the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and “inspired by a range of visual art works on the topic

its Swedish premiere by the Swedish Radio Choir in through the ages, principally by Dürer, Rubens, Doré, Photo: OTSL/Ken Howard Stockholm. The RIAS Kammerchor gives the German Blake, Marvenko and others.” Alice meets the Caterpillar in the US premiere of Alice in Wonderland at the Opera Theatre of St Louis premiere in Berlin in April. “MacMillan approaches his subject like a Mannerist painter, Unsuk Chin’s opera Alice in Wonderland received its beautiful setting of the Mock Turtle’s lament, Beautiful Soup; using the orchestra to stir up big, splashy swirls of US premiere in June in a new staging by the Opera the contrast is all the more startling.” Wall Street Journal instrumental color. The 30-minute piece unfolds in five Theatre of St Louis, combining clear storytelling with connected movements that have a narrative structure of Chin’s future projects include a work to be premiered Meyer sorts, but the effect of the music depends less on the highly imaginative stagecraft and video projection. The by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles pictorial specifics than the verve and drama of MacMillan’s St Louis Post Despatch praised James Robinson’s Philharmonic New Music Group in February, and a double writing.” San Francisco Chronicle production for its “air of calculated lunacy” and new score for voice and orchestra commissioned by “In his scoring for strings and brass, one seems to hear the soprano Ashley Emerson as “perfectly cast in the title Roche for the 2014 Lucerne Festival to be premiered

Photo: Jimmy Ienner Jr concerto melting of cosmic tears and the lumbering power of the role. She’s an adorable Alice who whips off coloratura by Barbara Hannigan and the Lucerne Festival and cartwheels with equal aplomb and displays a fine Joshua Bell and Edgar Meyer are touring a new dragon that assaults the Woman of the Apocalypse. Academy Orchestra under Simon Rattle. sense of humour.” Double Concerto for violin and double bass this Combining the severe and the ecstatic, the delicate and the demonic, the piece stretches in one movement across about season, the second commission Meyer has written for 30 minutes, outlining five phases of the great battle.” “…as anarchic and surreal as the duo. Following its premiere at the Tanglewood San Jose Mercury News Anniversaries Festival in July, performances followed at the Aspen Also premiered this summer was Since it was the day the book itself…” Opera Festival and the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles of Preparation..., an 80-minute work for voices and 2013 The St Louis production follows stagings in Munich Rorem Philharmonic, with dates scheduled by the Nashville small ensemble which extends the narrative beyond HK (also filmed for DVD by Unitel), Geneva and Bielefeld, Symphony and Toronto Symphony next May and the close of MacMillan’s St John Passion, to take in Gruber 3 January 70th birthday and was heard in a new reduced orchestration. With June. As Boston Classical Review described, “the the Resurrection and the final pages of John’s Gospel. Robin double woodwind and more modest brass, Holloway 19 October 70th birthday attic-to-basement relationship between violin and bass This major work with compact forces was percussion and string forces, the new alternative Ned as solo partners leaves an obvious gap that Meyer has commissioned by the Hebrides Ensemble, Edinburgh filled skilfully…the soloists meet and bounce off each scoring makes the opera performable in smaller Rorem 23 October 90th birthday International Festival, Soli Deo Gloria and Kings Place. Photo: Christian Steiner houses. Tasters from the opera are also available to Benjamin other”. Performances in Edinburgh and London featured the orchestras and ensembles in the form of two suites: Britten 22 November Centenary of birth “…a work that is light on its feet, as are its soloists. Bell and Hebrides Ensemble under William Conway, Synergy snagS&Snarls for soprano and orchestra (13 minutes) Jenkins Meyer, students together in Indiana two decades ago, are old Vocals and soloist Brindley Sherratt. 2014 friends… Recurring melodic figures were the most engaging and Scenes from Alice in Wonderland for soprano, York aspect of the concerto’s three movements. The first proved A new festive setting of the Credo for choir and mezzo and orchestra (40 minutes). Höller 11 January 70th birthday orchestra was premiered at the BBC Proms in August contrapuntally sociable, the soloists in perky partnerships not “One of the leading figures in contemporary music, the Karl only with each other but also with various solo instruments in and travelled to the Grafenegg Festival in Austria where Korean-born, Berlin-based composer shares many traits with Jenkins 17 February 70th birthday the orchestra… The third flowed with an impressively MacMillan was Composer her teacher György Ligeti, and her music is both highly Louis seamless mix of bluegrassy funk and funky Indian rhythms. A in Residence. The French complex and mesmerizing in its sonorities. Ligeti himself once Andriessen 6 June 75th birthday rhythmically tricky light orchestral backup was meant to premiere takes place in toyed with the idea of an operatic Alice, and in fulfilling this Richard Photo: EMI/Rhys Frampton sound deceptively laid back. It did.” Los Angeles Times February at the Théâtre des project Chin has written one of the most significant of recent Strauss 11 June 150th anniversary of birth Harrison Alongside his collaborations with Joshua Bell, Meyer’s Champs-Elysées with John new operas.” Opera Nelson conducting the Birtwistle 15 July 80th birthday mixing of various roots music with classical has seen “…a nightmare journey that constantly throws both the Peter him create works with Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Jeune Choeur de Paris and heroine and the audience off balance. Like a super-G-force Maxwell Davies 8 September 80th birthday Hilary Hahn. February brings the first performances the Ensemble Orchestral roller coaster, it’s weirdly and perversely fun… The vocal Andrzej outside the USA of Meyer’s 2006 Triple Concerto for de Paris. writing is full of outrageous swoops and leaps, some of it in Panufnik 24 September Centenary of birth himself, bluegrass mandolinist Béla Fleck and tabla Sprechstimme, and its jittery, upside-down quality is mirrored A new CD sampler with a PDF Guide to MacMillan’s and echoed in the layered, twittering, percussive Visit www.boosey.com/anniversaries player Zakir Hussain, with the India Symphony choral music by Paul Spicer is available upon request orchestration. Once in a while, Ms. Chin throws in pure Orchestra in Mumbai and Muscat. from [email protected]. lyricism, as when a children’s chorus sings a breathtakingly Rorem Our Town RecordingsNew PublicationsNew small or touring companies. Stephen Medcalf’s B&H Contemporary London staging admirably captures Wilder’s highly David Del Tredici Choral Series original dramaturgy and the theatrical journey from Piano Works Vol.1 Recent releases in this apple-pie charm to stark pathos. Marc Peloquin Naxos 8.559680 new choral series “Wilder’s picture of life in small-town New Hampshire in the embrace established years before the first world war attracted the attention of HK Gruber composers such several composers before Rorem, and his librettist JD Busking/3 MOB Pieces as Jenkins, MacMillan McClatchy managed to secure the rights to adapt it. They KurtSchwertsik and Rautavaara, with remained very faithful to the original, making one strand of Divertimento Macchiato the play, the love story between George and Emily, the emerging figures on the central focus, but preserving its overall simplicity, with a Håkan Hardenberger/ contemporary choral bare stage, few props and much use of mime. It could all Swedish Chamber Orchestra/HK Gruber scene including Hywel be sentimental and too cosily American, but, in fact, it’s BIS-CD-1884 Davies, Thomas Hewitt charming and rather touching, especially in the final act, Magnus Lindberg Jones, Ed Rex and when the action takes an unexpected twist into fantasy. Will Todd. Rorem’s music is spare and typically diatonic, and the Trio/Santa Fe Project/ Partia For full information visit writing for chamber orchestra so transparent that every www.boosey.com/publications word of the text is clear.” The Guardian Anssi Karttunen/ Kari Kriikku/ Boosey & Hawkes Piano Sonata Collection Magnus Lindberg Piano score “Rorem’s text-setting is Ondine ODE 1199-2 979-0-051-24661-8 £14.99 No.2 Six sonatas by leading Boosey & Hawkes composers impeccable” Yefim Bronfman/ including Bartók, Bernstein, Copland, Ginastera, New York Prokofieff and Stravinsky. “Were you only to hear Act I and II of Our Town, you might Philharmonic/Alan Gilbert think this was Rorem’s Falstaff: a comedic swansong, lit up MP3 from iTunes Benjamin Britten by the sweet romance of the central couple… Then, as (download of live performance) Three Songs for Les Wilder’s play takes a gut-wrenching turn from life to afterlife Illuminations – Emily dies in childbirth and tragically attempts to relive James MacMillan Full score her youth – a ghostly chorus of the deceased puts us in a A Deep But Dazzling Darkness/Í (A Meditation on Iona)/ 979-0-060-12030-5 £11.99 considerably more wintry place. Accept this dramatic Veni, Veni, Emmanuel evolution and a small-scale, but beautifully concise score Gordan Nikolic/Colin Currie/ Brett Dean comes into focus, the sweet, folksy elements (the wide Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic/ Sketches for Siegbert open harmonies of Copland, who wanted to adapt Our Photo: Clive Barda James MacMillan Viola score Town himself, are never far away) gradually telescoping Our Town at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama 979-0-2025-3245-4 £12.99 into more intense territory.” The Times Challenge Classics CC72540 Ned Rorem’s operatic setting of Thornton Wilder’s “Ned Rorem’s 2006 adaptation is exactly the sort of Peter Maxwell Davies Gerald Finzi iconic play Our Town received its European premiere touching idyll the play would seem to require. A truly Symphony No.3 In Terra Pax in May at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in authentic American opera… Made when the composer BBC Philharmonic/ Study score London. With its cast of cameo roles surrounding the was 83 and the playwright had been dead for 30 years, it Peter Maxwell Davies 979-0-060-12336-8 £15.99 is a beautifully autumnal piece of work, yet suits student three principal characters of stage manager and Naxos 8.572350 performers well.” Opera Karl Jenkins young lovers, and a compact chamber orchestra, it Symphony Nos.4 and 5 Gods of Olympus Rorem’s 90th birthday is celebrated in 2013. is an ideal work for conservatoire productions and for Scottish Chamber for choir and orchestra Orchestra/ Vocal score Philharmonia Orchestra/ 979-0-060-12499-0 £7.99 Peter Maxwell Davies Naxos 8.572351 James MacMillan Alpha and Omega orch. McBurney Choral score Gál on disc Orango Prologue 979-0-060-12431-0 £2.50 Los Angeles Philharmonic/LA Master Chorale/ Recent years have seen an explosion of new …as others see us… Esa-Pekka Salonen Study score recordings expanding the discography of Hans Gál Deutsche Grammophon 00289 479 0249 (1890-1987). Following musical training in Vienna, he 979-0-060-11795-4 £15.99 achieved considerable success in the 1920s both as Mark-Anthony Turnage Piano Concerto No.2 a composer – signing a publishing contract with Mambo, Blues and Tarantella/Riffs and Refrains/ Study score Simrock in 1924 – and as a teacher. When the Texan Tenebrae/ 979-0-060-12454-9 £24.99 National Socialists gained power in 1933, Gál’s Lullaby for Hans Reduction for 2 pianos position as Director of the Mainz Conservatory was Christian Tetzlaff/ 979-0-060-12373-3 £19.99 suspended, his music was banned, and he returned Michael Collins/ Piano Concerto No.3 to Vienna. With the Anschluss in 1938 Gál fled with London Philharmonic Study score his family to the UK, settling in Edinburgh. During the Orchestra/Marin 979-0-060-12455-6 £24.99 Second World War he was sent to internment camps Alsop/Vladimir Jurowski Reduction for 2 pianos near Liverpool and on the Isle of Man – his diaries LPO Live 0066 979-0-060-12374-0 £19.99 Music behind Barbed Wire are in preparation for A Fast Stomp publication by Toccata Press. With peace restored, Lawson Trio Jacques Offenbach Gál was offered a lectureship at Edinburgh University Prima Facie PFC012 La Grande-Duchesse and was instrumental in Rudolf Bing’s plans to found de Gérolstein (Offenbach Edition Keck) the Edinburgh Festival. He continued composing into Listen to audio clips of new recordings at

Photo: Hans Gál Society Vocal score (Vol.1) his 90s, his life and music providing a chronicle www.boosey.com/av 979-0-2025-3298-0 £42.50 spanning close to a century. Hans Gál, c.1930 Vocal score (Vol.2) The revival in Gál’s music has been driven largely by a 979-0-2025-3299-7 £39.50 flood of discs, capturing the attention of the record- Vocal score (complete) buying public with its lyricism, Romantic harmonies, 979-0-2025-3300-0 £76.50 and colourful orchestration. This phenomenon was selected by the Washington Post in a recent article as Einojuhani Rautavaara a demonstration of how the recording studio is Britten Palmer films Christmas Carol providing reputational restitution to composers who Choral score were not radical trailblazers and whose music has 979-0-060-12347-4 £2.50 unfairly vanished from view: “Elegant, adeptly Our Joyful’st Feast constructed, and unashamedly tonal, even beautiful, A special collection of Tony Palmer films about Choral score Gál’s music hearkens back to a bygone tradition of Benjamin Britten and his music are assembled into a 979-0-060-12526-3 £2.50 Viennese late romanticism”. new box set of DVDs, released this month in advance of the composer’s centenary in 2013. Ad Wammes It was the release in 2005 of an Avie 3-CD set of Together with A Time There Was, which won Palmer Ride in a High-Speed Train Gál’s piano music by Leon McCawley that first the Italia Prize, are three of the director’s films not Organ score attracted attention including an Editor’s Choice in seen for 30 or more years, collected in the Britten at 979-0-060-12487-7 £7.99 Gramophone. This was followed by a piano recital by 100 box set and accompanied by a special 58 page Martin Jones on Nimbus and two CDs of string booklet. Also included is Britten’s famous 1964 quartets by the Edinburgh Quartet on Meridian. Since Aspen Award Speech, illustrated with over 2010 Avie has released a further seven Gál 50 photographs. Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited recordings, including a cycle of Gál symphonies with Benjamin Britten and his Festival was made for the Aldwych House, 71-91 Aldwych, the Northern Sinfonia and Orchestra of the Swan. London WC2B 4HN BBC in 1967 to commemorate the opening of Labels with a special interest in exiled composers and Telephone: +44 (0)20 7054 7200 ‘Entartete Musik’ have recorded Gál’s orchestral and Snape Concert Hall and offers a behind the scenes Promotion email: [email protected] chamber works, including Gramola, eda records and look at the Aldeburgh Festival and the opening of Hire email: [email protected] Toccata Classics, which recently released an the new hall by The Queen. The Burning Fiery Website: www.boosey.com/composers Furnace, made for the BBC the same year, attractive disc of cello works. David Allenby Editor David J Plumb ARCA PPSTD Designer documents the recording of the church parable in Printed in Music by Gál continues to be published by the Orford Church and is the longest single piece of film historic Edition Simrock, now a Boosey & Hawkes of Britten at work. Death in Venice was shot on imprint, with recent catalogue additions including the location in Venice at the request of Peter Pears Piano Quartet commissioned by left-hand pianist Paul following Britten’s death, assembling many singers The Britten at 100 boxset can be ordered from Wittgenstein and a Concertino for Organ and String from the original cast. A Time There Was is a 1979 www.boosey.com/shop along with other highlights Orchestra. For further information on the composer portrait of Britten with appearances by Pears, Janet from the Tony Palmer catalogue including films on visit www.boosey.com/gal and the Hans Gál Baker, , Richter, Bernstein and a host Adams, Górecki, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Society’s website www.hansgal.com. of the composer’s close friends. Stravinsky.