NI 5816 SERGE PROKOFIEV Cinq Mélodies • Parabola Concertante Concertino • Classical Symphony Raphael Wallfisch, cello Southbank Sinfonia Simon Over Photo by: Elizabeth Hughes Southbank Sinfonia is indebted to the following trusts and individuals who helped to fund this recording: The Dunard Fund • The Robert Gavron Charitable Trust Don and Sue Guiney • Dolf Mootham The Serge Prokofiev Foundation • Joe Ryan RODION SHCHEDRIN 12 NI 5816 NI 5816 SERGE PROKOFIEV & RODION SHCHEDRIN Violin I Viola Oboe Raphael Wallfisch, cello Susie Watson Audrey Barr Bethany Akers Southbank Sinfonia Anna Banaszkiewicz Neil Valentine Rosalie Philips Natalie Dudman Amy Fawcett Clarinet Simon Over, conductor Raja Halder Beverley Parry Thomas Lessels Serge Prokofiev Skye McIntosh Linda Kidwell Luisa Rosina Cinq Mélodies Op.35 (1920) 15.20 Sarah Colman Cello 1 Transcribed for cello & orchestra by Rodion Shchedrin (nos. 1,3,4 & 5) & Serge Prokofiev (no.2) Paloma Deike Bassoon Steffan Rees 2 I Andante 2.39 Rustom Pomeroy Neil Strachan Edward Furse 3 II Lento, ma non troppo 3.10 Rob Simmons Fiona Troon Jamie Pringle 4 III Animato, ma non troppo 4.05 Alice Rickards 5 IV Andantino, ma poco scherzando 1.33 Verity Harding Horn V Andante non troppo 3.53 Violin II Patrick Broderick Double bass Rodion Shchedrin Joe Ichinose Miriam Holmes 6 Jacqueline Dossor Parabola Concertante for cello, strings & timpani (2001) 16.27 April Johnson Nicholas Wolstencroft Lowri Morgan Michael Allen, timpani soloist Erika Eisele Andy Marshall Trumpet Serge Prokofiev Leah Johnston Gordon Richerby 7 Concertino Op.132 (orch. Vladimir Blok) 19.43 Leire Fernandez Harp Emma Pritchard 8 I Andante mosso 8.43 Stelios Chatziiosifidis Celine Saout 9 II Andante 6.01 Gillian Ripley Percussion Allegretto Flute III 4.59 Laurine Rochut Michael Allen Gareth Hanson 0 Classical Symphony Op.25 (1926) 14.32 Amelia Jacobs Marlene Verwey q I Allegro 4.16 w II Larghetto 4.05 e III Gavotta. Non troppo allegro 1.42 IV Finale. Molto vivace 4.29 Total playing time 66.05 P Recorded by Nimbus Records at Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK 1-2 July 2007 2007 Wyastone Estate Limited © 2007 Wyastone Estate Limited. Cover: istockphoto.com 2 11 NI 5816 NI 5816 Southbank Sinfonia . Founded in 2002, Southbank Sinfonia (SbS) is an orchestra of young Serge Prokofiev professional players whose work encompasses an unrivalled range of activity and music. Cinq Mélodies Op.35 (1920) Working with leading orchestras, ranging from the Royal Opera House and the Academy Transcribed for cello and orchestra by Rodion Shchedrin (nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5) and Serge of St Martin in the Fields to London Sinfonietta, and artists including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Prokofiev (no. 2) Sir Thomas Allen, Edward Gardner and Michael Collins, SbS performs repertory from Prokofiev’s Cinq Mélodies was originally a set of five wordless songs with piano, later baroque, contemporary, symphony, chamber orchestra and light music to opera and ballet. rearranged by the composer for violin and piano (Op.35bis). In 1920, he orchestrated the What makes SbS unique is the intensity of the performing schedule combined with second of them for voice with accompaniment. the professional training that lies at the heart of every project. Each year, SbS selects 32 Soloist Raphael Wallfisch takes up the story: ‘the orchestral version had remained players by audition and interview for an eight-month programme, which comprises unheard until now because the manuscript was languishing in various archives. I had concerts for promoters and festivals across the UK, workshops and performance alongside often played the violin version on the cello and so, on discovering Prokofiev’s leading UK orchestras, chamber music, education workshops, management training, and manuscript, I invited Rodion Shchedrin to complete the set using the original as a professional development sessions spanning subjects from improvisation to public model. Happily now, thanks to the generous support of the commission from Southbank speaking. Sinfonia, there is now a NEW work by Prokofiev for cello, violin or voice and orchestra!’ (Raphael Wallfisch, on the first performance of Prokofiev’s Cinq Mélodies in Shchedrin’s Simon Over has been Director of Southbank Sinfonia since its formation in 2002 and has complete orchestration for cello and orchestra, 24 May 2007 at LSO St Lukes, London). conducted almost a hundred of its concerts throughout the UK and Europe. With the exception of the scherzo-like fourth piece, the Cinq Mélodies conform to Simon studied at the Amsterdam Conservatoire, the Royal Academy of Music and the typical ABA song structure, each central episode providing a satisfying contrast to Oxford University. From 1992 to 2002 as a member of the music staff of Westminster the outer melody. Dramatic gestures, imbued with the spirit of the dance, constitute Abbey, he was Director of Music at both St Margaret’s Church and the Chapel of St Mary effective foils to the more melodic passages’ clarity and purity of line. Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster. He is Founder-Conductor of the Parliament Prokofiev’s Cinq Mélodies are eminently suited to the sonorities of the cello. The Choir and has directed all the choir’s performances to date. In 2006, Simon was appointed subtle transcriptions are lightly scored for flutes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, harp and Conductor of the Malcolm Sargent Festival Chorus. He has been associated with the strings (with additional piccolo flourishes in the fourth); they retain the radiant lyricism Samling Foundation in its work with young professional singers since 1996 and he is of the original songs without words, preserving their individual characters - wistful, Artistic Director of the Anghiari Festival in Tuscany. languid, ardent, carefree and yearning, respectively. Both as conductor and as pianist he has worked with many internationally-acclaimed musicians, including Sir Thomas Allen, Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside, Emma Kirkby, Rodion Shchedrin Dame Felicity Lott, Della Jones, Christopher Maltman, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Sir Willard Parabola Concertante for cello, strings and timpani (2001) White, Anthony Marwood, Alessio Bax, Malcolm Martineau, Emma Johnson and Sir Rodion Shchedrin was born on 16 December 1932 in Moscow into a musical family. In James and Lady Galway. His performances with American violinist Miriam Kramer at the 1955, he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory where he studied composition and Wigmore Hall, London, and Lincoln Center, New York – as well as on several recordings piano. His works for the stage include the ballets Little Hump-Backed Horse (1959), – received high critical acclaim. 10 3 NI 5816 NI 5816 Carmen Suite (1967), Anna Karenina (1971) and the operas Not Love Alone (1961), and Raphael Wallfisch is one of the most celebrated cellists Dead Souls (1976). Shchedrin has written extensively for piano, being a virtuoso performing on the international stage. He was born in player, including five concertos, two sonatas and 24 preludes and fugues (1963-70). London into a family of distinguished musicians, his He has also made significant contributions to the genres of chamber, choral, vocal, and mother the cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and his father orchestral music, including three symphonies and five concertos for orchestra. the pianist Peter Wallfisch. At an early age, Raphael was The Parabola Concertante , Op.112, for cello, string orchestra and timpani, written greatly inspired by hearing Zara Nelsova play. He was in 2001, was commissioned by the Kronberg Academy and dedicated to Mstislav subsequently guided by a succession of fine teachers Rostropovich, who gave the first performance of the work with the Frankfurt Radio including Amaryllis Fleming, Amadeo Baldovino, s b o c Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hugo Wolff on 28 October 2001 at the Cello Derek Simpson and the great Russian cellist Gregor a J d Festival of Kronberg. Though it has been linked to Shchedrin’s concert opera The Piatigorsky. At the age of twenty-four he won the i v Enchanted Wanderer , based on a novella by Nikolai Leskov, one of the composer’s Gaspar Cassadó International Cello Competition in a D : favourite Russian writers, the score of Parabola Concertante has no reference to this and Florence. Since then he has enjoyed a world-wide career y 1 b o can be appreciated as a powerful abstract work devoid of extra-musical associations. playing. t o In the atmospheric opening paragraphs , sustained, bell-like chords on strings Teaching is one of Raphael Wallfisch’s passions. h P and resonant timpani precede the cello’s eloquent, lyrical melody. Descending solo He is in demand as a teacher all over the world holding lines incorporating glissandi initiate a portentous section in quicker tempo launched by the position of professor of cello in Switzerland at the Zürich Winterthur a four-note falling figure on timpani (1’38’’). After an extensive, impassioned dialogue Konservatorium and in Germany at the Hochschule Mainz. between cello and timpani, an increase in intensity leads to a swifter pulse and a Raphael has recorded nearly every major work for his instrument. His extensive striking contrast in sonorities as, over whispering divided strings executed at the point discography on EMI, Chandos, Black Box, ASV, Naxos and Nimbus explores both the of the bow, the timpanist taps smoothly with palms, opposing the cellist’s harsh mainstream concerto repertoire and countless lesser-known works by Dohnanyi, pizzicato played with fingernails (4’40’’). An expansive central section features the Respighi, Barber, Hindemith and Martinu, as well as Richard Strauss, Dvorak, cello in animated dialogue with the strings, leading to the two protagonists merging Kabalevsky and Khachaturian. He has recorded a wide range of British cello concertos, in a trenchant, forceful unison (7’19’’). Timpani enter with battering, martial strokes, including works by MacMillan, Finzi, Delius, Bax, Bliss, Britten, Moeran, Walton and and vigorous, dynamic interactions between all three of the work’s protagonists leads Kenneth Leighton.