Vijay Iyer Composer in Residence 2019/20 on Musicality

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VIJAY IYER COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE 2019/20 ON MUSICALITY

MEMORIES OF WIGMORE WITH JULIA BOYD INTRODUCING THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHAMBER COLLECTIVE MUSICAL CONVERSATIONS WITH WIGMORE HALL LEARNING AUTUMN

FRIENDS OF OF FRIENDS FROM DUBLIN AND EDINBURGH TO LONDON WITH ENSEMBLE MARSYAS 2019 Summer is well and truly behind and your thoughtfulness in including Connecting people with people and with us and our 2019/20 Season is in Wigmore Hall as a beneficiary in your Will music: this is an everyday reality at Wigmore full flow. In this issue, our Trustee make a tangible impact on Wigmore Hall. Hall. Conversations bring us together and I am Fundraising remains a tough game but hoping to have many more with Friends and and supporter Julia Boyd reflects you are helping us ensure Wigmore Hall’s supporters. Engagement with our audience on what the Hall has come to wellbeing now and into the future. is stimulating and uplifting; without your mean to her over the many years Musical conversations are at the heart of commitment to the Hall we simply could not our Learning festival in February next year present the breadth and quality of performance she and her late husband John and it is exhilarating to hear from two young or remain as this country’s pre-eminent centre started coming here. voices in classical music, Freya Waley-Cohen for chamber music and song. Our Friends Music has meant so much to them both, and and Claire Roberts, in this issue. Freya is our and donors make all the difference. If you walking into the auditorium has been like a Associate Composer and is mentoring Claire would like to discuss a gift, or share a special balm, a moment in time to be inspired and throughout this season. recollection, please get in touch with me transported. Julia echoes the numerous Vijay Iyer, our Composer in Residence, [email protected] conversations which John Gilhooly and I reflects on musicality and on making or call 020 7258 8220. It is always good to have had with many of you over the last classical music more accessible to a broader hear from you! few months. Your recollections are so audience. And if you missed Jonathan Biss’ eloquent and compelling and we continue to talk after his first recital of the season, we be inspired and motivated by your passion have included some of his interview here, for this place. Your annual gifts to our as well as a fascinating timeline to give programme through membership or your our readers an insight into the history of donations to our Audience Fund, your support Beethoven in performance at the Hall as Marie-Hélène Osterweil for our Endowment Fund (see page 8) early as its inaugural concert in 1901. Director of Development

COVER Vijay Iyer © Barbara Rigon THANK YOU FOR HELPING US RAISE OVER £100,000! We are hugely grateful for the response to our Audience Fund appeal this year – thanks to 437 generous audience members © Kaupo Kikkas © Kaupo we were able to raise £91,533.45. Including the additional boost we will receive via Gift Aid, this means you have helped us raise over £106,000 to support this current season, and all the wonderful things in it! Gifts ranged from £5 to £3,000, and cumulatively will play an important role in making our extensive programme of concerts and events this year possible. Whether this be underpinning a particularly ambitious artistic series, enabling us to present a young or emerging artist, or simply contributing to the everyday maintenance and upkeep necessary to keep this building in good working order, the Audience Fund is an essential part of Wigmore Hall’s annual functioning. Thank you to all those who have contributed – we continue to be very grateful for your generosity.

If you would still like to support this year’s Audience Fund appeal, you can do so via wigmore-hall.org.uk/SA1920

2 WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK | FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 WIGMORE HALL NEWS IESTYN DAVIES’ BIRTHDAY HONOUR In 2019/20, Wigmore Hall is with the Hall; Davies has been singing at pleased to have the eminent Wigmore Hall for 13 years. A delighted Iestyn Davies comments: countertenor Iestyn Davies in Price © Simon Jay ‘I’m honoured to join a very distinguished residency. His opening concert group of medal recipients and even more so took place on 16 September, his to have this recognition on my 40th birthday. 40th birthday, and Wigmore Hall Wigmore Hall and John Gilhooly have always been central to my development as an artist had a special gift for the singer. and were integral in giving me such fantastic Joined in his celebration by The English opportunities at the start of my career. I am Concert, under the direction of Trevor flattered to have ever received that support. Pinnock, the landmark 40th birthday concert Though I am of course just a small dot in was followed by a presentation from the history of Wigmore Hall, it means an Wigmore Hall’s Director, John Gilhooly. enormous amount to me personally to be John awarded Davies with the Wigmore recognised in this way.’ Medal. This award was inaugurated in 2007 Davies’ residency continues on 22 March and recognises major international artists 2020, where he and lutenist Thomas Dunford and significant figures in the classical music present the first UK performance of their new industry who have a strong association programme England’s Orpheus.

THOMAS LARCHER RECEIVES GRAND

AUSTRIAN STATE PRIZE David King Composer Thomas Larcher has been awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize, the highest honour his home country On Thursday 3 October, Wigmore Hall hosted a retirement party for presents in recognition of artistic achievement. The Austrian outgoing Senior House Manager, David King. Many of you who have Cultural Minister, Alexander Schallenberg, has described been to the Hall over the last 34 years will have met David, brightly Larcher as ‘a frontier crosser of music that has developed a welcoming everyone and managing the stage in his inimitable style. specific timbre of its own’. We are sad to see him retire from the Wigmore family, and incredibly We look forward to welcoming Thomas Larcher as grateful for his many years of dedicated service. Friends, family and Composer in Residence in the 2020/21 Season. artists from many parts of David’s life were able to join the staff of Wigmore Hall in a toast in October.

FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 | WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK 3 WIGMORE HALL MEMORIES Julia Boyd, Wigmore Hall Trustee, member of our Bechstein Society, and long time audience member, asks, ‘Why does Wigmore Hall mean so much to us? After all, London is hardly short of wonderful spaces for music so what is it that makes this particular hall so remarkable?’

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MAIN IMAGE Wigmore Hall auditorium RIGHT Julia Boyd

First and foremost it has to be the sheer quality of the music. Then there is the infinite and ever-expanding variety, the zest in performance, the imaginative programming, not to mention the charm of the staff. And all this delivered day after day, night after night, year after year. But each time you walk into Wigmore (in my case at least three or four times a week) to be enveloped in its familiar magic, you are never allowed to become complacent or to sink into a comfort zone. Exciting challenges always lie ahead, whether in experiencing a controversial interpretation, unfamiliar repertoire or a dazzling new talent. Indeed, for those of us no longer able to cross deserts or sail oceans, there is no shortage of adventures at 36 Wigmore Street. Vijay Iyer? Sir George Benjamin? Freya Waley-Cohen? Perhaps this tension between familiarity and the unexpected is one reason why Wigmore Hall retains such a very special place in our hearts and minds. But there are plenty more. How can we forget the first time we heard Sir András Schiff play the Bach 48, or Mark Padmore’s Winterreise; or that moment in a Brigitte Fassbaender masterclass when the young singer suddenly ‘gets it’ and is transformed before our eyes? Then there is the thrill of hearing – at one end of the spectrum – a new quartet bursting with talent and youthful vitality, and at the other the profundity and experience of, say, the Beaux Arts Trio whose pianist Menahem Pressler is 95. In the Hall, age dissolves. All are equal in the pursuit and achievement of excellence. If the chief laurels go, of course, to the performers and staff, the punters also deserve an accolade. Where could you ever find a friendlier, more perceptive and committed audience? I have often been to Wigmore Hall on my own but cannot remember when I didn’t end up in animated conversation with some total stranger. This is a group that not only wants but needs to share its joy in music. And where, when coping with life’s slings and arrows, would you rather go to find solace than this Hall? Equally, when news of some appalling atrocity becomes too unbearable, is there anywhere better than our beloved Wigmore to remind us of our humanity? Should anyone dare to accuse the Hall of that much over-used word ‘elitism’, I would urge them to attend a ‘Singing with Friends’ concert where the performing choir is composed of people living with dementia. They will never forget it. Equally the children’s concerts, the work in schools and care homes and the events devised for toddlers will banish any suspicion that Wigmore Hall does not serve the widest possible community. This is all much too valuable to squander because we have taken Wigmore’s gold standard for granted and been too careless of its future. So, let those of us who love this unique institution preserve our own matchless memories by doing everything in our power to safeguard the Hall, and all it stands for, for future generations.

As well as a Wigmore Hall supporter, Julia Boyd is a distinguished writer and author of Travellers in the Third Reich (2017)

FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 | WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK 5 A Q&A WITH VIJAY IYER WIGMORE HALL’S COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE 2019/20 You have performed at Wigmore Hall Describe your work with young many times now. What do you think of it composers and what your work at as a performance space – its acoustic, Harvard University entails. ambience, history? I was brought to Harvard nearly six years I do adore the sound in the space. It is one ago at a moment when the university and its of the world’s ideal spaces for chamber then-president Drew Faust were looking to music, though perhaps more challenging for affirm the role of the arts at the centre of the anything involving drums or amplification; campus experience. I was given a lifetime regardless, we had some very special appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence experiences there during my series in 2017. Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts. I am now I will say that when I see the range of photos affiliated with both the Department of Music of mostly European classical performers and the Department of African and African backstage, I invariably feel like an interloper American Studies. My arrival sort of broke of some kind. I’m delighted that through this the ice, and I helped them attract a few newer series my colleagues and I get to be written faculty members, including Yosvany Terry, into the Hall’s history. Esperanza Spalding, Teju Cole — some of my fellow artists of today. Together and separately Do you think it gives a positive message to we’ve created roles for ourselves that combine have somebody slightly outside the classical Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry. To world performing in what is narrowly solidify this, I christened a PhD program with perceived as an ultra-traditional venue? that exact title, or CPCI for short. We are small I can’t speak to that. To me the issue is less in number, but as public artists our work and about image and more about access. To that that of our protégés radiates outward to a end I really appreciate that my concert with public and has an immeasurable impact that Mike Ladd offered free tickets for youth. I is quite distinct from the majority of academic hope Wigmore often does that sort of thing! research, for example. That’s the main idea. I see it as a natural extension of the work I do as an artist in the world.

‘It’s a special privilege to bring together multiple streams of activity under one banner, in one place.’

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Vijay Iyer, Wigmore Hall’s A Q&A WITH Composer in Residence 2019/20

What are the highlights of your residency this year for you? The entire residency is a life highlight for me. It’s a special privilege to bring together multiple streams of activity under one banner, VIJAY IYER in one place. My usual experience is that these different practices tend to circulate in WIGMORE HALL’S COMPOSER different networks and different economies: speculative music making originating in the African diaspora (as in my duo with Craig Taborn), global post-colonial creative IN RESIDENCE 2019/20 music influenced by those same practices (as with Ritual Ensemble), multidisciplinary performance combining music with poetry or other performing arts (as in my collaborations with Mike Ladd), and so-called classical/‘new music’/contemporary composition (as in the composer portrait concert with Aurora Orchestra). The opportunity to gather it all together under one rubric enables us to imagine beyond the genre tags invented by record companies in the previous century, and instead to experience a more inclusive listening at all levels. I hope we can all hear each other a little better because of it.

Briefly describe why the residency is titled ‘Musicality’. This term usually refers to a special, elusive quality we hear that captures, holds, or even guides us. We will say, for example, that a certain performer’s rendition of the Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 was (or wasn’t!) musical. Lately I’ve tried to open the word up as a critical concept — that is, to reveal musicality’s inherent instabilities and ruptures, to try to understand the kind of work that a word like that does — but also to embrace, as we all do as music-makers and as listeners in the 21st century, that humankind can accommodate many musicalities. There are many ways that an experience can call to us or resonate with us, and therefore many ways that an experience can become musical. To me the concept helps us avoid generalizations about ‘music’ or some ‘style’ of music, and instead focus on specific musical moments that might actually matter to someone.

FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 | WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK 7 WIGMORE HALL’S ENDOWMENT FUND Wigmore Hall’s Endowment Fund was launched in 2012, thanks to the Arts Council Catalyst scheme to help organisations diversify their sources of income and invest in their long-term future. The Fund gives our audience and supporters a way of providing for many years of chamber music-making in this much-loved concert Hall.

Our Endowment is now over five years old and continues to grow In 2018/19, the Endowment Fund supported: steadily, giving the Hall more financial stability moving forward. The RESIDENCY Pekka Kuusisto presented a three-concert residency, principle benefit has been the ability for us to plan ahead to secure artists featuring music by composers including Jörg Widmann, Perttu for ambitious and insightful projects which previously were not affordable. Haapanen and Steve Reich alongside that of Bach, Bartók and Our artist residencies as well as focussed series around repertoire are Paganini. Moving away from the traditional concert format, each of now key elements in each season: these help us strengthen and broaden Kuusisto’s concerts consisted of musical performances alongside a our relationships with artists and attract new audiences, too. series of talks and visuals exploring the human body and the links Wigmore Hall's Endowment Fund was initially boosted by Arts between biology and music. These multi-modal concerts were a new Council England’s match funding challenge and we are now aiming thing for the Hall and many of our audience members. They provided to raise £25 million by 2028 to grow and strengthen the Fund going us with a key opportunity to reach and engage new demographics, forward. Wigmore Hall’s Endowment is managed by Partners Capital, which can be seen from the fact that nearly 40% of the audience who specialise in managing endowments for major institutions and present at Kuusisto’s concerts were under 35. foundations. They work closely with Wigmore Hall’s Investment Committee and are ultimately accountable to Wigmore Hall’s Trustees. RUSSIAN SONG SERIES Iain Burnside curated a four-concert long Russian Song Series at Wigmore Hall, performing a wide variety of works by composers ranging from Tchaikovsky to Glazunov. While some of the singers featured in the series, all of whom are fluent Russian © Kaapo Kamu © Kaapo speakers, had already performed at the Hall – such as Justina Gringytė – many like or had not. Through this

SCHUMANN SERIES The Endowment Fund also supported a wide- ranging celebration of the music of Robert Schumann across the season. This celebration focussed on Schumann’s chamber music and lieder as the Elias String Quartet performed his three quartets, and Malcolm Martineau explored his lieder in collaboration with Florian Boesch, Anne Schwanewilms, Robin Tritschler and Dame Sarah Connolly. These concerts were a compelling celebration of Schumann’s music, as some of the leading artists of our time showed TOP LEFT Pekka Kuusisto TOP RIGHT Sofia Mchedlishvili the continuing power of his music to engage and captivate audiences. BELOW Quatuor Danel In 2019/20, the Endowment Fund is supporting: ■ A season-long exploration of Britten’s chamber music and songs, commemorating Britten’s long affiliation with Wigmore Hall; ■ A celebration of Brahms’ music, with several Wigmore Hall © Marco Borggreve © Marco regulars showcasing this wonderful repertoire and providing musical context for our Beethoven Festival; ■ A focus on Weinberg – Wigmore Hall will mark Weinberg’s centenary with a retrospective of the composer’s chamber music featuring Quatuor Danel and Linus Roth.

Once again, the Endowment Fund will be sustaining a diverse series of projects this season, both supporting more traditional concerts, through the Britten and Brahms series, alongside the important re-evaluation of lesser-known repertoire through the celebration of Weinberg’s chamber music.

We continue to be hugely grateful to all our Endowment Fund donors and thank them for their ongoing generosity to Wigmore Hall. To make a donation to Wigmore Hall’s Endowment Fund, please contact: Marie-Hélène Osterweil, Director of Development Telephone: 020 7258 8220 • Email: [email protected] Registered Charity No. 1024838

8 WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK | FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 FROM THE ARCHIVE Beethoven at Wigmore Hall uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

In many ways, the history of Beethoven in performance at Wigmore Hall is a history of the Hall itself. Present at every significant milestone in our story from our opening concerts in 1901 to the present day, the works of Beethoven – chamber music, song and above all, piano – have been performed by hundreds of artists in thousands of concerts here. With this visual timeline of programmes from our archive, we visit some of the key moments in a journey spanning two world wars and nearly 120 years.

1901

p The inaugural concert at Bechstein Hall on 31 May 1901. Ferrucio Busoni opened the programme with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E Op. 109, while the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe later performed the Romance in G Op. 40, wildly popular at the time.

1903 u 24 April 1903 saw the first appearance here of Frederic Lamond, who tirelessly u Surprisingly slow to championed Beethoven’s take hold in the repertoire, piano works throughout his Beethoven’s string lifetime. This was the first quartets nevertheless all-Beethoven concert to be received a significant held at the Hall, and the first boost in autumn 1905 1905 of Lamond’s near-annual when Joseph Joachim’s concert series dedicated to quartet performed the the composer’s music. complete cycle of sixteen.

FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 | WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK The First World War had seen the had seen War World q The First the Bechstein Hall closed in 1915 when seized. It is were assets company’s that no anti-German clear, however, feeling to the extended music of the Germanic composers,great all of consistently whose music remained the war, throughout with popular violin sonatas chosen as Beethoven’s the 1917 reopening for the programme Hall. Wigmore become of what had now The actual authorship of the 11 the 11 of p The actual authorship 17 is uncertain; WoO. Tänze Mödlinger given were they in 1907 nevertheless, their Englandthe at one of here première Concerts. Subscription family’s Hambourg 1911. Jean Gerardy and t Jean Gerardy were Leopold Godowsky the to bring the first cello Beethoven complete sonatas to the Hall in to feature cellists Other their of his music in many included programmes whose Beatrice Harrison, the at appearance first Hall was in 1912, Gaspar Pablo Casals, Cassadó, and Guilhermina Suggia. According to this programme to this programme p According 1907, violinist Henri from Philip and pianist Verbrugghen the first giving E Halstead were the in London of performance violin set of Beethoven complete with sonatas, having had success the continent. the same series on Beethoven was a fixture in recitals by by recitals in was a fixture t Beethoven pianists, greatest the period’s of many Moiseiwitsch Benno turns by including early Rubinstein in 1910), Arthur here (shown his UK debut Cortot, who made and Alfred Sonata with the Kreutzer performing Spalding. violinist Albert , the young pianistthe young 1917, Elena Gerhardt sang ‘Adelaide’ in this in sang ‘Adelaide’ p Elena Gerhardt Beethoven’s in April 1907. Although concert today, performed frequently less songs are history the Hall’s of years twenty the first for as all his chamber of as popular proved they including with favourites together, music put aus der Gottes tomba’, ‘Die Ehre ‘In questa Songs Op. 108. Natur’ and his Scottish u In the Moonlight Solomon included Hall debut Sonata in his Wigmore temporary – which was also his to the concert stage. ‘farewell’ , the tenor Ruby Helder sang ‘Adelaide’ as part of her Wigmore Hall Wigmore her as part of ‘Adelaide’ sang Helder Ruby tenor the u In 1925, until here part of programming a regular songs were Beethoven’s debut recital. Brabazon Hayes, John Coates, Roland by seen in concerts War, World the Second the notable absence is A others. among many and Elisabeth Schumann Lowther 1920 and 1960. times between sung seven An die ferne Geliebte Op. 98, only cycle 1925 1917 1912 1911 1910 1907 WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK | FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 OFFICE | FRIENDS WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u

t Champions of 1927 Beethoven’s chamber music in the inter-war years included Adolf Busch, 1934 whose acclaimed series of Busch Concerts in the 1930s helped to sustain the popularity of the p To mark the 100th anniversary p Lamond, 21 years after string quartets, and Albert of Beethoven’s death, the Columbia his first all-Beethoven Sammons and William Gramophone Company brought its concert at the Hall, was Murdoch. Sammons and recent invention to the Wigmore also the first to bring a Murdoch gave regular all- Hall stage and played a concert complete piano sonata Beethoven sonata recitals consisting entirely of gramophone cycle to our stage in and also popularised his records, including Dame Clara 1934. He would continue string and piano trios as Butt singing ‘In questa tomba’ performing Beethoven’s part of the Chamber Music and the Royal Philharmonic works here throughout Players with Lionel Tertis Orchestra playing movements from the Second World War. and Felix Salmond. Beethoven’s symphonies.

1937

1938

1943

p Increasing interest in Early Music and historical performance led to concerts like p There is no sense that this 1937 afternoon with Lucille Wallace p Isolde Menges’ string quartet was Beethoven’s music suffered and Clifford Curzon, charting the evolution instrumental in raising the profile of any kind of drop in popularity of music for keyboard instruments. Clifford Beethoven’s string quartets during this during the Second World Curzon performed the Piano Sonata in period. This complete cycle series in War; in fact, he is a constant D minor Op. 31 No. 2 on an early pianoforte 1938 sparked a trend, with other quartets presence. The pianist Vera from the collection of Arnold Dolmetsch. following in the post-war years. Benenson gave a series of all-Beethoven concerts across the 1940s, while the Czech Trio brought our first ever all- Beethoven piano trio recital. 1951 This programme shows the Rosé Quartet playing movements from Op. 59 No. 2 and Op. 130 at a memorial 1962 event in 1943, held to commemorate Max Reinhardt, director of the 1935 film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

p The Hall celebrated its p The post-war period t Few would be surprised 50-year anniversary in brought a new vogue that the young Lindsay String 1951 with two concerts, for performances of the Quartet’s Wigmore Hall debut in the first of which ended complete Beethoven piano 1970 featured Beethoven, as the with a performance of the sonatas. Given by Alfred quartet would go on to become String Quartet in F Brendel in 1962, this series legendary devotees of his music. Op. 95 by the recently- followed hot on the heels 1970 formed Amadeus Quartet. of series by Hans-Richter Haaser and Detlef Kraus. FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 | WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK u

t More surprising places for Beethoven to turn up during the 1970s included an evening of poetry by Paul Roche, read by Sybil Thorndike to a background of piano music. In this case the Rondo a Capriccio Op. 129 accompanied a poem entitled ‘The death of two crabs’; meanwhile, the Plectrum Musica Quartet performed a Beethoven string quartet on mandolin, guitar and Spanish lute.

q The 1979 City of Portsmouth 1976 International String Quartet Competition winners’ recital ended with a performance of the String Quartet in E minor Op. 59 1977 No. 2 by four young Hungarian musicians, then still known as the Takács-Nagy Quartet.

p The 75th anniversary concerts p In 1977, Graham Johnson’s Songmakers’ of 1976 secured the future of Almanac appeared on the Wigmore Hall scene Wigmore Hall, in no small part due for the first time in a programme of song to mark to the opening concert by Arthur the 150th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. The Rubinstein – a concert which songs of Beethoven had been in a sharp decline ended with his announcement that ever since the Second World War, perhaps seen this had been his farewell to the as a relic of a more sentimental age. Concerts stage. He opened the recital with such as this helped to revive them for a new the Sonata in E flat Op. 31 No. 3. generation of singers and audiences alike. 1979

t Our current Beethoven Festival celebrating 250 years since the composer’s birth is not the first 1980 Beethoven Festival to be held here. In 1989, the Lindsay String Quartet, following the huge success of their Haydn festival two years before, brought to the Wigmore Hall stage a festival celebrating every aspect of Beethoven’s life and music. 27 concerts over two weeks gave audiences an unprecedented opportunity to immerse themselves p The Nash Ensemble’s innovative in the composer’s world, with programming set chamber works, performances from The Lindsays, song and piano repertoire in new Steven Isserlis, Richard Goode, contexts, with annual themed series György Pauk, Peter Frankl, Ralph such as this 1980/81 spotlight on Kirshbaum and ‘Young Artists’ Beethoven’s contemporaries. concerts by Tasmin Little and Gerald 1989 Finley among a host of other artists.

WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK | FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 Pianist Tom Poster talks to Andrew Stewart about Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, its compelling Wigmore Hall debut concerts and celebration of diversity. UNITED WE STAND Arguments about how things are and how things ought to be soon escape the moral philosopher’s ivory tower to sow division in turbulent times. But they can also show how we might work together, to live together, to build better, fairer societies. The idea of forging union from diversity stands behind Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. The ensemble, set to make its Wigmore Hall debut this season with a weekend residency, grew from the concerns of its co-founders, the pianist Tom Poster and his violinist wife Elena Urioste. Their enterprise, based on the premise of performing great compositions with outstanding artists, aims to celebrate difference and explore shared values through the medium of chamber music. Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective’s Wigmore weekend comprises works for every combination from duo to septet. The programme opens on Friday 14 February with Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel, arranged by �It’s about setting an Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective makes Franz Hasenöhrl as a lusty ‘frolic’ for violin, a gentle point by celebrating the breadth double bass, horn, bassoon and clarinet, example for the younger of chamber music and the diversity of the and continues with Fanny Mendelssohn’s group’s musicians. The artform, he notes, Fantasia in G minor for cello and piano, generation of audiences binds musicians and their audiences together. Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro in A flat The ensemble’s ethos is expressed in its Op. 70, Glinka’s Trio Pathétique and who don’t always see a motto, ‘chamber music for everyone’, and Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet. Mozart’s diverse collective of classical desire to make music for and with people Bassoon Quartet, an arrangement by Iain regardless of their nationality, skin colour, Farrington of the Bassoon Sonata K292, musicians on stage.’ gender, sexual orientation, age and social Ernő Dohnányi’s Sextet in C Op. 37 and background. ‘Chamber music is a great Beethoven’s Septet in E flat Op. 20 are on backgrounds, he adds, is not part of some equaliser,’ says Poster. ‘There are many the bill on Saturday 15 February. politically correct box-ticking process or an ways of approaching diversity, but Elena and ‘Our audiences respond to meeting the exercise in social engineering; rather it reflects I realised the wonderful people we work with artists in different guises, hearing them a positive response to the fractious state of in Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective reflect a in twos or threes and then as one larger world affairs and the rise of intolerance. representative cross-section of the world. ensemble in the same concert,’ notes ‘I think all musicians are troubled by the We have a responsibility to show children Poster. ‘I love the jigsaw element of devising conflicts that are tearing communities and and not-so-young people from all programmes that show the greatest possible countries apart,’ reflects Poster. ‘When backgrounds that this music is for them. If variety of music. There’s so much great we thought about how we, as performers, you’re a pupil at a primary school where the chamber music that’s overlooked, but our could help heal division, we realised that we majority of students are black and you go to flexible formation allows us to explore already work with a diverse group of people a symphony or chamber concert and there’s some wonderful pieces that are not well and chose to celebrate that. It’s about setting not a single person of colour on stage, then I known.’ Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective’s an example for the younger generation of think it’s less likely that you’ll say, “Yes, that’s mix of familiar and obscure repertoire, audiences who don’t always see a diverse something I want to do” than if you see multiple voices and musicians from different collective of classical musicians on stage.’ people who look like you.’

FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 | WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK 9 Rough seas and rutted roads proved no barrier to musicians in the 1700s. Peter Whelan talks to Andrew Stewart about Hanoverian Britain’s rich musical life, the composers who travelled from London to Dublin and Edinburgh and his Wigmore Hall residency with Ensemble Marsyas.

Compositions by an Italian castrato who of information and the music toCELTIC show ‘Tenducci escaped to Dublin, leaving his CONNECTIONS preserved the shrivelled offcuts of his Ireland’s long heritage in classical music.’ debts in London,’ explains Whelan. ‘He adolescent visit to the barber-surgeon and Dubourg, who succeeded Kusser as caused a scandal by marrying Dorothea a demon fiddle player who led the band Master and Composer of the State Music in or Dora Maunsell in a backstreet Catholic for the première of Messiah are among the Dublin, cast a considerable influence over wedding, complete with mumblings in Latin. works programmed by Ensemble Marsyas music making in Ireland. One of Francesco The problem was not that he was a castrato for their residency this season. The four Geminiani’s star pupils, he led the band but that he was Catholic, while she came concert series, at the invitation of John for the first performance of Messiah and from a wealthy Protestant family! He was Gilhooly, opens on 30 December with a entranced audiences with his elaborate pursued around Ireland, imprisoned in Cork special Hogmanay bill and continues on improvisations and wild solo cadenzas. before hightailing it with Dora to Edinburgh in 30 March, 26 May and 1 July to cover a broad Dublin’s international community of musicians 1768. Dora’s family was mystified to discover range of repertoire associated with 18th- included Geminiani, who lived in the city at that she was pregnant. Her father hired century Dublin, Edinburgh and London. various times in the 1730s and 1740s, the someone to visit Siena to find the man who Its contents offer a welcome corrective to Italian castrato Matteo Rauzzini, whose pupils had turned Tenducci into a castrato.’ The what the historian EP Thompson called ‘the included the tenor Michael Kelly, and Giusto barber-surgeon’s testimony and reports that enormous condescension of posterity’, the Ferdinando Tenducci, the high-living castrato the singer always carried the remnants of his patronising way in which figures from the who eloped with the teenage daughter of a castration in a red-velvet purse confirmed that past are so easily marginalised as incidental wealthy Limerick lawyer. Tenducci was not the father of Dora’s child. or insignificant. A virtuoso on harpsichord and baroque bassoon, Peter Whelan is brimming with ideas about neglected music from an age

of expansion and discovery. The Irish-born © Mirjam Devriendt musician’s relationship with Wigmore Hall includes solo appearances as bassoonist with groups such as The English Concert, La Serenissima and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and dates with Ensemble Marsyas. ‘It’s the ideal place to play and listen to period-instrument performances,’ he observes. ‘Wigmore Hall has the perfect acoustics in so many ways and such a warm and appreciative audience. I’m really excited about our Ensemble Marsyas Residency this season. We’ll look at music written for Dublin in Handel’s time and after, and explore the movement of native and foreign musicians between London, Dublin and Edinburgh. There are so many wonderful works by virtuoso performer-composers who were vastly popular at the time but are almost unknown today.’ Whelan’s passion for the music is matched by his knowledge of the robust pan-European musical ecosystem that developed in the 1700s. ‘Musicians worked out exactly the best times to travel across land and sea,’ he notes. ‘They were able to form an international touring circuit and, like Handel, achieve fame far from their home countries. Many outstanding performers travelled to Ireland and Scotland. In Dublin you find people like Johann Sigismund Kusser, a Hungarian who became composer to the vice-regal court at Dublin Castle in the early 1700s, the English violinist and composer Matthew Dubourg, and the Italians Francesco Geminiani and Tommaso Giordani. We now have the sources

10 WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK | FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 CELTIC CONNECTIONS‘Soon after he arrived in Edinburgh, Ensemble Marsyas is named for the Greek Edinburgh Musical Society, and recordings Tenducci gave a concert at St Cecilia’s Hall satyr Marsyas, who dared challenge the god of Handel’s secular cantata Apollo e Dafne, and the programme for it has survived. Apollo to a musical duel and paid for his hubris quartets and concertos for wind instruments We’ll perform some of the Scottish tunes with his life. The group made its international by Johann Friedrich Fasch and trio sonatas by that JC Bach, the ‘London Bach’, arranged breakthrough in 2007 with a much-admired Jan Dismas Zelenka. for Tenducci as part of our Hogmanay victory at the International Music Antiqua In addition to chamber music for wind celebration. We’ve built our residency around Competition in Bruges and has built a strong instruments, Ensemble Marsyas often the touring circuit that linked 18th-century reputation since with critically acclaimed expands to take on projects for orchestra, London, Dublin and Edinburgh. So many recordings for the Linn label, imaginative choir and vocal soloists. The flexible approach musicians travelled to and from Ireland in programming and understanding of the fluid is open to instrumental combinations that can the 1700s. It seems likely that Dubourg boundaries between music written for formal seem unusual today but which contributed to invited Handel to Dublin. He knew Handel concerts and tunes performed in taverns, the abundant variety of sounds heard in the was having a tough time in London and that pleasure gardens and coffee houses. The cities and large towns of Hanoverian Britain. there was a financial killing to be had from ensemble’s discography includes Edinburgh Its Wigmore Hall residency flows naturally presenting concerts in Dublin. Handel wrote 1742, an album comprising Handel’s Concerto from Peter Whelan’s revelatory project to about the high standard of violin playing in for French horns, the Concerti Grossi Op. 3 reconstruct the Irish State Musick, works Dublin and I’m sure was energised by the and ‘Old Scots Tunes’ by Francesco Barsanti, written during the period in Anglo-Irish success he had there.’ works written for or associated with the history known as the Ascendancy, the boom time of Georgian Dublin’s development as the second largest city in the British Isles. ‘Buildings were shooting up in Dublin, money was to be made by various means, dubious and otherwise, and there was a burgeoning music scene,’ he notes. ‘Reading about the city’s boom led me to explore the backstory of what Handel would have discovered when he came to Dublin in 1742 for the first performance of Messiah. Dublin’s position as Britain’s second city lasted over a hundred years. That built strong connections between musicians on both sides of the Irish Sea. Our Wigmore Hall residency will explore Handel’s links to Dublin, look at the more tenuous links between Purcell and Ireland, and trace the connections between Mozart and Irish singers, especially Michael Kelly, who sang Basilio in the first performance of Le nozze di Figaro.’ Kelly, adds Peter Whelan, was raised listening to the virtuoso musicians who performed at Dublin Castle, where his father, a wine merchant, served as Master of Ceremonies. ‘Michael went to Italy in the 1780s, where he was known as Signor O’Kelly or Ochelli, and was recruited for the Italian Opera in Vienna. His Reminiscences follow the old Irish line of never allowing the facts to get in the way of a good story! But they paint a vivid picture of the musicians who came to his father’s house in search of the best wine in Dublin and gave young Michael lessons. There are so many interesting connections to be explored and we’ll bring some of those to light at Wigmore Hall this season’.

Ensemble Marsyas will begin its residency on Monday 30 December at 7.30pm

FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 | WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK 11 MUSICAL CONVERSATIONS... with Freya Waley-Cohen, Associate Composer, and Claire Roberts, Rosie Johnson RPS/Wigmore Hall Apprentice Composer 2019/20

F: How did you get into composing?

C: When I was 13, I entered a competition called Young Composer of Dyfed covering three counties, and I live in one of the counties. They put on a competition in different age categories and get a really good professional ensemble to workshop your pieces. I was very lucky to have that experience when I was 13 with a string quartet. I went on to enter the competition again when I was 16 with a marimba duo, O Duo, and that year I won the competition and thought, ‘I want to be a composer now.’

F: That’s so nice! What were your early influences?

C: Because I was learning about the marimba ensemble, I listened to a lot of Steve Reich, and minimalist music which used pitched percussion as a rhythmic phasing technique, so I got really into that sort of composing. I also got really interested in impressionist music through my violin playing. I did an orchestral course where we played a concert of French music – Debussy’s La Mer, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé – and I just fell in love with that kind of soundworld.

F: Was it because you played the violin that © Stephan Small it occurred to you to first apply for the Young Composer competition at 13? Singers. When they first called me up, they country, society, age groups. I wanted to find said they had a new charity called Finding out how it’s affected both their sense of identity C: Yes. Harmony which is about bringing people and their relationships with people that they together through music, and looking at rifts in love, and if they have managed to find a way F: I was also a violinist growing up (although society and how singing together can bring to have conversations about it despite those I don’t play in front of anyone anymore!) people together. They asked me to write about differences, how they’ve managed that. So I Brexit, but something about people’s similarities have a lot of very fascinating and sometimes C: What are you working on at the moment? rather than their political differences. I have very sad personal testimonies from people and interviewed and sent questions to as many now I am turning them into a song! What are F: I’m working on a song for The King’s people as possible from different parts of the you working on?

C: That’s going to be really exciting, and today I got to meet some people from the Wigmore Hall Learning department who go and do interactive work in schools or across other areas of our society, working with people who have suffered domestic abuse, people who are living with dementia, people who come to Wigmore for concert experiences for young children or expectant parents. I’ll be able to attend and learn about how they can change my outlook not just on the music I’m creating, but generally what’s happening in the arts world.

F: I think that stuff is so important for society in general and the future of music. It’s really amazing to be doing that.

C: What are you looking forward to about being Wigmore Hall’s Associate Composer?

F: It’s really lovely to be working with you again and seeing how you develop, because we’ve worked together once before on a one-off project in Wales, and at that point we only had one session together. So it’s really nice to be able to see you blossom as an amazing composer and artist. I’m excited about writing a trio for the Albion Quartet for C: A piece for a competition which is C: I’m probably influenced more by non- 2 November, which I am also working on at anonymous, so maybe I shouldn’t say! musical areas of the arts and composers the same time as this King’s Singers piece. that aren’t strictly contemporary classical. I’m really excited about that November day F: Can you tell us anything about it without I’m interested in composers who’ve taken in general because it’s so wonderful to have giving it away? their music to other spaces and collaborated curated these two concerts and to be talking across the arts, so that links to enjoying about what it all means to me in between. C: It’s going to be a set of miniatures. The working with Harry, who’s an amazing poet, After that, I’m doing a song cycle for Katie first one is called ‘I Knew’, the second one and I’m looking to be working with some Bray and the Britten Sinfonia players and is ‘I Knew You’, and the third is ‘I Knew You dancers in January. I like to take inspiration revisiting an arrangement I did of Mahler’s Didn’t Love Me’. from visual arts as well as composers who Rückert Lieder to tweak for them. It’s all Harry Jelley has written the text. I gave are in the post-minimalist, indie-classical really exciting! him those titles and wanted to see what he kind of area who collaborate across genres. did with it. The idea for the titles came from There are a lot of groups and ensembles in a Noname song, who is somebody I really like America, like yMusic and Eighth Blackbird, listening to at the minute. who are doing really cool stuff across genres, LEARNING FESTIVAL 2020: linking classical music with other areas of MUSICAL CONVERSATIONS F: I really like Noname as well! music within our culture. Wigmore Hall Learning’s festival in 2020 takes place between Monday C: Have you seen her Tiny Desk Concert? It’s F: Cool! What are you looking forward to 10 and Saturday 22 February 2020. really good! as the Rosie Johnson RPS/Wigmore Hall Musical Conversations invites you to Apprentice Composer? explore the many different ways we F: I haven’t, I’ve just listened to her album. create, perform, listen to and respond I will check out Tiny Desk when I get home! C: I’m looking forward to the commission to music. We delve into the concept of I asked you what your early influences itself, that’s really exciting because I get to musical conversation, a notion at the were, and we’ve talked a little bit about write for a really cool ensemble that are heart of chamber music, and invite you, Harry and being influenced by his words unique in the kind of stuff they’re doing. your ears and your voices to take part. and the collaboration. Can you tell me more about what inspires you now and F: It actually ties into what you were just For more information see how you would describe your approach saying about the type of sounds and music and wigmore-hall.org.uk/musicalconversations and style? cross-genre, cross-arts idea, so that’s great.

FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 | WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK 13 TALKING BEETHOVEN WITH JONATHAN BISS

Following the first evening concert Audience member: Could I ask you, rather had just done really pretty much unthinkingly in his Beethoven Piano Sonata than playing, how (if at all) you listen to my whole life. It forced me to ask myself a these sonatas? Do you listen to lots of other lot of difficult questions, like sometimes I series on Sunday 29 September interpretations, take on board ideas from had to distinguish between the things where 2019, Jonathan Biss hosted a others and maybe listen to some where you I thought, ‘Well, that’s really essential to the post-concert Q&A in the Hall. think ‘Well, that’s not how I would want to piece, you can’t not do that and still be faithful do it, but actually yes I rather like it’? to the music’, and then realise that other Below are some highlights from things were just very personal, and I should let this discussion. Jonathan: First of all I should say that while the student go their own way and not impose I’m working on and performing a piece I really my own maybe bad idea on them. try not to listen, and I said yesterday [in his In terms of the Coursera class, yes – I never Preceding concert programme: Coursera talk on 28 September*] that it’s kind saw the faces of the students, they were of a joke and kind of not a joke that I’d rather recorded on video, but knowing that many of the Beethoven commit my own sins than perpetrate someone people had no exposure to Beethoven forced Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor Op. 2 No. 1 else’s. I guess another way I could put it is me to go to the core, and to say ‘What are the Piano Sonata No. 9 in E Op. 14 No. 1 that what I want most to be able to do in a things about Beethoven generally that someone Piano Sonata No. 13 in E flat Op. 27 No. 1 concert is to convey a relationship between has to know? What are the things about ‘Quasi una fantasia’ me and the music that’s honest, sincere, and this piece that are fundamental?’ That really interval unself-conscious. The more I’m comparing focusses one’s mind and energy in a certain myself or my ideas against someone else’s, way, because with one of these sonatas, my Piano Sonata No. 12 in A flat Op. 26 the more likely I think I am to let that self- lectures are usually an hour long and I could talk ‘Funeral March’ consciousness creep in. Having said that, I’ve for a year and just scratch the surface! I couldn’t Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Op. 53 ‘Waldstein’ spent my life listening to live performances tell you ‘Well, now I play that F sharp louder’, it’s and recordings of these pieces. Many of them not that concrete, but I think in a deeper way it have been incredibly inspiring to me. Some definitely has had an effect. Audience member: What do you think it of them I listened to so many times I’m sure is about the Op. 26 that really attracted that performance is etched into my mind and Audience member: These pieces that Chopin’s attention? is, in some way, part of my conception of the you’ve played tonight cover a 10-year piece – even if I would rather it not be. To period in Beethoven’s musical development. Jonathan: It’s an interesting question. Chopin, answer the other part of the question: yes, I’ve I wonder how you would describe or unlike most of the great composers of his era, absolutely had the experience with Beethoven articulate how he developed as a composer claimed not to like Beethoven, but this was one and with any music of hearing a performance in those 10 years and perhaps how he piece that he admitted to liking. It’s interesting and thinking, ‘I would not do that, but it was developed as a pianist? Do you find that obviously that this sonata has a funeral incredibly powerful’. If I listen to something there are new challenges coming with the march and Chopin himself famously wrote a and I can understand how the person came to slightly later pieces in this set of sonatas funeral march sonata, and maybe this was his the decision, I’m usually convinced by it even that you’ve played tonight, or not? inspiration. It’s just a hypothesis, but Op. 26 is if I would maybe come to a different one. the first of Beethoven’s sonatas to really be, in a Jonathan: I think there are a few major points sense, freeform, to depart from a very classical Audience member: I really enjoyed the in terms of how he developed as a composer convention; it starts with this glorious set of courses you put on Coursera on the and as a writer for piano. I think the sonatas variations. I think it would have been a shock to Beethoven sonatas.* I’m wondering if up to Op. 22 are conventional in terms of that audience that instead of a sonata allegro it the process of developing those courses form. They’re not conventional in every way, begins in this leisurely way – and I think maybe influenced you in some way, how you view but Haydn and Mozart would have recognised Chopin liked the slight unconventionality of it. I and interpret those sonatas? them as piano sonatas. From Op. 26 (in this also think – and I have to be very careful about concert there were two sonatas from that how I phrase this – there is this notion that Jonathan: Every kind of teaching I’ve done period, Op. 26 and Op. 27 No. 1) where it’s Beethoven didn’t write beautiful melody, which has had an influence on my playing. Like most clearly a conscious choice: is nonsense. But there is something particularly musicians, so much of what I do is first of all ‘I’m gonna really reimagine what a piano songful and beautiful about Op. 26’s first by instinct, and even before I started giving sonata can look like and be shaped like’, movement and Chopin, who had this incredible the Coursera class, when I started teaching and actually all four in that group including gift for bel canto on the piano, he probably my own students, it was such a tricky thing ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Pastoral’ are really major would have appreciated that. to have to say why about a lot of things that I reimaginings of what a sonata can be.

14 WIGMORE-HALL.ORG.UK | FRIENDS OFFICE 020 7258 8230 And then, I think one of the big stories of Beethoven’s evolution, and this will get into the question of how the ‘Waldstein’ is new, is that early in his life the pieces begin heavier and grow lighter, and by the end of his life it’s really precisely the opposite. If you look at Op. 111 which ends with this monumental statement, or you look at the ‘Hammerklavier’ which has the longest and greatest slow movement ever written, tying them to this massive craggy fugue, it’s like 27 minutes of music as a unit at the end of the piece. So he totally reversed the model and I think the ‘Waldstein’ is really a huge pivot point in that way because you feel when it starts, even though it’s pianissimo at the bottom of the piano, you feel that this is an enormous structure coming into being; it builds and it builds, right the way to the end, and I think it’s the first sonata where, if you consider the introduction part of the last movement, that’s the longer movement and that was totally new at that point. So that’s one of the major things that changed. The other thing I would just say in terms of his development (I mean, it’s a huge topic, but just to give some major points) is that I think you can hear in the early period that this was a person who wanted to prove himself. You can hear the desire to be impressive; pianistically impressive, compositionally impressive, ‘look at all the ideas I have’. While obviously the later pieces are as full of ideas, there’s less and less interest in that external aspect – it’s more personal exploration each time out. So that feels very different and I felt I was conscious of it tonight, even playing the ‘Waldstein’, which is by no means a late piece, felt really different from the earlier ones, and when I play the start of Op. 109, it feels like a private communion in a way that I wouldn’t say is the case in the early pieces.

*Jonathan Biss is hosting talks about his Coursera lectures concurrent with his sonata series at Wigmore Hall. The next talk will be on Friday 20 December at 11.00am. See wigmore-hall.org.uk for further details.

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