VIENNESE MASTERS — 2010 NATIONAL CONCERT SEASON NATIONAL TOUR PARTNER NATIONAL TOUR PARTNER On behalf of BNP Paribas, I’m delighted to welcome you to the 2010 Viennese Masters Tour by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. At BNP Paribas, we have a long tradition of supporting performing arts around the world and encouraging those, such as the ACO, who embody our core values of ambition, creativity and commitment. As the ‘Bank for a Changing World’ BNP Paribas is constantly evolving, and this is something we have in common with the ACO. Each year that we continue to support the ACO, we are inspired by their individuality, unique artistic style and creative vision. For this reason we have been a proud National Tour Partner of the ACO since 2006 and this year, we are pleased to sponsor the Viennese Masters Tour. BNP Paribas is a leader in global banking and fi nancial services and is recognised as one of the strongest banks in the world. We have been supporting Australian enterprise since 1881, as the fi rst major foreign bank in the country. Today, we provide leading Australian corporates, Financial Institutions and multinational companies with customised solutions in Corporate and Investment Banking, Asset Management and Securities Services. We are delighted to bring you this ACO tour. With a repertoire including Schubert, Brahms and Beethoven, we trust that you will enjoy it immensely. NATIONAL TOUR PARTNER DIDIER MAHOUT CEO, BNP PARIBAS AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND TOUR SIX VIENNESE MASTERS SPEED READ SCHUBERT (arr. Ross) The 19th century was a time of Rondo Brilliante in B minor, D895 unparalleled development in the technology of instrument BEETHOVEN making, and this program — from Beethoven at the beginning Septet in E fl at major, Op.20 of the century to Brahms at the Adagio – Allegro con brio end — gives us some insight into that evolution. Adagio cantabile Tempo di Menuetto Schubert’s Rondo Brilliante is hardly known today, although it Tema con variazione: Andante was one of only three of his Scherzo: Allegro molto e vivace chamber works that he saw in Andante con moto alla Marcia – Presto print. Paganini had introduced the notion of the travelling virtuoso and Slavík, for whom INTERVAL the Rondo was written, had been hailed “a second Paganini”. It’s probably the closest Schubert BRAHMS got to conceiving a violin Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op.115 concerto, and this arrangement for violin and instruments brings Allegro it one step closer. Adagio Beethoven complained that the Andantino – Presto non assai great popularity of the Septet Con moto overshadowed all his other works; ironically, the Septet is Approximate durations (minutes): now almost entirely eclipsed 15 • 40 • INTERVAL • 33 in fame by his orchestral compositions. It is a vastly Th e concert will last approximately two hours. different Beethoven from that of the 5th or 9th Symphonies, however. The Septet was one of ADELAIDE MELBOURNE SYDNEY the last works he wrote before Town Hall Town Hall Opera House his deafness began to take hold, Tue 28 Sep 8pm Sun 26 Sep 2.30pm Sun 10 Oct 2.30pm and it is airy, exuberant and Mon 27 Sep 8pm light-hearted. BRISBANE WOLLONGONG QPAC PERTH IPAC Brahms famously came out Mon 4 Oct 8pm Concert Hall Th u 7 Oct 7.30pm of retirement to compose Wed 29 Sep 8pm his Clarinet Quintet, a work CANBERRA consciously modelled on Llewellyn Hall SYDNEY Mozart’s similar work of just Sat 25 Sep 8pm Angel Place over a century earlier. His close Tue 5 Oct 8pm friend Clara Schumann hailed it Wed 6 Oct 7pm a work of genius: “It is a really Sat 9 Oct 8pm marvellous work, the wailing clarinet takes hold of one; it is most moving. And what interesting music, deep and full Th e Australian Chamber Orchestra reserves the right to alter scheduled of meaning!” programs or artists as necessary. AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 3 MESSAGE FROM THE GENERAL MANAGER FREE PROGRAMS Th e ACO has just returned from our most ambitious To save trees and money, we international tour ever. Not only did this tour traverse two ask that you share one program continents with a Beethoven-sized orchestra of 40 musicians, between two people where possible. it also encompassed an extraordinary range of performance venues, from the Le Poisson Rouge nightclub in New York to the recently reconstructed baroque Frauenkirche in the heart PREPARE IN ADVANCE of Dresden; from the ancient fort overlooking the Croatian Read the program before the port city of Dubrovnik to the near perfect acoustics of a concert. A PDF version of the program will be available at converted malthouse near Aldeburgh; and from the gently aco.com.au and on the ACO undulating lawns of Tanglewood to the restrained Edwardian iPhone app one week before each elegance of London’s Cadogan Hall. While the architecture tour begins, together with music clips and podcasts. and acoustics of the spaces varied enormously, the reactions of the audiences were decidedly consistent – cheering, stomping, standing ovations at the conclusion of every ACO COMMUNITY concert. Become a Facebook fan or visit aco.com.au/blog to read ACO Th e reviews have been equally glowing; “Th e ACO is a crack news and chat to other fans, listen to music and see behind- ensemble” Th e Guardian, “Th e fi nest concert of the summer” the-scenes videos and photos. Th e Arts Desk, “Tognetti and his badass classical band don’t play New York nearly often enough” Time Out New York. HAVE YOUR SAY Our National Touring Partner BNP Paribas has enabled us We invite your feedback to bring much great music to audiences across the whole about this concert at aco.com.au/yoursay or by country for many years and this month we proudly present email to [email protected]. a program of Viennese classics in which so many individual musicians of the ACO have the chance to shine. While FREE MONTHLY Assistant Leader Satu Vänskä is often seen “holding the fort” E-NEWSLETTER while Richard steps into the solo spotlight, in this concert the roles are reversed, Satu taking the limelight in Schubert’s For news, special offers and to be sent background information Rondo Brilliante with Richard in the supporting role. about the concerts, sign up for the ACO’s free monthly Response to the recently launched ACO 2011 National e-newsletter at aco.com.au. Concert Season has been wonderfully enthusiastic with thousands of subscribers rushing to secure their seats for ACO ON THE RADIO another year of great music. If you haven’t received a 2011 season brochure, you can request one online or download it 2MBS FM Wed 10 Nov, 12pm directly from aco.com.au. Interview with an artist from the Kreutzer vs. Kreutzer tour. TIMOTHY CALNIN NEXT TOUR GENERAL MANAGER, ACO KREUTZER VS. KREUTZER 11 — 24 Nov AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 5 CHAMBER MUSIC It is a quirk of cultural history, perhaps, but for its own sake, or the inclusion of crude as empires go into decline the arts in their extra-musical themes. It instead strove to capitals seem to fl ourish. We might think of be elevated, refi ned, and sublime, conveying Venice in the late 16th century, Paris after its aesthetic values that an aristocratic class, in defeat by the Prussians in 1871, or London particular, would have seen as particularly in the 1960s. All were cities aware of their ‘aristocratic’. Indeed, a prominent serious declining political infl uence, but which musical culture in Vienna seems to have were also enjoying a remarkable outburst acted as a kind of cultural defensive position of creativity across all the arts. Above all, for an aristocracy which was, by the early however, we might think of Vienna, whose 19th century, under the very real threat own empire seemed to go gently into that of annihilation by the force of Napoleon’s good night throughout the long 19th century armies. (before coming to a catastrophic end at the Th e exemplary form of serious music of the conclusion of the First World War). During day was without doubt the genre we now this time, notwithstanding the fact that the know as ‘chamber music’. Th e term has its musical economies of Paris, London, and origins in descriptions of music written for New York were at least quantitatively more performance under domestic circumstances signifi cant, Viennese musical culture became or for performance in a drawing-room or essentially synonymous with Western ‘chamber’ before an audience of limited size, music itself. Th e ‘First Viennese School’ or indeed, without the need for listeners of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven came at all. Today, however, chamber music is to defi ne how we expect classical music rarely heard (perhaps lamentably) in such should sound, and codifi ed the standard circumstances, and even in early 19th- genres – symphony, string quartet, piano century Vienna it was becoming increasingly trio, etc. – through which we should expect common to hear chamber works such as to hear it. To be sure, 19th-century Europe string quartets and piano trios as part of was also characterised by musical evolution, public subscription concerts. It is more experimentation, and occasional revolution, accurate, then, to defi ne chamber music as but such change occurred under a most fi rst and foremost a type of music that is extraordinary anxiety of infl uence whose composed using intimate musical resources wellspring was in Vienna. but with high aesthetic ambition. Above Why that should have been the case all, chamber music is music that uses the remains something of a puzzle for historians possibility of close dialogue between a small and musicologists alike, but one aspect number of solo instruments to foreground of Viennese musical culture that stands the importance of ‘pure’ musical argument.