FUTURE FELLOWSHIP CONCERTS Sunday 3 April at 3pm Lennox Theatre, Riverside Theatres Parramatta Wednesday 6 April at 1.15pm* St James’ Church, King Street Sunday 10 April at 4pm Wyvern Music Forestville VOICES OF BOHEMIA The performance on Sunday 10 April will be recorded for later broadcast by Fine Music FM. Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows 2016 Roger Benedict Artistic Director ©Robert Catto ©Robert HEINRICH IGNAZ FRANZ VON BIBER (1644–1704) BIBER *Sonata No.4 in C *Sonata à 3 for trumpet, violin, 2 violas, double bass for trombone, 2 violins, cello, double bass FRENCH ACCENTS CLASSICAL CREATURES and vibraphone continuo and vibraphone continuo Wed 20 Jul, 1.15pm A Family Concert St James’ Church, King Street, Sydney* Sun 2 Oct, 2pm Fri 22 Jul, 8pm Riverside Theatres Parramatta ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841–1904) ESA-PEKKA SALONEN (BORN 1958) Manning Entertainment Centre, Taree SAINT-SAËNS Carnival of the Animals *Four songs from Cypresses Catch and Release Sun 24 Jul, 2pm PROKOFIEV Peter and the Wolf for string quartet for clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre 2. Death Reigns in Many a Human Breast percussion, violin, and double bass DEBUSSY Syrinx for solo flute RAVEL Introduction and Allegro * (Allegro ma non troppo) Tema PROKOFIEV Quintet * MUCH ADO… 8. In Deepest Forest Glade I Stand (Lento) Aria DEBUSSY arr. Schoenberg Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune * Celebrating Shakespeare 9. Thou Only Dear One, but for Thee (Moderato) Games POULENC Sonata for trumpet, trombone and horn Sun 27 Nov, 3pm 11. Nature Lies Peaceful in Slumber and Dreaming BIZET arr. Farrington Jeux d’enfants Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Allegro scherzando) DEBUSSY arr. Farrington Clair de lune BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ KORNGOLD Suite from Much Ado about Nothing with spoken text from the play *Nonet BRIDGE There is a willow grows aslant a brook LEOŠ JANÁČEK (1854–1928) for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, with spoken text from Hamlet Mládí (Youth) cello and double bass DIVERSIONS BRITTEN Sinfonietta for wind sextet Poco Allegro Sat 17 Sep, 8pm SCHREKER Chamber Symphony Blue Mountains Concert Society, Springwood Allegro Andante Wed 21 Sep, 1.15pm Andante sostenuto Allegretto St James’ Church, King Street, Sydney* Vivace Sat 24 Sep, 6pm Stay in touch and receive Allegro animato Sydney Opera House, Utzon Room updates on the SSO Fellows with guest artist Alexei Dupressoir bass clarinet Estimated durations: 6 minutes, 11 minutes, 17 minutes, MOZART Quintet in E flat for piano and winds, K452 * by joining our mailing list: 20-minute interval, 7 minutes, 22 minutes, 17 minutes TAKEMITSU Rain Coming MOZART String Quartet in B flat, K458 (The Hunt) * Email: [email protected] The concert will conclude at approximately 4.35pm (Parramatta), 2.05pm IBERT Divertissement * INTERVAL (St James), 5.35pm (Forestville) ABOUT THE MUSIC BIBER Two Sonatas DVOŘÁK Four Songs from Cypresses SALONEN Catch and Release Salonen is the Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Conductor Laureate for the Los Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber was the leading violin virtuoso The cypress tree symbolises mourning because of its dark The composer writes… Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director from 1992 of his generation. His reputation survived well into the late hue, and death, because once cut down it cannot grow again. until 2009. He is currently Composer-in-Residence at the 18th century, when Charles Burney wrote: ‘Of all the violin Cypresses is the title of the collection of poems from which The title comes from the sport of fishing. I had thought of New York Philharmonic, Artistic Director and cofounder of the players of the last century, Biber seems to have been the best, Dvořák made a cycle of 18 songs in 1865. These pieces are composing this piece as a birthday present for the composer annual Baltic Sea Festival, which he cofounded to promote and his solos are the most difficult and fanciful of any music I the closest in this concert to being literally voices of Bohemia. Magnus Lindberg – well known as a fisherman in the eastern unity and ecological awareness among the countries around have seen of the same period.’ Dvořák’s Cypresses are his own arrangements for string parts of the Finnish Gulf. The plan was never realised. the Baltic Sea. quartet of some of his songs (twelve in total) – these versions Biber was born in Wartenberg in Bohemia, north of Prague. date from 1887. When Dvořák composed the songs (among his Work on the composition took place between 2002 and Salonen and the Philharmonia have curated landmark multi- In 1671 he joined the service of the Prince-Archbishop of earliest) he was in love with the actress Josefina Čermáková. 2006. The practical impulse for completing the work was a disciplinary projects, such as the award-winning Salzburg. Biber’s arrival in Salzburg represented a great Dvořák later married her younger sister Anna, but he remained commission from bassoonist Jussi Särkkä, artistic director RE-RITE and Universe of Sound installations, which allow loss to his previous employer Prince-Bishop Karl, Count very fond of Josefina, and his revisiting of Cypresses may of the Crusell Music Festival in western Finland. The fee the public to conduct, play, and step inside the Philharmonia Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn from Kroměříž (in Moravia), have been nostalgia for an early love. The now mature Dvořák we agreed on was a bottle of beer, which Mr Särkkä high- with Salonen through audio and video projections. Salonen especially since Biber had absconded – ‘the fellow who expresses a range of feelings – but these ‘cypresses’ are love handedly changed into a bottle of champagne. Catch and also drove the development of an app for iPad, The Orchestra, slipped away’, wrote the Count – under the pretext of songs, not death songs. Release was first performed by the Avanti Chamber Orchestra, which allows the user unprecedented access to the internal collecting new instruments. in the Crusell Festival, on 26 July 2006. workings of eight symphonic works. Biber is most famous today for his violin sonata cycle based JANÁČEK Mládí (Youth) For years I had thought of composing for the instruments on the Mysteries of the Rosary. As well as exploiting violin used in The Soldier’s Tale – partly for practical reasons, since MARTINŮ Nonet virtuosity for emotional effect, Biber experimented with In July 1924, the month he turned 70 years young, Janáček Stravinsky’s piece is too short for an entire concert and scordatura: tuning the violin strings differently for each composed a wind sextet as ‘a kind of reminiscence of my needs a companion. I thought it would be interesting to write Bohuslav Martinů composed his Nonet in 1959. It was sonata, for symbolic as well as expressive reasons. He was youth’. This light-hearted nostalgia trip – Mládí or ‘Youth’ – for an ensemble that is rather ‘impossible’, dry and lacking commissioned to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Czech equally resourceful in his treatment of brass instruments, as grew from a cheeky little March of the Blueboys for piccolo, resonance. Could I make the weird ensemble ring properly Nonet, one of the very few permanent ensembles of this kind can be heard in his two sonatas in this concert. In the first recalling the composer’s blue-uniformed monastery choirboy in music based on harmony and overtone resonance? At the in the world. The Czech Nonet consists of one each of flute, (Sonata No.4), he pits a brilliant part intended for valveless days in Brno (Moravia). This tune became a scherzo-like third first rehearsal, hearing the matt sound of the drums against oboe, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello and double bass. They trumpet against the virtuosic first violin part. Trumpet and movement with a gentle trio section. the jeering ensemble, I thought: ‘Dammit, this sounds like gave the first performance at the Salzburg Festival that year. fiddle imitate each other. As in most Baroque pieces featuring The Soldier’s Tale!’ I relaxed when the sound palette widened Martinů himself was Czech (from Bohemia); he fled Europe the trumpet, there is a slow movement in which the trumpet The sprightly oboe theme of the first movement (Andante) and deepened. for the United States during World War II. He returned in the does not play. This provides a contrast of tonality and embodies the Czech speech rhythm of ‘Youth, golden youth!’; 1950s, but not to his homeland, and it was in Switzerland, of tessitura. subsequent wistfully falling phrases reflect enchantment I added the vibraphone to the second movement in order as he was dying from cancer, that he composed the Nonet – experienced from afar; and there is unequivocal yearning in to ‘reverb’ the harmony, because I didn’t find any other way generally considered his chamber music masterpiece. The inclusion of trombone as an equal partner in Biber’s the horn’s final drawn-out sigh on the ‘golden youth’ motif. to extend the ring of the ensemble beyond its basic dry Sonata à 3 is pioneering. This instrument was more often sound. That is the only significant exception to Stravinsky’s In Martinů’s Nonet reflective music expresses the nostalgia used to double the lower voices in choirs, and in funeral The second movement (Moderato), variations on a darkly instrumentation. The third movement is a preliminary study of an exiled composer nearing the end of life, but it also music. The solo in Mozart’s Requiem (100 years after Biber) Slavonic theme, adds a sense of regret, even pain, to for my Piano Concerto (premiered in New York 2007). The idea has sunny moments and an elegance and clarity that looks is a reminder that in German the ‘last trump’ is a trombone! the nostalgically falling phrases which underline the is a confrontation of three- and four-beat rhythmic models back to the Classical style of Haydn.