Virtuoso Violin - Adelaide Symphony Orchestra · PDF fileVirtuoso Violin Master 1 aso.com.au Classical Conversation One hour prior to the concerts, free for ticket holders ... Violin

20 & 21 Mar 2015 ADELAIDE TOWN HALL

Virtuoso Violin

3ADELAIDE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MASTER SERIES

20 & 21 March, Adelaide Town Hall

This concert runs for approximately 105 minutes including interval.

Virtuoso Violin Master 1

aso.com.au

Classical ConversationOne hour prior to the concerts, free for ticket holdersConductor Garry Walker and ASO Director, Artistic Planning Simon Lord discuss the pictures and ideas which inspired Mussorgsky’s masterpiece.

Garry Walker Conductor

Sarah Chang Violin

Britten Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes Op33a DawnSunday MorningMoonlightStorm

Bruch Concerto for Violin in G Minor Op 26Vorspiel [Prelude] (Allegro moderato) – Adagio Finale (Allegro energico)

Sarah Chang Violin

Ravel Tzigane – concert rhapsody

Sarah Chang Violin

Mussorgsky orch. Ravel Pictures at an ExhibitionSee page 18 for movements

Interval

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Welcome Good evening and welcome to the first of our

Master Series concerts for 2015.

What an honour it is to have violinist Sarah

Chang here to perform with us in her first-ever

Adelaide appearance. The world has been

marvelling at Miss Chang since her auspicious

arrival on the international stage as a child

prodigy – she made her debut with the New

York Philharmonic at the age of 8 – and we

can only continue to be in awe of her many

accomplishments. She has performed with

most of the world’s great orchestras, led by

the world’s great conductors; she has made

20 CD recordings with EMI; and she has been

showered with awards and accolades.

Miss Chang personifies the label ‘virtuoso’

and we are privileged to be able to witness

her prodigious talent, dedication and musical

intelligence this evening.

We welcome back, too, conductor Garry

Walker – a good friend of the ASO. Last year, he

opened our season with a rhapsodic, cinematic

performance of Scheherazade; tonight, he will

bring his powers of musical narration to bear

on two other highly evocative works: Britten’s

Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes and

Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in the

orchestration of Maurice Ravel.

In 2015, we have sought to bring greater

clarity to our offerings through programming,

presentation and choice of venue. Thus, the

new Great Classics series in the Festival Theatre

will feature some of the large-scale orchestral

favourites that we simply cannot fit onto the

Adelaide Town Hall stage – pieces such as

Mahler’s Symphony No1 Titan and Strauss’ Also

sprach Zarathustra.

We have also created a new series called

Classics Unwrapped, featuring the ‘top of the

classical pops’ in a less formal setting.

However, the Master Series is and will remain

the ASO’s flagship concert series. To borrow

a modern management term, this is our core

business. It reflects our commitment to you to

present music and musicians of the highest

calibre.

Thank you, as ever, for your continuing support.

I look forward to seeing you in 2015.

Vincent CiccarelloManaging Director

6 ADELAIDE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MASTER SERIES

Garry Walker conductor

Scottish-born Garry Walker studied cello and conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and won the Leeds Conductors Competition in 1999. Previous appointments include Permanent Guest Conductor with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Paragon Ensemble. He is now Visiting Professor of Conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has a close association with Scottish-based contemporary music group Red Note Ensemble.

In the UK Garry Walker has worked with all the BBC orchestras, the Hallé, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, English Northern Philharmonia and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland. He regularly appears at the Edinburgh Festival and has performed with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the St Magnus Festival; with the English Chamber Orchestra in Lisbon and at the City of London Festival; and with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at the Barbican’s Mostly Mozart Festival. Elsewhere he has appeared with the Nieuw Ensemble, Gothenburg Symphony

Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Collegium Musicum in Denmark, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Utah Symphony Orchestra, and the Melbourne and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras.

An experienced opera conductor, Garry Walker has conducted Britten’s Curlew River and the world premiere of Stuart Macrae’s opera The Assassin Tree at the Edinburgh International Festival; Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart for English National Opera; and Poulenc’s La voix humaine at the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.


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Sarah Chang violin

Since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of 8, Sarah Chang has performed with the world’s greatest orchestras, conductors and accompanists in a career spanning more than two decades.

Recent and future highlights include performances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ravinia Festival and Aspen Music Festival. In addition to her engagement with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, she appears this season with the Melbourne, Queensland and West Australian Symphony Orchestras; Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra; Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra; Singapore Symphony Orchestra; and City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong.

Her recording of Brahms and Bruch violin concertos with Kurt Masur and the Dresden Philharmonic was received to critical and popular acclaim and was her 20th album for EMI Classics. Other recordings include Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons; Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No.1 and Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.1 live with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle; Fire and Ice, an album of popular works for violin and orchestra with Placido Domingo conducting the Berlin Philharmonic; Dvorák’s Violin Concerto with the London Symphony

Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis; and several chamber music and sonata discs with artists including pianists Leif Ove Andsnes and Lars Vogt.

Sarah Chang is a past recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, Echo Klassik Award, Gramophone’s Young Artist of the Year Award and Korea’s Nanpa Award. In 2012 she was given the Distinguished Leadership in the Arts Award by Harvard University.

What do you love about Bruch’s Violin Concerto?

Ms Chang said, “I am looking forward tremendously to making my Adelaide debut. I love Australia and it’s always such a pleasure to perform there.”“The Bruch has a special place in my heart. It is one of the most romantic, lush concertos in the violin repertoire and it was my audition piece for The Juilliard School when I was 5 years old. It was this concerto that got me into the school of my dreams so I have always had a fondness for the work. The Ravel Tzigane is an explosive show piece, overflowing with flair and fireworks.”


Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor Arvo Volmer

Artist in Association Nicholas McGegan

Associate Guest Conductor Nicholas Carter

VIOLINS

Natsuko Yoshimoto **(Concertmaster)

Sponsored by ASO Chair of the Board Colin Dunsford AM & Lib Dunsford

Cameron Hill** (Associate Concertmaster)

Shirin Lim** (Principal 1st Violin)

Supported in the memory of Dr Nandor Ballai

Michael Milton** (Principal 2nd Violin)

Musical Chair supported by The Friends of the ASO

Lachlan Bramble~ (Acting Associate Concertmaster)

Supported in the memory of Deborah Pontifex

Janet AndersonAnn AxelbyErna BerberyanMinas Berberyan

Supported by Merry Wickes

Gillian BraithwaiteJulia Brittain

Hilary Bruer Supported by Marion Wells

Nadia BuckJane CollinsDanielle Jaquillard

Alexis Milton Sponsored by Patricia Cohen

Jennifer Newman Julie NewmanEmma Perkins

Supported by Peter & Pamela McKee

Alexander Permezel

Judith PolainMarie-Louise Slaytor

VIOLAS Imants Larsens** (Acting Principal)

Supported by Mr & Mrs Simon & Sue Hatcher

Martin Butler ~

(Acting Associate)Lesley Cockram Anna HansenLinda GarrettRosi McGowranCarolyn MoozCecily Satchell

CELLOS Simon Cobcroft**

Supported by Andrew & Gayle Robertson

Ewen Bramble~

Supported by Barbara Mellor

Sarah Denbigh

Christopher Handley Supported by Johanna and Terry McGuirk

Sherrilyn Handley Supported by Johanna and Terry McGuirk

Gemma Phillips

David Sharp Supported by Dr Aileen F Connon AM

DOUBLE BASSES David Schilling**

Supported by Mrs Maureen Akkermans

Hugh Kluger~

Jacky Chang

Harley Gray Supported by Bob Croser

Belinda Kendall-Smith

David Phillips Support for ‘a great bass player with lots of spirit – love Betsy’

FLUTES Geoffrey Collins**

Supported by Pauline Menz

Lisa Gill

PICCOLOJulia Grenfell*

Supported by Chris & Julie Michelmore

OBOES Celia Craig**

Supported by Penelope & Geoffrey Hackett-Jones

Renae Stavely Supported by Roderick Shire & Judy Hargrave

COR ANGLAISPeter Duggan*

Supported by Dr Ben Robinson

CLARINETS Dean Newcomb**

Supported by the Royal Over-Seas League SA Inc

Darren Skelton

E FLAT CLARINETDarren Skelton*

BASS CLARINET

Mitchell Berick* Supported by Nigel Stevenson & Glenn Ball

BASSOONS Mark Gaydon**

Supported by Pamela Yule

Leah Stephenson Supported by Liz Ampt

CONTRA BASSOON Jackie Hansen*

Supported by Norman Etherington & Peggy Brock

HORNS Adrian Uren**Sarah Barrett~

Supported by Margaret Lehmann

Bryan Griffiths Alex MillerPhilip Paine

TRUMPETS Hedlet Benson** (Guest Principal)Martin Phillipson~

Supported by Richard Hugh Allert AO

Robin Finlay**

TROMBONES Cameron Malouf**

Supported by Virginia Weckert & Charles Melton of Charles Melton Wines

Ian Denbigh

BASS TROMBONEHoward Parkinson*

TUBA Peter Whish-Wilson*

Supported by Ollie Clark AM & Joan Clark

TIMPANI Robert Hutcheson*

Supported by an anonymous donor

PERCUSSION Gregory Rush** Jamie AdamFlueur GreenAmanda GriggAndrew Penrose

HARP Suzanne Handel*

Supported by Shane le Plastrier

SAXOPHONE Damien Hurn*

CELESTE Karina Reynolds*

** denotes Section Leader* denotes Principal Player~ denotes Associate Principal

denotes Musical Chair Support

Correct at time of print.

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra


ASO BOARD

Colin Dunsford AM (Chair)Vincent CiccarelloGeoffrey CollinsCol EardleyByron GregoryDavid LeonChris MichelmoreMichael MorleyAndrew RobertsonNigel Stevenson

ASO MANAGEMENT

EXECUTIVE

Vincent Ciccarello - Managing DirectorMargie Corston - Assistant to Managing Director

ARTISTIC

Simon Lord - Director, Artistic PlanningKatey Sutcliffe - Artistic AdministratorEmily Gann - Learning and Community Engagement Coordinator

FINANCE AND HR

Bruce Bettcher - Business and Finance ManagerLouise Williams - Manager, People and CultureKarin Juhl - Accounts/Box Office CoordinatorSarah McBride - PayrollEmma Wight - Administrative Assistant

OPERATIONS

Heikki Mohell - Director of Operations and CommercialKaren Frost - Orchestra ManagerKingsley Schmidtke - Venue/Production SupervisorBruce Stewart - LibrarianDavid Khafagi - Operations Assistant

MARKETING AND DEVELOPMENTPaola Niscioli - General Manager, Marketing and DevelopmentVicky Lekis - Director of DevelopmentAnnika Stennert - Marketing Coordinator

Kate Sewell - PublicistTom Bastians - Customer Service ManagerAlexandra Bassett - Marketing and Development Coordinator

FRIENDS OF THE ASO EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Alison Campbell - PresidentLiz Bowen - Immediate Past PresidentAlyson Morrison and John Pike - Vice PresidentsVacancy - Honorary SecretaryJohn Gell - Assistant Secretary MembershipJudy Birze - Treasurer


Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op 33a

Dawn

Sunday Morning

Moonlight

Storm

Peter Grimes made Britten’s name as a musical dramatist. In this, his first full-scale opera, the young composer turned out a masterpiece.

Britten and his partner Peter Pears were visiting California in 1941 when Pears bought a copy of the works of poet George Crabbe – like Britten, a native of Suffolk. An article on Crabbe by E.M. Forster in The Listener alerted Britten’s attention to The Borough, the poem by Crabbe upon which Peter Grimes is based.

With financial assistance from the Koussevitzky Foundation, Britten and Pears began to sketch out a scenario for Peter Grimes before leaving America in 1942. They fleshed it out aboard ship, and on arrival home in England called in a librettist to write the words. Britten began to compose the music in January 1944. In June 1945, Sadler’s Wells decided to reopen their North

London theatre with this work, and it was premiered there on 7 June of that year.

Britten was fascinated by the sea, and particularly his native coast. He once wrote: ‘My parents’ house in Lowestoft directly faced the sea, and my life as a child was coloured by the fierce storms that sometimes drove ships on our coast and ate away whole stretches of neighbouring cliffs.’

But The Borough didn’t just provide Britten with opportunities for musical portrayal of the forces of nature. Britten and Pears found something to sympathise with in the human drama of the protagonist Peter Grimes and his isolation from his community.

In Peter Grimes, the orchestral writing is particularly substantial. The Four Sea Interludes, entr’actes or preludes in the opera, are effective concert pieces. Although they comprise some of the most effective portrayals of the sea in all of orchestral literature, they are also riven with the emotion which makes Grimes a very human drama.

Dawn appears in Act I, after the Prologue’s coronial inquest has established that Grimes cannot be held culpable for the death by drowning of his young apprentice. The high flutes and violins suggest almost uncannily the cold, glassy greyness of the sea, or of a deserted beach; the swirl of harp, clarinets and violas an encroaching wave, while a

Benjamin Britten 1913-1976


Benjamin Britten 1913-1976

brass chorale suggests the swell, with even, at one point, a note of menace.

The tolling of Sunday morning church bells is rendered most effectively by the overlapping clashing pairs of horns in Sunday Morning, the beginning of Act II in the opera.

Onstage, the repose of Moonlight is ironic. Another of Grimes’ apprentices has died by misadventure, and already the audience senses that Grimes is steering unavoidably towards tragedy. Arnold Whittall calls this ‘one of Britten’s most subtle nature scenes, a night-piece shot through with luminous shafts of moonlight’.

Stage directors can founder on attempts to render a visual analogue to Britten’s highly effective Act I Storm; it is sometimes best to leave the curtain down. The storm here is also a mental storm, a musical postscript to Peter’s outpouring of anguish and lonely confusion to his friend, Balstrode.

Gordon Kalton Williams

Symphony Australia © 1997/2008

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra first performed Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes on 26 October 1962 under the direction of Joseph Post, and most recently on 15-16 May 2008 under Arvo Volmer.

Duration 16 minutes.


Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor, Op 26Vorspiel [Prelude] (Allegro moderato) –Adagio Finale (Allegro energico)

Sarah Chang violin

Max Bruch’s first Violin Concerto is one of the greatest success stories in the history of music. The violinist Joseph Joachim, who gave the first performance of the definitive version in 1868, and had a strong advisory role in its creation, compared it with the other famous 19th-century German violin concertos, those of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Bruch’s, said Joachim, is ‘the richest, the most seductive’. (Joachim was closely associated as performer with all four of these concertos, and with the creation of Brahms’ concerto, which he premiered in 1879.) Soon Bruch was able to report that his concerto was ‘beginning a fabulous career’. In addition to Joachim, the most famous violinists of the day took it into their repertoire: Auer, Ferdinand David, Sarasate. With his first important large-scale orchestral work, the 30-year-old Bruch had a winner.

The success of this concerto was to be a mixed blessing for Bruch. Few composers so long-lived and prolific are so nearly

forgotten except for a single work. (Kol nidrei for cello and orchestra is Bruch’s only other frequently performed piece, its use of Jewish melodies having erroneously led many to assume that Bruch himself was Jewish.) Bruch followed up this violin concerto with two more, and another six pieces for violin and orchestra. But although he constantly encouraged violinists to play his other concertos, he had to concede that none of them matched his first. This must have been especially frustrating considering that Bruch had sold full rights in it to a publisher for the paltry sum of 250 thalers.

In 1911 an American friend, Arthur Abell, asked Bruch why he, a pianist, had taken such an interest in the violin. He replied, ‘Because the violin can sing a melody better than the piano can, and melody is the soul of music.’ It was the composer’s association with Johann Naret-Koning, concertmaster of the Mainz orchestra, which first set Bruch on the path of composing for the violin. He did not feel sure of himself, regarding it as ‘very audacious’ to write a violin concerto, and reported that between 1864 and 1868 ‘I rewrote my concerto at least half a dozen times, and conferred with x violinists.’ The most important of these was Joachim. Many years later Bruch had reservations about the publication of his correspondence with Joachim about the concerto, worrying that ‘the public would virtually believe when it

Max Bruch 1838-1920


read all this that Joachim composed the concerto, and not I’.

As we have seen, Joachim thought Bruch was on the right track from the first. Bruch was lucky to have the advice of so serious an artist, a composer himself, well aware of how the ‘concerto problem’ presented itself 20 years after Mendelssohn’s E minor Violin Concerto. Like Mendelssohn, Bruch had brought the solo violin in right from the start, after a drum roll and a motto-like figure for the winds. The alternation of solo and orchestral flourishes suggests to Michael Steinberg a dreamy variant of the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto.

With the main theme launched by the solo violin in sonorous double-stopping, and a contrasting descending second subject, a conventional opening movement in sonata form seems to be under way. The rhythmic figure heard in the plucked bass strings plays an important part. But at the point where the recapitulation would begin, Bruch, having brought back the opening chords and flourishes, uses them instead to prepare a soft subsiding into the slow movement, which begins without a pause. Bruch first called the first movement Introduzione-Fantasia, then Vorspiel (Prelude), and asked Joachim rather anxiously whether he shouldn’t call the whole work a Fantasy rather than a Concerto. ‘The designation “concerto” is completely apt,’ replied Joachim. ‘Indeed, the second and third movements are too fully developed for a Fantasy. The separate sections of the work cohere in a lovely relationship, and yet – and this is the most important thing – there is sufficient contrast.’

The songful character of the violin is to the fore in Bruch’s Adagio. Two beautiful themes are linked by a memorable transitional

idea featuring a rising scale. The themes are artfully and movingly developed and combined, until the second ‘enters grandly below and so carries us out in the full tide of its recapitulation’ (Tovey).

Although the second movement comes to a quiet full close, the third begins in the same warm key of E flat major, with a crescendo modulating to the G major of the Finale, another indication of the tendency of Romantic composers like Bruch to think of a concerto as a continuously unfolding and linked whole. The Hungarian or gypsy dance flavour of the last movement’s lively first theme must be a tribute to the native land of Joachim, who had composed a ‘Hungarian’ Concerto for violin. Bruch’s theme was surely in Brahms’ mind at the same place in the concerto he composed for Joachim. Bruch’s writing for the solo violin, grateful yet never gratuitous throughout the concerto, here scales new heights of virtuosity. Of the bold and grand second subject, Tovey observes that Max Bruch’s work ‘shows one of its noblest features just where some of its most formidable rivals become vulgar.’ In this concerto for once Bruch was emotional enough to balance his admirable skill and tastefulness. The G minor Violin Concerto is just right, and its success shows no sign of wearing out.

David Garrett © 2004

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra first performed this concerto on 20 July 1940 with conductor Georg Schnéevoigt and soloist Haydn Beck. The ASO’s most recent performances took place in May 2006 with Graham Abbott and Sophie Rowell.



Tzigane – concert rhapsody

Sarah Chang violin

In 1922 Ravel heard the Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Aranyi play one of his works at a London soirée. Afterwards she entertained Ravel by playing him Hungarian gypsy melodies in a recital that lasted until the early hours of the morning. Two years later he told her about the piece he was writing ‘especially for you … the Tzigane must be a piece of great virtuosity, full of brilliant effects, provided it is possible to perform them, which I’m not always sure of’. When d’Aranyi gave Tzigane its first performance, in London later that year, in the version with piano, Ravel is reported to have told her afterwards that if he’d known she could master the difficulties so well he would have made it even harder!

Tzigane means ‘gypsy’ and the music to which Ravel gave this title is ‘a virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian Rhapsody’. In Tzigane Ravel set himself the kind of challenge he loved – to make a musical virtue of extreme technical difficulties. He asked his publisher to send him a copy of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano, and his friend Hélène Jourdan-Morhange to bring her copy of Paganini’s Caprices

for solo violin. Both these composers represented the ne plus ultra of virtuosity on their instruments, and Ravel outdid them. The technical feats Ravel asks of the violinist in the long opening unaccompanied section (which takes up almost half the piece – a sign perhaps of the haste with which Ravel composed it) include playing in high positions on the G string, octaves, multiple stops, tremolos, arpeggios and glissandos. Harmonics and left-hand pizzicato are saved for after the entrance of the piano.

The piano – or rather the piano-luthéal, as Ravel had intended – became an orchestra in the second version of Tzigane, premiered by d’Aranyi in Paris in 1924. The luthéal was an attachment to the piano, patented in 1919, which enabled it to imitate the plucked and hammered sounds of the harpsichord, guitar and Hungarian cimbalom. By 1924, however, this anticipation of the prepared piano was already almost obsolete, and in the orchestral version of Tzigane Ravel finds a substitute in the colours of harp, celesta, and the string section playing pizzicato and with harmonics. Probably Ravel, with the luthéal, had been trying to make the accompaniment sound more Hungarian, but his parodistic pastiche of Hungarian gypsy music makes no attempt at the ethnographic authenticity of Bartók (whose work Ravel admired), and probably owes more to the

Maurice Ravel 1875–1937


fiddlers Ravel heard in Paris cafés and cabarets.

Tzigane is a series of free variations, as if improvised, but falling broadly into the ‘csárdás’ structure of the Hungarian Rhapsody as brought to the concert hall by Liszt: a slow introduction, lassù, where the minor key seeks a certain pathos, then a sometimes wild fast section, a friss. The modal musical language of both the slow and fast sections is an imitation of the Hungarian gypsy style, but Tzigane is above all a successful experiment in stretching violin virtuosity to its limits.

David Garrett ©2004/2006

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra first performed Ravel’s Tzigane on 16 March 1957 with conductor Henry Krips and soloist Ricardo Odnoposoff. The ASO most recently performed it in August 2010 with Rowan Harvey-Martin and Natsuko Yoshimoto.



Pictures at an Exhibition

Promenade Gnome Promenade The Old Castle Promenade Tuileries – Children quarrelling at play Bydlo Promenade Ballet of the Unhatched Chickens ‘Samuel’ Goldenburg and ‘Schmuÿle’ Limoges Market Catacombs – Roman sepulchres Con mortuis in lingua mortua (With the dead in a dead language) The Hut on Hen Legs – Baba-Yaga The Great Gate of Kiev

Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition as a memorial to his friend, the artist Victor Hartmann who had died prematurely of a heart attack in 1873. In 1874 Vladimir Stasov, the influential critic, mounted an exhibition of Hartmann’s works – paintings, drawings, designs and jewellery – and it was this which inspired Mussorgsky to produce what became the piano work Pictures at an Exhibition, a set of ‘tone-portraits’ based on a selection of Hartmann’s works.

There have been various orchestrations

of Pictures over the years, indicating the essentially orchestral nature of Mussorgsky’s pianism. The most famous, however, is that of Maurice Ravel, the result of a commission from Serge Koussevitzky. For Ravel, the act of orchestrating was an important occupation, and this may explain why he is one of the great orchestral colourists. Certainly, he also had an affinity with Mussorgsky’s music and with Russian music in general; by the time he came to orchestrate Pictures in 1922, he and Stravinsky had already completed Mussorgsky’s unfinished opera Khovanshchina for Sergei Diaghilev. Ravel pursued this type of engagement with the music of others with a strong inner conviction. As H.H. Stuckenschmidt commented: ‘The score is an ideal example of artistic empathy, giving the impression that Ravel had completely identified himself with Mussorgsky’s own creative thinking.’

Pictures at an Exhibition begins with the Promenade, an introduction in a varying 5/4 and 6/4 metre, meant to represent the composer himself wandering around looking at the paintings. What begins as a single line followed by chords in the piano original is presented as a solo trumpet followed by tutti brass and, later, massed strings and winds, providing altered perspectives.

Modest Mussorgsky 1839-1881

orch. Maurice Ravel


Gnome is inspired by Hartmann’s design for a small gnome-shaped nutcracker.

The Old Castle is based on a watercolour of a troubadour singing before a medieval castle. In an inspired piece of orchestration, Ravel gives the principal melody to alto saxophone.

The third Promenade has a fuller orchestration, in response to the thicker chords of Mussorgsky’s original.

Ravel opts predominantly for winds in Tuileries, based on Hartmann’s watercolour of one corner of the famous French garden.

Bydlo, Polish for ‘cattle’, refers to a drawing of two oxen pulling a heavy cart. Listening to the piano original with its heavy bass chords and opening fortissimo, one is reminded of the realist Mussorgsky’s attempts at pantomimic accuracy. Ravel, however, aims for a different effect. His Bydlo begins as a distant forlorn tuba solo which builds with the addition of other instruments before returning to solo tuba – as if the cart has passed on its way.

Ballet of the Unhatched Chickens is based on Hartmann’s costume designs for the ballet Trilby. The dancers’ legs stick out from the shells. Ravel’s clacking winds conjure the image of farmyard activity.

‘Samuel’ Goldenburg and ‘Schmuÿle’ is often presented with Stasov’s sanitised title: Two Jews – One Rich, the other Poor, but, according to Richard Taruskin, Mussorgsky’s intention was definitely unflattering, which is backed up by the fact that no Hartmann picture by that name exists. The stuttering muted trumpet solo here is often used as an orchestral audition piece.

Ravel removed a Promenade which originally occurred between ‘Samuel’

Goldenberg and ‘Schmuÿle’ and Limoges Market. Certainly, Mussorgsky wanted the listener to keep in mind the observer’s changing perspective, but Ravel acknowledged that an audience isn’t in need of such a literal account.

In Catacombs Hartmann painted himself, the architect Kenel and a guide with a lantern exploring the Paris catacombs. The orchestration is almost brutally simple with stark – though expertly voiced – brass chords.

Catacombs moves into Con mortuis in lingua mortua. We hear a variation of the Promenade theme, with oboes playing against sepulchral-sounding high string tremolos. Mussorgsky wrote on the piano score: ‘Hartmann’s creative spirit leads me to the place of skulls and calls to them – the skulls begin to glow faintly from within.’

The Hut on Hen Legs refers to a Hartmann design for a clock face in the form of Baba-Yaga, the witch in Russian folk tales who lives in a hut mounted on the legs of a giant fowl.

The Great Gate of Kiev, Hartmann’s architectural design for a commemorative structure, provides the inspiration for a massive blazing finale.

G.K. Williams

Symphony Australia © 1999/2001

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra first performed Pictures at an Exhibition in 1948 in an arrangement by Walter Goehr. The ASO’s first performance of Ravel’s orchestration of the work took place in November 1955 under Tibor Paul, and most recently in February 2011 with Guy Noble.


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Concertmaster Natsuko Yoshimoto

Sponsored by ASO Chair of the Board Colin Dunsford AM & Lib Dunsford

Associat Principal Cello Ewen Bramble

Supported by Barbara Mellor

Principal Viola Juris Ezergailis

Supported in the memory of Mrs JJ Holden

Principal 2nd Violin Michael Milton

Supported by The Friends of the ASO

Associate Principal 2nd Violin Lachlan Bramble

Supported in the memory of Deborah Pontifex

Principal 1st Violin Shirin Lim

Supported in the memory of Dr Nandor Ballai

For more information please contact Vicky Lekis, Director of Development on (08) 8233 6260 or [email protected]

Violin Hilary Bruer

Supported by Marion Wells

Violin Emma Perkins

Supported by Peter & Pamela McKee

Violin Minas Berberyan

Supported by Merry Wickes

Violin Alexis Milton

Supported by Patricia Cohen

Associate Principal Viola Imants Larsens

Supported by Mr & Mrs Simon & Sue Hatcher

Principal Cello Simon Cobcroft

Supported by Andrew & Gayle Robertson

Cello Chris Handley

Supported by Johanna and Terry McGuirk

Cello David Sharp

Supported by Dr Aileen F Connon AM

Cello Sherrilyn Handley

Supported Johanna and Terry McGuirk

Principal Bass David Shilling

Supported by Mrs Maureen Akkermans

Bass David Phillips

Supported for ‘a great bass player with lots of spirit - love Betsy’

Bass Harley Gray

Supported by Bob Croser

Musical chair players and donors

Oboe Renae Stavely

Supported by Roderick Shire & Judy Hargrave

Principal Bass Clarinet Mitchell Berick

Supported by Nigel Stevenson & Glenn Ball

Principal Bassoon Mark Gaydon

Supported by Pamela Yule

Principal Tuba Peter Whish-Wilson

Supported by Ollie Clark AM & Joan Clark

Principal Timpani Robert Hutcheson

Supported by an anonymous donor

Principal Clarinet Dean Newcomb

Supported by Royal Over-Seas League SA Inc

Principal Flute Geoffrey Collins

Supported by Pauline Menz

Principal Cor Anglais Peter Duggan

Supported by Dr Ben Robinson

Principal Trumpet Matt Dempsey

Supported by R & P Cheesman

Bassoon Leah Stephenson

Supported by Liz Ampt

Principal Piccolo Julia Grenfell

Supported by Chris & Julie Michelmore

Principal Contra Bassoon Jackie Hansen

Supported by Norman Etherington & Peggy Brock

Associate Principal Trumpet Martin Phillipson

Supported by Richard Hugh Allert AO

Principal Percussion Steven Peterka

Supported by The Friends of the ASO

Principal Harp Suzanne Handel

Supported byShane Le Plastrier

Horn Sarah Barrett

Supported by Margaret Lehmann

Principal Trombone Cameron Malouf

Supported by Virginia Weckert & Charles Melton of Charles Melton Wines

Principal Oboe Celia Craig

Sponsored byPenelope & Geoffrey Hackett-Jones

Our inspirational donors

Diamond Patron ($25,000+)Mr & Mrs Anthony & Margaret GerardAndrew Thyne Reid Charitable TrustMs Merry WickesKim Williams AM

Platinum Patron ($10,000 - $24,999)

Dr Aileen F Connon AMThe Friends of the Adelaide Symphony OrchestraEstate of the late David Malcolm Haines QCEstate of the late Winifred J. LongbottomPlus two anonymous donors

Gold Patron ($5,000 - $9,999)Richard Hugh Allert AOMr Donald Scott GeorgeMr & Mrs Keith & Sue Langley & the Macquarie Group FoundationJohanna & Terry McGuirkPeter & Pamela McKeeMrs Diana McLaurinMr Norman Schueler OAM and Mrs Carol SchuelerMrs Pamela YulePlus two anonymous donors

Silver Patron ($2,500 - $4,999)Mrs Maureen AkkermansMs Liz AmptR & P CheesmanMr Ollie Clark AM & Mrs Joan ClarkMrs Patricia CohenMr Bob CroserLegh & Helen DavisMr Colin Dunsford AM & Mrs Lib DunsfordNorman Etherington & Peggy BrockGeoffrey & Penelope Hackett-JonesMr & Mrs Simon & Sue HatcherMr Robert KenrickShane Le PlastrierMrs Margaret LehmannMrs Joan LyonsMrs Barbara Mellor

Mrs Pauline MenzMr & Mrs Chris & Julie MichelmoreRobert PontifexMs Marietta ResekMr & Mrs Andrew & Gayle RobertsonDr Ben RobinsonRoyal Over-Seas League South Australia IncorporatedMr Ian SmailesMr Nigel Stevenson & Mr Glenn BallDr Georgette StraznickyMrs M W WellsDr Betsy Williams & Mr Oakley Dyer

Plus one anonymous donor

A sincere thank you to all our donors who contributed in the past 12 months. All gifts are very important to us and help to sustain and expand the ASO. Your donation makes a difference.

Maestro Patron ($1,000 - $2,499)

Mr Neil ArnoldDr Margaret ArstallAustralasian Double Reed Society SA

Prof Andrew & Mrs Elizabeth Bersten

The Hon D J & Mrs E M Bleby

Dianne & Felix BochnerDr Ivan CamensTony & Rachel DavidsonDr Christopher DibdenMrs Lorraine DrogemullerJiri & Pamela FialaIn Memory of Jim FrostRJ, LL & SJ GreensladeMr P R GriffithsMr Donald GrowdenDr Robert HeckerMrs Alexandra JarvisDr I KlepperIan Kowalick AM & Helen Kowalick

Dr & Mrs Neil & Fay McIntosh

Captain R S Pearson CSC and Mrs J V Pearson

Mrs Christine & The Late Dr Donald Perriam

Mr Mark RinneMr Roger SalkeldPhilip Satchell AM & Cecily Satchell

Larry & Maria ScottRoderick ShireMr & Mrs H W ShortDr & Mrs Nigel & Chris Steele-Scott OAM

Ms Guila TiverDavid & Linnett TurnerMr J W ValeMrs Margaret VerranDr Richard & Mrs Gweneth Willing

Plus five anonymous donors

Soloist Patron ($500 - $999)

Dr E Atkinson & Mr J HardyMs Dora O’BrienBarbara BahlinMr John BakerMr & Mrs R & SE BartzGraeme & Susan BethuneDr & Mrs J & M BrooksMrs J L BrooksRob & Denise Buttrose

Mrs Josephine CooperMr Bruce Debelle AOFr John DevenportMrs A E DowDr Alan Down & Hon Catherine Branson

Mr William FrogleyMr Otto FuchsDr Noel & Mrs Janet GrieveMrs Eleanor HandreckMr John H Heard AMDr Douglas & Mrs Tiiu Hoile

Rhys & Vyvyan HorwoodMrs M JanzowMr & Mrs G & L JaunayMrs Elizabeth Keam AMMrs Bellena KennedyMrs Joan LeaMr Michael McClaren & Ms Patricia Lescius

Mr J H LoveMr Melvyn MadiganMrs Skye McGregorMr Grant M MorganDr D G & Mrs K C MorrisMs Jocelyn ParsonsMr & Mrs John & Jenny Pike

J M ProsserMr & Mrs David & Janet Rice

Mrs Janet Ann RoverMr & Mrs Trevor & Elizabeth Rowan

Mr A D SaintMs Linda SampsonProfessor Ivan Shearer, AMMr & Mrs Antony & Mary Lou Simpson

Mr Martin PenhaleMr W & Mrs H StacyChristopher StoneThe Honourable Justice Ann Vanstone

Mr Nick WardenProf Robert WarnerMrs Pamela WhittleDr Nicholas WickhamMrs Gretta WillisMs Janet WorthHon David Wotton AM & Mrs Jill Wotton

Plus eight anonymous donors

Tutti Patron ($250 - $499)

Mr & Mrs David & Elaine Annear

Mr Rob Baillie

Mr Brenton BarrittMrs Jillian BeareDr Gaby BerceDr Adam BlackMr & Mrs Andrew & Margaret Black

Mrs Betty A BlackwoodMr Mark BlumbergLiz, Mike & Zoe BowenProf & Mrs John & Brenda Bradley

Ms Rosie BurnDr John CombeMr Stephen CourtenayMr Don R R CreedyMr & Mrs Michael & Jennifer Critchley

Mrs Betty CrossMrs M D Daniel OAMMs Barbara DeedMr L J EmmettMr & Mrs Stephen & Emma Evans

Ms Barbara FergussonMr Douglas FidockMr J H FordMr John GazleyMr & Mrs Andrew & Helen Giles

Dr David & Mrs Kay GillThe Hon R & Mrs L Goldsworthy

Mr Neil HallidayMrs Mary HandleyMrs Jill HayProf Robert & Mrs Margaret Heddle

Mrs Judith HeidenreichMr & Mrs Peter & Helen Herriman

Mr & Mrs Michael & Stacey Hill Smith

Mr John HoldenMrs Rosemary KeaneMr Angus KennedyKerry & Barbara KirkeLodge Thespian, No. 195 Inc

Mr Colin MacdonaldMrs Beverley MacmahonMr Ian MaitlandRobert MarroneDr Ruth MarshallMrs Lee MasonMrs Barbara MayMrs Caroline MilneMr & Mrs D & M MolyneuxMr Alex NicolDr John Overton

The Hon Carolyn PicklesKrystyna PindralMr Frank PrezMr & Mrs Michael & Susan Rabbitt

Mr & Mrs Ian & Jen RamsayMr A L ReadMrs Jill RussellMr Frank and Mrs Judy Sanders

Mrs Meredyth Sarah AMDr W T H & Mrs P M ScalesChris SchachtMr David ScownMs Gweneth ShaughnessyBeth & John ShepherdR & L SiegeleMrs Elizabeth P SimpsonMr & Mrs Jim & Anne Spiker

Eric StaakMr & Mrs Graham & Maureen Storer

Mrs Anne SutcliffeDr Anne Sved WilliamsMrs Verna SymonsMr & Mrs R & J TaylorThe Richard Wagner Society of South Australia Inc

Dr Peter TillettAnita Robinson & Michael Tingay

Mr & Mrs John & Janice Trewartha

Mr David TurnerKeith and Neta VickeryMr & Mrs Glen & Robina Weir

Mrs Ann WellsMr & Mrs Peter & Dawn Yeatman

Plus 16 anonymous donors The ASO also thanks the 603 patrons who gave other amounts in the past 12 months.


What your donations support Give proudly

full-time musicians

casual employees

hours of concerts

students & teachers engaged with the ASO

hours of rehearsals in the Grainger Studio

composers currently under commission

pages of sheet music turned

75125 232

10,107400

3 13 ,800

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra reaches over 100,000 people in our community every year and it’s thanks to individuals like you who help make it possible. With ticket sales only accounting for 28% of the Orchestra’s operational costs, private giving makes a significant impact in delivering world class concerts to the community. Please help the ASO to share the power of live music by donating generously.

Support Us

Donate nowSupporting your ASO is easy (donations over $2 are fully tax deductible and exempt of credit card charges). Give online at aso.com.au/donateOr, if you’d like further information or to discuss other ways to support the ASO, contact Director of Development, Vicky Lekis on 8233 6260 or [email protected].

A Bequest for the futureImagine a world in which concerts are only on YouTube and music only heard on recordings. Where would we be without the great orchestral performances that transcend time and place and move us beyond our imagination?

Help us to preserve the world of music and share your lasting passion for the ASO by making a gift in your Will. Your generosity will create enduring benefits for the ASO and ensure that the pleasure of music will be passed on to future generations.

Principal Partner

Major Partners

World Artist Partners

Corporate Partners

Media Partners

Corporate Club

Industry collaborators

Friends

Government Support

The ASO receives Commonwealth Government funding through the Australia Council, it arts funding and advisory body. The Orchestra is funded by the Government of South Australia through Arts SA. The Adelaide City Council supports the ASO during the 2014-15 financial year.

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra 91 Hindley St, Adelaide SA 5000 | Telephone (08) 8233 6233 Fax (08) 8233 6222 | Email [email protected] | aso.com.au

Principal Partner

Major Partners

World Artist Partners

Corporate Partners

Media Partners

Corporate Club

Industry collaborators

Friends

Government Support

57 FilmsBoylen – Website Design & DevelopmentCoopers Brewery LtdHaigh’s ChocolatesHickinbotham Group

M2 GroupNormetalsPeregrine TravelPoster ImpactThe Playford Adelaide

Thank you

DISCLAIMER: Every effort has been made to ensure that performance dates, times, prices and other information contained herein are correct at time of publication. Due to reasons beyond the ASO’s control, details may change without notice. We will make every effort to communicate these with you should this eventuate.

Join us

Santos and the ASO – great South Australian performersFor sixteen seasons Santos and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra have partnered together to deliver outstanding performances to audiences across South Australia. This proud tradition continues in 2015.

With our head office here in Adelaide, Santos has been part of South Australia for over 60 years.

We search Australia to find gas and oil to help provide energy to our nation. But we also put our energy into supporting the communities in which we live and work.

Each year Santos supports a wide range of community events and organisations across South Australia.

By 2017, this support will add up to $60m over a ten-year period.

At Santos, we believe that contributing to a vibrant culture is good for everyone. We don’t just look for energy - we help create it.

Proudly working in partnership

kwp!

SA

N10

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Virtuoso Violin - Adelaide Symphony Orchestra · PDF fileVirtuoso Violin Master 1 aso.com.au Classical Conversation One hour prior to the concerts, free for ticket holders ... Violin

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