Wednesday 18 & Thursday 19 September 2019 RATTLE: ROOTS & ORIGINS RACHMANINOV SECOND SYMPHONY Brahms Piano Concerto No 2 WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS Interval Farnham U3A Concert Club Rachmaninov Symphony No 2 Adele Friedland & Friends Hertford U3A Concert Group Sir Simon Rattle conductor Gerrards Cross Community Association Emanuel Ax piano Ian Fyfe & Friends Maria Sturdy-Morton & Friends Concert ends approx 10pm Dartford Grammar School BRAHMS University of North Carolina FREE PRE-CONCERT PERFORMANCE Cazenove Capital 6.30pm Barbican Foyers The John Lyon School Fanfares played by Signum Brass, a quintet & of Guildhall School musicians RACHMANINOV 46 Johannes Brahms Piano Concerto No 2 in B-flat major Op 83 1878–81 / programme note by Stephen Johnson 1 Allegro non troppo least since his early 20s. His First Piano That said, there are passages in Brahms’ as could be imagined – a superb dramatic 2 Allegro appassionato Concerto (1854–58) actually began life as a Second Piano Concerto where the listener foil. It’s hard to imagine conventional 3 Andante symphony and Brahms only gradually gave is more likely to be reminded of the spirit concerto triumphalism after a movement 4 Allegretto grazioso up the idea of retaining the original slow of chamber music, not least at the very like this, so instead Brahms crowns his Scherzo movement – its themes were later beginning, where the soloist quietly replies symphony-concerto with an unusually Emanuel Ax piano reprocessed in the movement ‘All flesh is to and echoes the theme presented by a light-footed, playful finale: even in the as grass’ from the German Requiem. The solo horn. But then the piano begins a long gypsyish melancholy of the second theme have written a tiny, tiny piano Violin Concerto (1878) was also originally forceful solo, building up tension before (woodwind alternating with strings) there ‘ concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp of intended to have a Scherzo; that idea was handing the baton over to the orchestra are glimpses of an ironic smile. At last the a scherzo’, wrote Brahms to his soon dropped, but the material was clearly for an extended symphonic passage. From tempo quickens and the concerto ends with close confidante, Elisabet von Herzogenberg, too good to be discarded, and before long this grows a first movement that is not a display of relaxed, witty brilliance that is on 7 July 1881. Von Herzogenberg knew the it resurfaced in the Allegro appassionato of only rich in contrast and imagination but unique in Brahms. The ghost of the giant composer well enough to take that kind of the Second Piano Concerto. compellingly organic. Many composers Beethoven has been faced, exorcised and remark with several sacks of salt. So too did would have been happy to go on from that finally forgotten. his friend, the surgeon Theodor Billroth, to Interestingly, that stormy second movement to a meditative, lyrical slow movement. whom Brahms posted the manuscript, with is closer in style and spirit to Beethoven’s But Brahms intensifies the drama with his the accompanying message: ‘I am sending colossal symphonic scherzos than anything stirring scherzo second movement – the you a few small piano pieces’. Billroth in Brahms’ four numbered symphonies. dark, impassioned minor-key outer sections would only have had to glance at the score Brahms once complained of the difficulty of framing a blazing major-key trio section. to realise that what Brahms had sent him composing in Beethoven’s shadow: ‘You’ve was in fact unusually ambitious: a hybrid no idea how hard it is with such a giant Now follows the slow movement. It begins of concerto and symphony, laid out in four marching behind you!’. So it was crucial for with a long, exquisite melody for solo big movements instead of the conventional Brahms to find a solution on his own terms – cello, to which the soloist eventually adds three – all hugely challenging for the soloist, not by simply marching ahead of Beethoven, their own reflective commentary. Stormier but with the orchestra as equal protagonist but by extending Beethoven’s triumphs music follows, but the true heart of the in a sustained, developing musical drama. into new territory. One can perhaps sense movement comes in a slower pianissimo something of his pride in that achievement passage just before the return of the cello Interval – 20 minutes The idea of creating a four-movement in the dedication of the Second Piano theme, in which the piano seems to float There are bars on all levels of the concerto, with its roots as firmly in the Concerto: here at last, Brahms had found dreamily through languid, slow-moving concert hall. Ice cream can be bought Beethovenian symphony as in his grander something worthy to offer ‘to his beloved clarinet and string figures. It is about as far at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. concertos, had haunted Brahms at friend and teacher Eduard Marxsen’. removed from the turbulence of the scherzo Programme Notes 47 Johannes Brahms in Profile 1833–97 / profile by Andrew Stewart ohannes Brahms was born while the relationship did not develop as him freedom to experiment and de­­v el op in Hamburg, the son of an Brahms wished, their close friendship did new ideas, the relationship crowned by the impecunious musician; his mother survive. In 1862 Brahms moved to Vienna premiere of his Fourth Symphony of 1884. later opened a haberdashery business to where he found fame as a conductor, pianist help lift the family out of poverty. Showing and composer and met Richard Wagner In his later years, Brahms considered that he early musical promise he became a pupil of the following year. Brahms was appointed might retire from composing and began to the distinguished local pianist and composer to the position of conductor at the Vienna find companionship in escorting Alice Barbi, Eduard Marxsen, who had been a personal Singakademie. To the surprise of audiences a 28-year-old mezzo-soprano (to whom acquaintance of Beethoven and Schubert. his programming focused on early German he may have proposed marriage). Yet his In his early career Brahms supplemented music by J S Bach, Heinrich Schütz and fondness for a Meiningen clarinettist Richard his parents’ meagre income by playing other composers, including Giovanni Gabrieli. Mühlfeld drew him to compose a series of in the bars and brothels of Hamburg’s profound works which explored matters of infamous red-light district before he met In 1864 Brahms quit his conducting post in life and death in his Four Serious Songs. Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, who he order to devote more time to composing. accompanied in recital and who introduced He spent time in Lichtental where he In 1896 Brahms was diagnosed with liver him to the Hungarian ‘gypsy-style’ music worked on many of his most famous cancer, the same disease that had killed his which would form the inspiration for some compositions, including the German father Jakob 25 years earlier. He made his of his most popular compositions. Requiem. The Leipzig premiere in 1869 final public appearance to hear Hans Richter proved a triumph, with subsequent conduct his Fourth Symphony in March 1897 In 1853 Brahms presented himself to performances establishing Brahms as one and died at his modest lodgings in Vienna, Robert Schumann in Düsseldorf, winning of the emerging German nation’s foremost receiving a hero’s funeral at the city’s central unqualified approval from the older composers. Following the long-delayed cemetery three days later. • composer, who hailed him as ‘fated to give completion of his First Symphony in 1876, expression to the times in the highest and he composed in quick succession: the most ideal manner’. The elder composer’s majestic Violin Concerto; the two piano admiration led to the first publication of Rhapsodies Op 79; the First Violin Sonata Brahms’ work. After Schumann’s attempted in G major; and the Second Symphony. suicide in February 1854, Brahms decided to base himself in Düsseldorf where he Brahms was now firmly established as supported Schumann’s wife, Clara, during a major figure in the world of music. His her husband’s illness and death. Brahms subsequent association with the much- developed a deep affection for Clara, and admired court orchestra in Meiningen allowed 48 Composer Profile 18 & 19 September 2019 Sergei Rachmaninov in Profile 1873–1943 / profile by Andrew Stewart elody is music’, wrote and gave him the will to complete his Second • RACHMANINOV ON LSO LIVE ‘ Rachmaninov, ‘the basis of music Piano Concerto, widely known through its as a whole, since a perfect melody later use as the sound-track for the classic implies and calls into being its own harmonic film Brief Encounter. Thereafter, his creative design’. The Russian composer, pianist and imagination ran free to produce a string conductor’s passion for melody was central of unashamedly romantic works divorced to his work, clearly heard in his Rhapsody on from newer musical trends. He left Russia a Theme of Paganini, a brilliant and diverse shortly before the October Revolution in 1917, set of variations on a tune by the great touring as pianist and conductor and buying 19th-century violinist and composer Niccolò properties in Europe and the United States. • Paganini. Although the young Sergei’s father squandered much of the family inheritance, he at first invested wisely in his son’s musical education. In 1882 the boy received a scholarship to study at the St Petersburg Conservatory, Rachmaninov but further disasters at home hindered Symphonies Nos 1 to 3 his progress and he moved to study at the Symphonic Dances Moscow Conservatory. Here he proved an outstanding piano pupil and began to study Valery Gergiev conductor composition.