WASO AND THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC PRESENT Side by Side Friday 26 July 2019, 7.30pm Perth Concert Hall The West Australian Symphony Orchestra respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians and Elders of the Indigenous Nations across Western Australia and on whose Lands we work. SPECIAL EVENT West Australian Symphony Orchestra and the Australian National Academy of Music present Side by Side PROKOFIEV Selections from Romeo and Juliet (31 mins) Introduction to Act 1 (Act 1, No.1) Dance of the Knights (Act 1, No.13) Introduction to Act 3 (Act 3, No.37) Dance of the Five Couples (Act 2, No.24) The Festival Continues (Act 2, No.30) Mercutio (Act 1, No.15) Romeo Avenges Mercutio’s Death (Act 2, No.35) The Fight (Act 1, No.6) Finale to Act 2 (Act 2, No.36) Juliet’s Funeral (Act 3, No.51) Death of Juliet (Act 3, No.52) Interval (20 mins) SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.7 Leningrad (80 mins) Allegretto Moderato (poco allegretto) Adagio – Moderato risoluto – Adagio – Allegro non troppo – Moderato Simone Young conductor ANAM and Simone Young are supported by the Minderoo Foundation. Wesfarmers Arts Pre-concert Talk Find out more about the music in the concert with this week’s speaker. The Pre-concert Talk will take place at 6.45pm in the Terrace Level Foyer. Listen to WASO This performance is recorded for broadcast on ABC Classic on Sunday, 4 August 2019 at 12pm AWST (or 10am online). For further details visit abc.net.au/classic 2 About The Artists Photo: Philipp Rathmer Philipp Photo: Photo: Cameron Jamieson Cameron Photo: Simone Young AM Australian National Conductor Academy of Music (ANAM) Simone Young AM, has been General The Australian National Academy of Manager and Music Director of the Music (ANAM) is dedicated to training Hamburg State Opera, Music Director the most exceptional young musicians of the Philharmonic State Orchestra from Australia and New Zealand. It is Hamburg, Music Director of Opera a place in which musicians fulfil their Australia, Chief Conductor of the Bergen potential as performers and music leaders; Philharmonic Orchestra, and Principal distinguished by their skill, imagination Guest Conductor of the Gulbenkian and courage, and by their determined Orchestra, Lisbon. She is currently contribution to a vibrant music culture. Principal Guest Conductor of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. Renowned for its innovation and energy, ANAM is committed to pushing the This season she returns to Zurich boundaries of how music is presented Opera and the Bavarian, Berlin and and performed. In over 180 public events Vienna State Opera companies. She each year, ANAM musicians learn and will also conduct the Los Angeles, New transform through performances in York, BBC, Stockholm and New Japan venues across Australia, regularly sharing Philharmonic Orchestras; San Francisco, the stage and performing alongside the Detroit, Chicago, Queensland, and world’s finest artists. Sydney Symphony Orchestras; the NDR Symphony and Deutsches Symphonie- With an outstanding track record of Orchester, Berlin. success, ANAM alumni work in orchestras and chamber ensembles around the world, Her accolades include Chevalier de perform as soloists, contribute to educating l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Goethe the next generation of musicians, and win Institute Medal, Sir Bernard Heinze major national and international awards. and Helpmann Awards. Simone Young holds honorary doctorates from Griffith ANAM aims to inspire these future music University, Monash University and the leaders and invites audiences to share University of New South Wales. the journey. Visit anam.com.au for more information 3 About The Music Sergei Prokofiev (1891 -1953) Selections from Romeo and Juliet, Op.64 Introduction to Act 1 (Act 1, No.1) Dance of the Knights (Act 1, No.13) Introduction to Act 3 (Act 3, No.37) Dance of the Five Couples (Act 2, No.24) The Festival Continues (Act 2, No.30) Mercutio (Act 1, No.15) Romeo Avenges Mercutio’s Death (Act 2, No.35) The Fight (Act 1, No.6) Finale to Act 2 (Act 2, No.36) Juliet’s Funeral (Act 3, No.51) The score is notable for its clarity of Death of Juliet (Act 3, No.52) orchestration though this does not preclude moments of great opulence, Prokofiev may have regretted returning such as the multi-divisi strings which give to the Soviet Union in the mid-1930s the young lovers a halo of rich sound. after having left in 1918 to further his The full ballet contains over 50 numbers career abroad. But he was able to forge a and lasts well over 2 hours (excerpts modern style of music that could appeal from which you will hear in this concert). to the broader audience that Soviet Prokofiev made three official suites music-making was now aiming to reach. and conductors often devise their own Perhaps the greatest of these ‘light- versions (as Simone Young has done for serious’ pieces – and one that ensured this concert) but listeners will easily pick a precarious period of grace for the out highlights from Shakespeare’s play, composer – was the ballet Romeo and such as the fight or Juliet’s death. Juliet. Yet it had a difficult birth. Adapted from a note by Gordon Kerry © 2005 Leningrad’s Kirov Theatre rejected the proposal because of the tragic ending First performance: 30 December 1938, Brno. Soviet premiere with revised score: 11 January (‘the dead cannot dance’) leading 1940, Kirov Ballet. Prokofiev to consider a happy ending. Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre commissioned First WASO performance: 23-24 June 1972 the work, but found it ‘too complicated’, (extracts). Tibor Paul, conductor. although this may have been simply an Most recent WASO performance: 13-15 aspect of the composer’s fluctuating November 2014. Marko Letonja, conductor. fortunes under Stalin. Instrumentation: Two flutes and piccolo, two The premiere was given in Brno, oboes and cor anglais, two B flat clarinets (second doubling E flat clarinet) and bass Czechoslovakia in 1938. After much clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon; revision it finally made it to the stage in six horns, three trumpets and cornet, three Moscow in 1940. Musicologist Stephen trombones, tuba; tenor saxophone; viola Walsh calls the ballet a ‘brilliant fusion of d’amore; timpani and percussion; two harps; post-Imperial romanticism and scuttling, piano and celesta; strings. unpredictable Prokofievism’. 4 Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 -1975) Symphony No.7 in C, Op.60 Leningrad Allegretto Moderato (poco allegretto) Adagio – Moderato risoluto – Adagio – Allegro non troppo – Moderato In 1941, Leningrad (now St Petersburg) was besieged by the German army. Over the radio on 17 September Shostakovich announced that he had finished the first two movements of a symphonic work. ‘I announce this so that those listening down in a piccolo and violin solo. The to me now may know that life in our city patter of a snare drum opens probably goes on as usual…’ the most notorious single passage in all Shostakovich was evacuated from of Shostakovich’s music: a march built Leningrad to Moscow, where he upon a single melody and a pervasive composed the third and fourth accompanying rhythm, building from the movements of his Seventh Symphony, of a single instrument to the of and the premiere took place on 5 March the full orchestra. There is an obvious 1942 in Kuibishev. Its Leningrad premiere, similarity here to Ravel’s Bolero – as conducted by Karl Eliasberg, took place Shostakovich reportedly said to Isaak on 9 August 1942 while the city was still Glikman at the time. under siege. The performance was given Dissonance and slithering chromaticism by an orchestra depleted by war and continue to accumulate; eventually a illness, in a hall with a bomb-damaged whole extra brass section (held in reserve roof, with a special order given to the until this point) is brought in, with a Leningrad artillery to knock out as many startling change of key again paralleling German guns as possible immediately Bolero. Finally the symphony’s opening before the performance. music returns in what Richard Taruskin The story of the symphony’s first has described as a ‘horripilating climax’. performance in the USA is also well known: Perhaps the real climax of the movement, Stokowski sought the premiere, with however, is not a sound but a silence: Toscanini securing it for himself, trading after several pages of fortissimo struggle heavily on his anti-fascist credentials. between the march theme and the symphony’s opening music, there are two Shostakovich initially gave titles to one-beat rests for the whole orchestra. the movements (War, Reminiscences, Then, the struggle abruptly ceases. A Russia’s Vastness, and Victory), which distant reminder of the march concludes were later withdrawn. The symphony the movement. At the time, the march opens with a sturdy theme given out by episode was held to represent specifically the strings in octaves, punctuated by the siege of Leningrad. Shostakovich’s the timpani and trumpets. This yields to comment to Glikman perhaps suggests a more lyrical section, eventually fading something wider than a single event. 5 About The Music The remaining movements do not feature We read in Testimony: ‘The “invasion such concrete imagery, and so have theme” has nothing to do with the been unfortunately neglected, despite attack. I was thinking of other enemies of containing some of Shostakovich’s most humanity when I composed the theme…’ deeply felt music. Shostakovich described Controversy has raged over the the second movement as an ‘intermezzo’. authenticity of Testimony. But even those The third movement is dominated by a who doubt these ‘memoirs’ acknowledge chorale from the winds, and a recitative- that there seems to be much truth behind like section from the violins. As with the them.