February 2017 Stravinsky Funeral Song revived Photo: Mariinsky Theatre/Valentin Baranovsky Igor Stravinsky’s rediscovered Funeral Song for orchestra, heard again in St Petersburg in December after 107 years, is travelling the world in 2017 and beyond. Orchestras have swiftly added Stravinsky’s Funeral disappeared after its only performance Song into their current seasons, adjusting their in 1909, returning to light last year in programmes to allow the rediscovered work to be the library of the St Petersburg heard as soon as possible. Following the historic Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory performance at the Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall thanks to the musicological sleuthing of on 2 December, conducted by Valery Gergiev, the Dr Natalia Braginskaya. The rediscovery 12-minute orchestral score will receive over 40 has aroused immense interest around performances in 2017 and beyond, travelling to the musical world, offering a missing link over 20 countries. between Stravinsky’s earliest works and his ballet The Firebird, which was to launch Dates include the UK premiere with the his international career with Serge Diaghilev’s Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Ballets Russes. Salonen (19 February), the US premiere with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Charles Stephen Walsh, writing in The Guardian, Dutoit (6 April) and the German premiere with described the “positively electric atmosphere” the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon at the St Petersburg performance as “the Russian Rattle (31 May). audience, deprived of their greatest composer for so many Soviet years, were rightly thrilled that a substantial piece of his had turned up on their “A 12-minute orchestral home ground… Stravinsky remembered Funeral movement of extraordinary Song as one of his best early pieces and he was right.” Reviewing the performance – still available Photo of Stravinsky in 1910/Wiki Commons emotional power...” streamed free to view this month on medici.tv Valery Gergiev conducts the historic performance of Stravinsky’s Funeral Song in St Petersburg The Guardian – Ivan Hewett in the Daily Telegraph detected influences of Tchaikovsky and Wagner, as well as From the rediscovered complete set of orchestral & Hawkes and a study score is published on sale The music of Igor Stravinsky’s Funeral Song Rimsky-Korsakov, noting the “lament for solo horn, parts, the St Petersburg Conservatory has this month and available from The Shop at Boosey. (Pogrebal’naya Pesnya) op.5, composed by the introducing a theme which was sorrowfully passed collaborated with Boosey & Hawkes, Stravinsky’s com. For a full list of future performances of Funeral 26-year-old composer as an orchestral memorial from instrument to instrument… St Petersburg principal publisher, in reconstructing the full score. Song around the world visit: tribute to his teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, welcomed back its greatest musical son”. Performance materials are on rental from Boosey www.boosey.com/FuneralSongDates. “MacMillan speaks of a ‘painful world of loss, violence, Yun MacMillan and spiritual desolation’, and those are the intense Hilmars joins B&H feelings packed into his score. Both sides of MacMillan 2017 Centenary new Stabat Mater are to be found here, the devotional and the painter of bold, dramatic canvases — the former in the ethereal The centenary of Isang writing for solo and ensemble voices, the latter in the Yun in 2017 offers the lacerating blows and feverish anxieties depicted in the opportunity to hear a string ensemble.” Financial Times range of this pioneering composer’s works Having toured the work to Saffron Walden, which combine the Norwich and Manchester, The Sixteen introduces tradition of Eastern- Scottish audiences to Stabat Mater in March, the Photo: © Maria Kjartans Glasgow performance being part of a major Asian music with Icelandic composer Biggi Hilmars (b.1978) has MacMillan feature in the city with the Scottish Western avant-garde developed his own haunting style, blending classical, Chamber Orchestra collaborating with the BBC techniques. While his electronic, ambient, avant-garde and pop influences. Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Glasgow Life. native Korea and Rapidly becoming one of the most in-demand music adoptive Germany are Scottish premieres include the Viola Concerto with Photo: Boosey & Hawkes composers of his generation for film, movie trailers, soloist Lawrence Power, Symphony No.4 and the at the centre of commercials and television, his distinctive voice can Concertino for Horn and Strings. The recording of activities, performances around the world move from delicate solos to full orchestra with Stabat Mater is released next month on The celebrate his humanitarian mission to cross mesmerising piano, string and guitar textures. frontiers thanks to the power of music. Sixteen’s Coro label (COR16150). Commissions have included the film soundtrack to The Tongyeong International Music Festival in The remote Scottish island of St Kilda provided Beeba Boys by award-winning director Deepa South Korea presents a Yun retrospective between the surprise hit recording of 2016, in the form of Mehta, the official movie trailers for Thomas 31 March and 9 April with visiting performers Decca’s Lost Songs of St Kilda conducted by Vinterberg’s Far From the Madding Crowd and SKY’s including the Arditti Quartet, Basel Chamber MacMillan and including his orchestration of one mini-series Olive Kitteridge, music for the BBC Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic and conductors James MacMillan’s powerful Stabat Mater was of the songs from the depopulated community. feature documentary film My Brother the Ark Raider Dennis Russell Davies, Stefan Soltesz and Stefan acclaimed by audience and press alike at its Selling over 15,000 copies, the disc topped the by Jonathan Carr and movie trailers for Ridley Scott Asbury. Highlights include the Cello Concerto, Barbican premiere in October, performed by Classical Artists chart and was Classic FM’s Album and Kevin MacDonald’s How I Live Now and Clarinet Concerto and his hour-long opera The The Sixteen and Britten Sinfonia conducted by of the Year. For the full historic background visit Christmas in a Day. Dream of Liu-Tung. Harry Christophers. Matching his Seven Last lostsongsofstkilda.com. Words from the Cross, the new work is for choir He has composed music for commercials for Allianz, Centenary premieres include Pièce Concertante and string orchestra and lasts close to an hour, IBM and Mercedes-Benz, and most recently created for chamber ensemble and the Nelly Sachs setting In addition to Stabat Mater, MacMillan’s recent and is launched from the closing harmonies of the a specially commissioned score for the new ‘Teile dich Nacht’, both receiving their first UK large-scale choral works include A European earlier score. Commissioned by the Genesis Thomson Holidays TV advert A Day in the Sun, performances at a Music of Today concert in Requiem premiered at the Oregon Bach Festival Foundation, Stabat Mater sets the 13th century recorded by the London Chamber Orchestra at London on 2 March, while the Cello Concerto last year, Gloria which received its US premiere Latin hymn which meditates on the suffering of Abbey Road Studios. Biggi Hilmars shares his receives its Austrian premiere on 12 June with in Pittsburgh last month and travels to Liverpool Christ’s mother Mary at the foot of the Cross, working life between Reykjavik, London, Paris, Matt Haimovitz and the Bruckner Orchester in with Ian Bostridge as soloist in June, and Little reflecting a classic MacMillan blend of sorrow, New York and Los Angeles. Linz. His vivid dance fantasy Muak is performed by Mass for children’s choir and orchestra receiving anger and contemplation. both the German Youth Orchestra in April and its first North American performance in Toronto Visit www.boosey.com/hilmars and KBS Symphony Orchestra in November. next season. www.biggihilmars.com. Yun studied cello and composition in Korea and “An overwhelming world Japan, and actively opposed the Japanese The Times occupation, leading to his imprisonment until the premiere...” end of World War II. Following the Korean War Inside this issue… armistice in 1953 he won a scholarship to study in “It’s not often that the composer of a new work gets Europe, first in Paris and then in Berlin, where he a standing ovation, but then every new work isn’t like settled in 1964. Due to a visit to North Korea he James MacMillan’s Stabat Mater for chorus and string was abducted from Berlin by South Korea’s Park orchestra… The chorus’s plangent cries, carved with a regime in 1967 and imprisoned in Seoul for two scalpel, might have been expected — but what about years, finally released in response to a campaign the string commentary of stabbing chords, high-speed by leading musicians. He took West German buzzings, sickening crescendos, growls and whispers?... Birtwistle Adams Chin Reich citizenship and taught in Hannover and Berlin, the intensity of this performance did not wobble… from Interview on new Upbeat to 70th Featured composer 80th birthday assuming a life in exile while never neglecting his noble lament through fury and shriek to contemplative orchestral work in Berlin, London at Eight Bridges premieres of Pulse Korean roots. devotion.” The Times Deep Time and Paris in Cologne and Runner . Birtwistle Deep Time in Berlin Harrison Birtwistle introduces his new orchestral work, Deep Time, Time is a processional in which nothing changes tubas and double low woodwind, plus two harps, – the slow passing