476 160-6 Beggars &Angels

Paul Dean Symphony Beggars &Angels

Brett Dean b. 1961

Ariel’s Music 1 I. Elegy 11’17 2 II. Circumstances 13’22

3 Amphitheatre 10’34

4 Beggars and Angels 26’10

Total Playing Time 61’23

Paul Dean clarinet Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Markus Stenz conductor

3 Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Dvorˇák, Hindemith, potential of violently hit ceramic tiles, or Bridge and Britten. All these had one screeching metal on a train track’s curve or thing in common – to a lesser or greater extent, playground swing. they were all players. No joke. While this was an influential counterweight to With 15 years under his belt as a member of the conventionalities of his day job in the Berlin the viola section (from Philharmonic, it didn’t ultimately turn Brett Dean 1985 to 2000) and almost a decade now of into a latter-day John Cage or hardcore serious, acclaimed compositional achievement, experimentalist. It simply broadened his outlook -born Brett Dean can confidently be and exposed him to the possibilities of electronics attached to that illustrious subset too. and sampling technology. (Simon Hunt later found a certain notoriety as ‘Pauline Pantsdown’, the On the possible compositional advantage of remixed alter ego of One Nation leader Hanson.) being a viola player Brett Dean remarked: The music that has followed these early years of ‘There’s something distinctive about playing discovery is recognisably mainstream concert inner parts, for sure. It gives you an overview music: predominantly composed, rather than upwards and downwards of what’s going on, improvised; notes written down onto paper and of the workings of a piece. Perhaps you’re not played off it live by human beings. as intensely busy as the first might be, and you’re not so heavily engaged in pumping Dean reckons his 1995 work Ariel’s Music, for out the line … so yes, it does give you clarinet and orchestra, to be his coming-of-age time to take in other things that are happening piece. Up to then, he had been receiving around you.’ encouragement from musical associates in his Berlin milieu for this relatively new activity. ‘It Although Brett Dean admits to having written a was very important in those early days that there string quartet and some pieces in his were enough people who would say, “Look, this teens, the official starting point for his isn’t bad. You should keep doing this,”’ he recalls. compositional journey is 1988. Even then, his ‘And then, after the premiere of Ariel’s Music in role was as an improvising performer, Brisbane, came up to me and said, collaborating in Berlin with fellow Australian “You know, you’re a real now,” which Simon Hunt on experimental film and radio was a fantastic, encouraging thing to hear.’ scores. This experience opened Dean’s ears up to the possibilities of pure sound: sound as Another turning point piece for him was his first music, noise as something beautiful, the sonic commission for the Australian Chamber

4 5 Orchestra, Carlo. This intense, harrowing work heavyweights as Kurtág, Henze, Lutoslawski and memory of two young people, the victims of compose a compelling musical representation of for 15 strings, sampled voices and taped choir Ligeti, and tendency to create the same AIDS and cancer respectively. Carlo is a this 1957 movie for the twelve of the was premiered in December 1997 at the brooding intensity in his music that he compelling portrait of the life and work of the Berlin Philharmonic. Huntington Estate Music Festival, in Mudgee, experienced living in a place like Berlin. But tortured, uxoricidal Renaissance composer, Carlo Similarly, two out of the three works on this disc New South Wales. The return to Australia at that here, the balancing perspective of different Gesualdo; while the more recent Testament (for have artistic and literary starting points. Beggars time for Dean and his painter wife, Heather cultures asserts itself. 12 , 2003) is a vivid commentary on and Angels was prompted by the juxtaposition, Betts, ‘was such a positive experience for us. Beethoven’s document of personal anguish and in a Berlin exhibition, of sculpted beggars (by It brought us back in touch with Australia, and ‘I think complexity is great,’ he says. ‘But if a despair, written at Heiligenstadt in 1802. Trak Wendisch) and painted angels (by Heather Carlo’s success made me realise for the first piece is complex from beginning to end then it’s not complex, is it? It’s just chaos. Which, you Dean’s social and political commentary seems to Betts). The scene for orchestra, Amphitheatre, time that, yes, maybe I can do this composing know, some people might be into. But I think be becoming stronger with successive works, takes its inspiration from the description, in thing full-time.’ Dean and his family made that complexity only means something when it’s put arising from a conscience that burns bright, in a Michael Ende’s children’s book Momo, of the momentous final return from Berlin in early against something that isn’t complex. Then gently raging, impressively articulate way. Game ruins of a Roman amphitheatre on the outskirts 2000, settling first in Noosa and more recently you’ve got the gamut of emotions that makes Over, his Olympic Arts Festival work for the of a modern city. in Melbourne. complexity complex. I find it important to write Australian Chamber Orchestra, Bang on a Can As already noted, Ariel’s Music is a memorial The superficial extremes of Dean’s musical music that invites the listener in, without and sampled voices, set the tone with a bleak, piece for a young American girl, Ariel Glaser, experience – Australia (sunniness, exotic) and necessarily making it easy for them. But I tend black-humoured critique of modern society – in whose death from AIDS in 1988 prompted her Berlin (darkly cerebral, central to Western also to turn off with music that’s so head-driven particular, the corrosive, soul-bludgeoning mother, Elisabeth, to become an outspokenly culture) – generate an important tension in his that it’s slamming the door in my face as soon influence of television and the crushing banality of its game shows. The next year, in 2001, his successful campaigner and fundraiser for music. For someone who readily admits to being as I’ve heard five seconds of it. And there’s quite Pastoral Symphony acknowledged both the paediatric AIDS research. As well as being an obsessed with Germanic culture as a teenage of a lot of that, particularly from the 60s. And I ravishing beauty of birdsong – again through elegy for Ariel – the first movement is titled as student at the Sydney Conservatorium (‘Hesse, think we’re past that now, and can take from electronic samples – and the threat posed to it such – the piece pays tribute to ‘this heroic Mann, Webern, Death and the Maiden, all that that period aspects of it that are really searching and part of the human spirit.’ by ‘relentless and respectless’ environmental woman’ Elisabeth who, as Dean notes, raised stuff’), it’s not surprising who his musical heroes degradation. Two works from 2003 – Ceremonial $30 million before also falling victim to the virus continue to be, and with which aesthetic his Achieving the aim of making his music for orchestra and the string quartet Eclipse – are in 1994. (She had contracted it during pregnancy own music is most aligned. In Berlin, he was simultaneously inviting and challenging comes tough commentaries on the Iraq war and the through blood transfusion.) known as the young Australian (he was the hand in hand with a variety of extramusical Tampa boat people/asylum crisis. youngest member of the Berlin Philharmonic influences in that work. Although never pictorial From the first bars of this ‘coming-of-age’ piece, when he got the job in 1985) who brought a or narrative as such, each piece almost invariably The poetic stimulus for his 1996 quintet for significant hallmarks of Dean’s subsequent slightly dissident, new world freshness to the bears homage, comments sociopolitically, or piano and strings, Voices of Angels, was some writing are established: string writing of great venerable institution. But back in Australia Dean springs from literary and visual stimuli. Ariel’s lines from Rilke’s first Duino Elegy, and in the personality and effect – no surprise there, from seems (so far) very much the European, with his Music and the concluding Elegy of the same year Sidney Lumet’s tense courtroom Dean the violist; a strong ability to evoke admiration for such middle European Huntington Eulogy ( and piano, 2001) are in drama Twelve Angry Men inspired Dean to atmosphere, to draw the listener in; a compelling

6 7 sense of drama, of ebb and flow; and, in the very at the 1999 UNESCO International Rostrum of Motivically, Beggars and Angels is as tightly percussion is used, alongside occasionally gradual build-up of texture and gathering of ideas Composers in Paris. controlled and focused as Ariel’s Music, though prominent piano and harp. Certain instrumental along the way, a discernible sense that – in a perhaps in a more subtle, less intervallically groupings are used to great effect – either rather old-fashioned, 19th-century way perhaps – That same year – in the penultimate month of rigorous way. Joining the tentative, questing colourful alloys such as piccolos, celeste and Dean is handling his motivic material with great the century – came the first performance of rising 3rd that begins both Intimate Decisions vibraphone, or discrete euphonies of , skill and control. The intervallic building materials Dean’s first purely orchestral work, Beggars and and Beggars and Angels is the other or three trombones and tuba. The last in this opening Elegy are a rising 9th, a falling Angels – by the performers on this disc, the predominant melodic cell from the viola piece – of these has a major solo in the second section, minor 3rd and an augmented 4th. The first of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Markus a repeated falling semitone followed by a and it is effectively an elegy for an exceptional these, played repeatedly by timpani, harp and Stenz. Just as Dean was intrigued by the repeated rising minor 6th. Clearly, in such an young Australian tuba player Frank Barzyk, who double bass, forms the haunting foundation for a apparent opposites – but uncanny similarities – extended work, other material is introduced and had died the previous year after a long struggle concluding, sparse-textured dirge – all energy with cancer. of the sculpted beggars and painted angels in investigated; but the motivic influence of from the movement’s central scherzo character the Potsdam exhibition, there is a similar Intimate Decisions is pervasive and binding. sapped and spent. This ‘For Frank’ section is followed by a stretch paradox in the fact that the piece which formed Broadly, Beggars and Angels divides into two of solemn rhythmic unisons – halting This is also the way the second movement, the motivic template for this colossally scored sections: the first, one of frequent mood shifts, punctuation points – which in turn grow to a Circumstances, concludes – a tense, desperate orchestral essay was in fact Dean’s 1996 work violent climaxes and abrupt jerks of rhythmic climax of broad, expansive unison melody that sob. Described by Dean as a Todestanz (Dance for a single viola, Intimate Decisions. emphasis; the second, calmer, dreamier, has, perhaps, the grandiose, almost-kitsch of Death), it features the soloist, he says, as a texturally sparser. Dean, as with all his scores, moments of Messiaen’s Turangalîla looking over ‘Every piece,’ Dean has said, ‘might have just ‘solitary, anxious figure, forever trying to is eloquent and specific in his performance its shoulder. The conclusion, a coloured-in revisit establish a dialogue with other solo voices in the one bar in it where I think, “Hey, I want to visit markings – a teeming succession of instructions of Intimate Decisions’ haunting close, has the orchestra’. Rhythms are jagged, textures forever that again and take it a bit further.”’ Teasing such as ‘restless but very quiet … distinctly eerie, icy harmonics of divisi violas and cellos changing, the grotesquely dancing solo figures motivic scraps, such as a rising minor 3rd in slower, still agitated and unsettled’; or later, in asking questions right to the end. It is music of often featuring a characteristic downward Intimate Decisions, are indeed taken quite a bit successive bars ‘somewhat agitated … more exceptional, disembodied beauty – arguably glissando (another Dean trademark in the further in Beggars and Angels. And it is not the agitated…calming down’. Dean’s beggars and some of the most arresting sounds to have been making, especially from string instruments) and only instance of such compositional revisits. angels, sometimes confronting each other, written in the dying days of a troubled century. climaxing with a unison rhythmic tutti and ‘Twelve Angry Men originated as a piece for five sometimes commingled, generate a musical Beggars and Angels won the Australian Music impassioned, tumbling cadenza. world of ethereal spaciousness, foreboding and violas, a little five-minute thing,’ Dean recalls, Centre Award for Best Composition in 2000, and desperation, harried pursuit and – can we Such virtuosic solo writing was conceived for Brett ‘and it turned into this 17-minute sort of tone since then has been performed more than 30 presume this? – visions of heaven and hell. Dean’s brother Paul, Principal Clarinet of the poem for 12 cellos.’ Game Over grew out of a times, not only in Australia but throughout Queensland Symphony Orchestra. It was sound installation for Berlin’s Millennium Inevitably, without Ariel’s Music’s focus on a Europe and Asia. In June 2000, just half a year premiered by these forces in the Brisbane Concert celebrations, while the ballet score One of a soloist, the orchestration in Beggars in Angels is after the Beggars and Angels premiere in Hall in September 1995, and was a Selected Work Kind is closely linked to Carlo. more immediately compelling. A vast array of Melbourne, Brett Dean’s ‘dramatic scene for

8 9 large orchestra’, Amphitheatre, had its first Muted fanfares appear from this outing in Brisbane with the Queensland musical block of stone, growing steadily and Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding. Dean radiating into a full texture for an urgent, almost was drawn to Michael Ende’s ‘mesmerising’ grotesque climax. For Dean, they are book for children, Momo, which describes the ‘reminiscences of past glories … momentarily ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheatre on the replacing the stillness of time frozen.’ Quickly outskirts of a large, modern city. Amphitheatres, dissipating, they once again become distant whether lavish or modest, Dean notes, ‘were a echoes in a conclusion characterised by forlorn relection of the people and communities that solos for , and clarinet, and the built them; the main thing was that everyone unsettling timbres of tuned gongs and steel had somewhere to gather in order to experience drums. Ende’s daydreaming tourist comes back theatre, to satisfy their hunger for stories and into the present, takes a photo and departs from spectacles, to be part of their culture.’ the scene: ‘Then stillness is reinstated to the stony roundness.’ The main musical idea that opens and closes this arch-shaped single movement is an Meurig Bowen oscillating chord change which Dean aims to portray as the amphitheatre’s massive blocks of stone. With a deliberate crotchet pulse and shifts of orchestral colour, ‘we take in different perspectives of the same object, as if taking a walk around its circumference.’

10 11 Brett Dean became established as a composer through Paul Dean Gnarly Buttons. Paul Dean’s recording of his worldwide performances of the ballet One of a brother Brett’s clarinet concerto Ariel’s Music Australian violist and composer Brett Dean Paul Dean is a graduate of the Queensland Kind (Nederlands Dans Theater) and his clarinet with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra was graduated from the Queensland Conservatorium Conservatorium of Music. While still a student, concerto Ariel’s Music, which won an award a finalist in the 1999 ARIA Awards; he has also of Music in 1982 as Student of the Year. After he won the Australian Clarinet Competition, the from the UNESCO International Rostrum of recorded the clarinet music of English composer four seasons as Principal Viola of the Mattara National Concerto Competition, the Composers. His works now attract considerable Benjamin Frankel in collaboration with the Queensland and Australian Youth and Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition in Los attention throughout Europe and Australia. One Australian String Quartet. numerous solo performances throughout of his works, Carlo, was described in The Angeles (as a member of the Movellan Wind Australasia, he travelled to Germany in 1984 Sydney Morning Herald as perhaps the ‘most Quintet) and the Conservatorium Medal for Paul Dean lives in Brisbane where he is Director with financial assistance from the Australia forcefully striking achievement in Australian Excellence. He has since appeared as a soloist, of the Southern Cross Soloists – with whom in Council to further his studies. He became a writing for orchestral strings’ in over thirty years. recitalist and chamber musician in Norway, 2004 he will perform over 50 concerts permanent member of the Berlin Philharmonic In 2000 Brett Dean won the Australian Music England, Germany, Japan, China, the US, throughout Australia – and Artistic Director of Orchestra in 1985. Centre Award for Best Composition for his Canada, New Zealand and Korea. the Bangalow Music Festival. Other 2004 orchestral work Beggars and Angels. In 2001 engagements include a national tour with the While in Europe, he appeared at major festivals Paul Dean has been Principal Clarinet with the he won the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Prize for Macquarie Trio and guest appearances for the and collaborated with many of the world’s greatest Queensland Symphony Orchestra (1987-2000) Winter Songs. Sydney Festival and the Australian String musicians, including Imogen Cooper, Markus and guest Principal Clarinet with the Australian Stenz, and Sir . Quartet. He also regularly performs with his A broad selection of his music has been Chamber Orchestra (2000 Olympic Arts Festival), For the celebrations of Paul Hindemith’s centenary brother Brett in a trio with pianist Stephen recorded and has also been featured by the the Dutch contemporary ensemble Orkest de in 1995, Brett Dean was soloist with the Berlin Emmerson, Dean Emmerson Dean. English music quarterly Unknown Public. He has Volharding (Queensland Biennial Festival of Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado in Hindemith’s written commissioned works for, among others, Music, 2001), and the Melbourne Symphony Viola d’Amore Concerto, a performance that won the Sydney Festival, English pianist Imogen Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony (2002). He him special critical acclaim. He recorded this work Cooper, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, appeared with the Queensland Symphony for CPO, and appears on other commercial CDs Australian Chamber Orchestra and the twelve Orchestra as soloist on over 30 occasions, and released by Nimbus, ABC Classics and CPO. His cellos of the Berlin Philharmonic. Future projects premiered over 60 works, many written for him particular interest in contemporary music has led include a new work for the Auryn String Quartet or dedicated to him. Solo appearances include to well over 50 premieres of new solo and and an operatic adaptation of ’s performances with Norway’s Trondheim chamber pieces by some of the leading for Australia. Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Youth Orchestra, composers of our time, including Henze, Kurtág, China National Symphony Orchestra, West Rihm and . Australian, Tasmanian, Melbourne and Brett Dean began composing in 1988, making Symphony Orchestras and The Queensland largely improvised film music and radio projects Orchestra. In 2002 he gave the first Australian for the ABC and independent filmmakers. He performance of ’ clarinet concerto

12 13 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra information technology games project based on Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Executive Producers Robert Patterson, Lyle Chan the Jurassic Park movies. Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Recording Producer Stephen Snelleman With a reputation for excellence, versatility and Orchestra and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Associate Producer and Editor Thomas Grubb innovation developed over almost 100 years the Brett Dean was the MSO’s Artist-in-Residence Editorial and Production Manager Hilary Shrubb Melbourne Symphony Orchestra attracts total between 2001 and 2004. Appearances in the UK have included the BBC Cover and Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd annual audiences of more than 250,000. This fine Symphony, Philharmonic and Scottish Symphony Markus Stenz Cover painting ‘Daring Distance’ by Heather Betts orchestra is renowned for its performances of Orchestras, Hallé Orchestra and several (1993) – oil, charcoal and x-ray on canvas; the great symphonic masterworks with leading Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the appearances at the BBC Proms. excerpt: right hand panel of a diptych – international soloists, and for its appearances Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Recordings include Kurt Weill’s Der Silbersee first exhibited as part of the Beggars and Angels with The Three , Frank Sinatra, Kiri Te Gürzenichkapellmeister in Cologne, Markus for BMG and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and exhibition, Kutscherhaus, Potsdam, 1994. Kanawa, Elton John, John Farnham, the rock Stenz will assume the position of General Music Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition for band KISS, Dionne Warwick and Meatloaf. Director of the Cologne Opera in September 2005. For Melbourne Symphony Orchestra ABC Classics. Managing Director Trevor Green With Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, He has held the positions of Music Director of Artistic Administrator Colin Cornish Markus Stenz – currently in his seventh year the Montepulciano Festival (1989 to 1995) and Orchestra Manager Barbara Glaser with the Orchestra – the Melbourne Symphony Principal Conductor of the www.mso.com.au Orchestra has taken an even more prominent (1994 to 1998). position on the world stage. Opera appearances have included Stuttgart Opera, The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has Munich Opera (World premiere of Henze’s Venus received international recognition with its tours and Adonis), Hamburg Opera, Frankfurt Opera, to the United States, Canada, Japan, La Monnaie Brussels, English National Opera, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges Korea, Europe, China and most recently Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Salzburg the generous support of the MSO Friends in the St Petersburg, Russia. Festival (World premiere of Henze’s L’Upupa), production of this CD recording. Cologne Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival. The Orchestra’s concerts are broadcast regularly Recorded November 2001 in the Robert Blackwood on ABC Classic FM and some performances are Orchestral collaborations have included the Hall, Monash University, Melbourne. presented through ABC TV. In addition, members Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. of the Orchestra have featured on numerous Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, © 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. movie soundtracks including those for feature- Leipzig Gewandhaus, Tonhalle Orchestra Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or films such as Babe, IQ, Hotel Sorrento, Six in Zurich, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright Degrees of Separation, Babe II – Pig in the City , Royal Stockholm owner is prohibited. and The Dish. The Melbourne Symphony Philharmonic Orchestra, Swedish Radio Orchestra was also involved in an interactive Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Radio

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