SELBY PLAYS MOZARTTHU 28 MAR 7PM

MOZART’S GRAN PARTITATHU 30 MAY 7PM

MOZART’S JUPITER SYMPHONYTHU 29 AUG 7PM

MOZART AND SHOSTAKOVICHTHU 17 OCT 7PM

C I T Y R E C I T A L H A L L A N G E L P L A C E

M O Z A R T I N T H E C I T Y

Mystery MomentsEach Mozart in the City concert ends with a Mystery Moment – one delightful musical jewel to send you into the evening with a smile. We’d like to let the mystery linger after the concert, but we don’t want to keep you in unnecessary suspense, so we’ll be revealing the name of the piece on the Friday after each concert.

To find out the identity of the Mystery Moment, you can:

Check our Twitter feed: twitter.com/sydsymph

Visit our Facebook page: facebook.com/sydneysymphony

These web pages are public and can be viewed by anyone.

PROGRAM CONTENTS

Introductionpage 5

About the Artistspage 8

Thursday 28 March | 7pmSelby plays Mozartpage 13

Thursday 30 May | 7pmMozart’s Gran Partitapage 19

Thursday 29 August | 7pmMozart’s Jupiter Symphonypage 25

Thursday 17 October | 7pmMozart and Shostakovich page 31

This program book for Mozart in the City contains articles and information for all four concerts in the 2013 series. Copies will be available at every performance, but we invite you to keep your program and bring it with you to each concert.

2013 season

City Recital Hall Angel Place

Mozart in the City

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A page from the autograph score of Mozart’s Gran Partita – showing the beginning of the Adagio. This is the movement famously described in Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, as a fi ctional

Salieri hears the genius of Mozart for the fi rst time…

SALIERI: And then, right away, the concert began. I heard it through the door – some serenade: at fi rst only vaguely – too horrifi ed to attend. But presently the sound insisted – a solemn Adagio in E fl at.

It started simply enough: just a pulse in the lowest registers…like a rusty squeezebox. It would have been comic except for the slowness, which gave it instead a sort of serenity. And then suddenly, high above it, sounded a single note on the oboe.

It hung there unwavering – piercing me through – till breath could hold it no longer, and a clarinet withdrew it out of me, and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight it had me trembling. The light fl ickered in the room. My eyes clouded! The squeezebox groaned louder, and over it the higher instruments wailed and warbled, throwing lines of sound around me…

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INTRODUCTION

Mozart in stimulating company

Cast your eyes over the Mozart works in this series. In the fi rst and last concerts, there’s a piano concerto. One might say the medium is the message, Mozart as soloist with an orchestra, especially with the additional information that Mozart played both these concertos himself. Then in the third concert there’s one of his most famous works of all: a symphony. The sentimentally minded may like to note that in one concert there’s Mozart last piano concerto, in another his last symphony. But by the time the Jupiter had ended, its fi rst hearers may have wondered whether they’d ever heard a symphony where the fi nale was the most ambitious and memorable movement. In the fourth concert, we fi nd how Mozart, years before that symphony, had also ended a concerto with the most elaborate movement. That would have been surprising then, but not now. On the other hand, the style of Mozart’s music is less familiar to us than it was to its fi rst audiences. Two hundred plus years have gone by!

There is one completely new piece in these concerts. We will be the fi rst to hear it. Again, it’s a concerto, but its solo instrument rarely gets to play a concerto. You might think that a double bass concerto is a very modern thing, but you’d be wrong. There was a school of double bass virtuosity in Mozart’s time and place, and he knew the players – he even composed, not a concerto, but, in an aria for bass singer, a solo part for double bass. Mary Finsterer knows a double bass player too…

Franz Schreker is not exactly a composer of our time, but who knows that? His is far from a household name. You may have heard the title of one of his operas, Der ferne Klang (The Distant Sound), but probably none of his music. Don’t worry, what you’ll hear is beautiful, even ravishing.

And Hindemith? Can there be a case of a composer of such acknowledged eminence whose work is so little heard in concerts? And yet, how attractive his music often proves! In a concert series where we’re on the lookout for novelties, and especially for pieces putting orchestra members in the spotlight, Hindemith may be a godsend. He composed for virtually every instrument, solo or in combination. We’ll hear from him a kind of 20th-century concerto grosso, featuring solo winds, brass and harp. There’s a surprise in it, too.

…putting orchestra members in the spotlight…

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In Vienna Mozart became known as a composer and a piano virtuoso, and his piano concertos provided a vehicle to show off in both realms. In the 2013 Mozart in the City series we hear two. (Posthumous portrait of Mozart by Barbara Krafft, 1819, based in part on the family portrait by Johann Nepomuk della Croce c.1780/81, see page 22.)

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The only composer mentioned with Mozart in the titles of these concerts is Shostakovich. Shostakovich often had to disguise the intent of his music, because he composed under threat. In his String Quartet No.4 he sometimes seems to be disguising himself as something like Mozart – Mozart in divertimento mode. But Rudolf Barshai has blown his friend’s cover. His orchestral arrangement brings out the deeper resonances of the music. And notice what he calls the result: Chamber Symphony. The same title Schreker gave his piece.

Is ‘chamber symphony’ a contradiction in terms? Surely not, since we play the Jupiter Symphony with the same sized forces as Schreker or Barshai’s version of Shostakovich.

The piece in this concert that really has problems with its title is by Mozart. Let’s call it, for the moment, Köchel 361. It’s famous, these days, mainly because an especially, indeed searingly, aff ecting passage from it was used in the movie Amadeus to show Salieri what he was up against in Mozart. But even before then, the piece was famous as Mozart’s biggest, longest wind piece. It’s sometimes referred to as the ‘Serenade for 13 winds’ – and you could play it that way – but Mozart probably expected it to be played by 12 winds, plus a double bass. It does seem to fi t with the name ‘Serenade’, having multiple movements including two minuets, a genre familiar in Salzburg and which 19th-century classifi ers called Serenades. Such music was often for ceremonies such as the end of the academic year, but we can’t fi nd an event with which to connect this piece. Neither does it fi t the conventions of the wind ensemble music for which there was a craze in Vienna just as Mozart arrived there – music for wind sextet (pairs of clarinets bassoons and horns) or the Emperor’s preferred kind of wind band, the same plus two oboes.

You may say it doesn’t really matter. More to the point, if you haven’t heard this piece before, you may be wondering how you’ll get on, listening to nearly an hour of music for winds alone. But don’t worry. That’s the genius of Mozart – varying the sound and the texture, with the help of those extra horns and basset horns. A unique masterpiece, any performance of which is an event. You’re expecting this to be a highlight. But there’ll be unexpected ones, as well. This orchestra has more than one series that could bear the name ‘discovery’.

DAVID GARRETT © 2013

Our Bravo! newsletter is published in the program books for individual concerts, with nine issues during the year. We’ve included the second issue for 2013 as a sample in the back of this program (see page 43).

If you’re interested in reading more orchestra news and profi les through the year, the remaining issues can be downloaded at sydneysymphony.com/bravo

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Kathryn Selby PIANO

Kathryn Selby studied at the Sydney Conservatorium, Curtis Institute of Music, Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, and the Juilliard School. She was a prize winner at the Van Cliburn, William Kapell and Young Concert Artists competitions, Bruce Hungerford Memorial Award, and the Ferruccio Busoni Competition, giving her a recital debut at Carnegie Hall, and she received Churchill and Australia Council fellowships and an Astral Foundation of New York career development grant.

While in the United States, she performed with the American Chamber Orchestra as well as appearing as a soloist with orchestras such as the Philadelphia, Boston Pops and San Francisco Symphony. In Australia she has appeared for most of the major symphony orchestras and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, as well as performing in the Sydney Mozart and Sydney festivals.

Since her return to Australia in 1988, she has founded several chamber music ensembles and series, including Selby & Friends and the popular Macquarie Trio (1992–2006), and most recently the series A Little Lunch Music at City Recital Hall Angel Place. Her trio TRIOZ was the fi rst ensemble in residence at Angel Place (2008–11). Her recordings include an all-Gershwin disc, a solo recital disc, and chamber music recordings with the Canberra Wind Soloists and the Macquarie Trio. In January she was named a Member of the Order of Australia.

PRINCIPAL VIOLAKIM WILLIAMS AM & CATHERINE DOVEY CHAIR.

Roger Benedict plays a Carlo Antonio Testore viola (Milan, 1753).

Roger Benedict has worked as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, teacher and conductor. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (where he was later a professor), and the International Musicians’ Seminar, Prussia Cove. In 1991 he was appointed Principal Viola of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and in 2002 Principal Viola of the Sydney Symphony. He is also Artistic Director of the orchestra’s Fellowship program, and has performed as guest principal with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

As a soloist he has appeared with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Ulster Orchestra, and Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, Japan, as well as with the Sydney Symphony, most recently in Berlioz’s Harold in Italy. His recordings include the recital disc Volupté (2010) and Vaughan Williams’ Flos Campi with the Sydney Symphony (2011).

Roger Benedict regularly directs orchestras at the Sydney Conservatorium and Australian National Academy of Music, the National Youth Orchestra in London and Aldeburgh, and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. In addition to leading the Sydney Symphony Fellowship program, he is a Senior Lecturer at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, a European Union Orchestra tutor, and was an orchestral mentor for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 in Sydney.

Roger Benedict CONDUCTOR

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In the course of a long international career, Hansjörg Schellenberger has earned respect as solo oboist with the Berlin Philharmonic (1980–2001), as founder of the Berlin Haydn Ensemble, as a committed teacher, and as a conductor with wide orchestral experience.

He was never ‘just an oboist’. He played recorder as a child (leading to his enthusiasm for baroque music) and composed, and within four years of taking up the oboe he won a German youth competition and was named best conductor at the Interlochen Music Camp. At 17 he began studying oboe with Manfred Clement and conducting with Jan Koetsier, while pursuing academic study in mathematics.

Decades of observing, scrutinising scores and comparing interpretations at fi rst hand (whether on the podium or from the orchestra), have formed the basis of a second career that has now extended into the international sphere. In addition to German radio orchestras and orchestras in Spain and Italy, Hansjörg Schellenberger regularly conducts and tours with the Camerata Salzburg. After one such tour, to Japan, the Okayama Philharmonic Orchestra nominated him its chief conductor.

In addition to conducting, he runs a select oboe class and teaches woodwind chamber music in Madrid at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía. He also performs in a duo with his wife, harpist Margit-Anna Süß.

An extensive discography of more than 50 recordings documents his work as a musician. In 1997 he founded his own label, Campanella Musica, to record the music of composers such as CPE Bach, Haydn and Beethoven, as well as French baroque music and contemporary works.

This is Hansjörg Schellenberger’s fi rst appearance with the Sydney Symphony.

Hansjörg Schellenberger CONDUCTOR

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Jessica Cottis was born in Sale, Victoria and studied organ and musicology at the Australian National University. She continued her organ studies with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris and made her European debut at Westminster Cathedral in 2003. A hand injury halted her playing career and she began studying conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, where her teachers were Colin Metters, George Hurst and Colin Davis. On graduating in 2009 she was appointed Assistant Conductor to Donald Runnicles at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Conducting Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, as well as Manson Fellow in Composition at the RAM.

As Assistant Conductor of the Sydney Symphony, she divides her time between Australia and Britain, where she is increasingly in demand as a guest conductor. This season she makes debuts with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic and will return to the BBC SSO and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera.

Jessica Cottis made her BBC Proms debut in 2010 conducting music by James Dillon, later conducting the premiere of his cycle Nine Rivers with the BBC SSO and Les Percussions de Strasbourg. She regularly conducts the Red Note Ensemble, Manson Ensemble and London Sinfonietta; appears in festivals across the UK, and has conducted opera premieres as well as core operatic repertoire in Britain and Europe.

ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

Supported by Premier PartnerCredit Suisse

Read more in Bravo!bit.ly/Bravo2012-8

PRINCIPAL DOUBLE BASS

Kees Boersma plays a double bass made by John Lott Snr (London, c.1810)

Read more in Bravo! bit.ly/Bravo2012-8

Jessica Cottis CONDUCTOR

Kees Boersma DOUBLE BASS

Born in the Netherlands, Kees Boersma graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts before returning to the Netherlands to study at the Sweelinck Conservatorium, Amsterdam. He then worked with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for two years, performing at the Salzburg Festival, BBC Proms, and on tours to Montreux, Lucerne, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. Returning to Australia, he performed as principal with the State Orchestra of Victoria and Australian Chamber Orchestra, before joining the Sydney Symphony as Principal Double Bass in 1990.

He was a founding member of contemporary music group ELISION, with whom he has recorded several CDs and toured Italy and Germany, including performances at the Ultraschall Festival in Berlin. He also performs with the Sydney Soloists, and appears regularly with the Australia Ensemble. In 2004, he performed Schubert’s Trout Quintet and Brett Dean’s Voices of Angels with the Australia Ensemble during a national tour for Musica Viva. He also appeared in the inaugural Melbourne Spoleto Festival, performing chamber music with Joshua Bell, Colin Carr and Carter Brey. His musical interests include contemporary music and the solo double bass repertory of 18th-century Vienna, and in his solo appearances with the Sydney Symphony he has performed Colin Bright’s Double Bass Concerto, Dittersdorf ’s Divertimento for viola and double bass, and Bottesini’s Concerto for two double basses.

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CONCERTMASTER

Dene Olding plays a 1720 Joseph Guarnerius violin.

Read more in Bravo! bit.ly/Bravo2012-7

Dene Olding is one of Australia’s most outstanding instrumentalists and has achieved a distinguished career in many aspects of musical life. In addition to his role as Concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony, he is fi rst violinist for the Australia Ensemble and the Goldner String Quartet. As a soloist, he appears regularly with the Australian symphony orchestras and has given the Australian premieres of Lutoslawski’s Chain 2, Carter’s Violin Concerto, and the Glass Violin Concerto, as well as concertos by Ross Edwards and Bozidar Kos, and Richard Mills’ Double Concerto, written for him and his wife, violist Irina Morozova.

A graduate of the Juilliard School, in 1985 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship and was a Laureate of the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Violin Competition. He rejoined the Sydney Symphony as Co-Concertmaster in 2002, having held the position from 1987 to 1994. Other concertmaster positions have included the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted the Sydney Symphony and Auckland Philharmonia, and appeared as conductor-soloist with chamber orchestras in Australia and America.

His recordings include Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart sonatas, concertos by Martin, Milhaud, Hindemith and Barber, the premiere recording of Edwards’ violin concerto, Maninyas, the complete Beethoven string quartets and a Rachmaninoff disc with Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Dene Olding CONDUCTOR

Avan Yu was born in Hong Kong and moved to Vancouver at the age of nine. He studied piano with Kenneth Broadway and Ralph Markham, and is now studying with Klaus Hellwig at the Berlin University of the Arts.

Last year he won the 2012 Sydney International Piano Competition and was also chosen as the Mozart concerto winner. He has appeared as soloist with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and the Dresden Philharmonic, Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony, in addition to concerto appearances with the Morocco Philharmonic, Real Filharmonía de Galicia and Slovak Radio Orchestra, and in Canada with the Victoria Symphony, Windsor Symphony and Nova Scotia Symphony Orchestra.

He has performed chamber music with Yo-Yo Ma at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa for the Prime Minster of Canada, and appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Salle Cortot in Paris, Philharmonie in Berlin, Madrid’s Nacional Auditorio de Música, Sydney Opera House, and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. His performances have been broadcast on public radio in the United States, Canada, China, Spain and Germany, as well as by ABC Classic FM.

Avan Yu PIANO

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This concert will be recorded for later broadcast on ABC Classic FM.

Pre-concert talk by David Garrett at 6.15pm in the First Floor Reception Room.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Estimated durations: 25 minutes, 32 minutes, 5 minutesThe concert will conclude at approximately 8.15pm.

In February we learned, with regret, that Geoffrey Lancaster would need to withdraw from his concerts with the Sydney Symphony for health reasons. We are grateful to Kathryn Selby for agreeing to take over the program.

Selby plays MozartRoger Benedict CONDUCTOR

Kathryn Selby PIANO

Franz Schreker (1878–1934)Kammersymphonie (Chamber Symphony)Langsam, schwebend (Slow, fl oating) –Allegro vivace – Adagio –Scherzo (Allegro vivace) – Ziemlich bewegt (Fairly agitated) –Langsam, schwebendThe Chamber Symphony is in one movement

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)Piano Concerto No.27 in B fl at, K595Allegro LarghettoAllegro

Mozart Mystery MomentTo be announced on Friday. See page 3 for details.

2013 season

mozart in the cityThursday 28 March | 7pm

City Recital Hall Angel Place

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

Longing for Spring and a distant music

The Chamber Symphony is Schreker’s only completed symphonic work. He was primarily a composer of operas, in which the orchestra plays a rich and elaborate part. Schreker was also a teacher of composition. In 1912 he was teaching at the Vienna Conservatorium. The Chamber Symphony was completed in December 1916 to mark the centenary of the institution where Schreker had himself studied years earlier, and was intended ‘for the faculty of the Royal and Imperial Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna’. Schreker himself conducted the fi rst performance on March 12, 1917. The players were professors at the Academy and members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The importance the music gives to individual instruments might be a tribute to Schreker’s colleagues, but in any case it suited his inclination, also heard in his operas, for varying timbre constantly in a shifting, shimmering textural web.

Mozart’s last piano concerto was premiered by him on 4 March 1791. It was his last performance in a public concert, not one of his own but given by the clarinettist Joseph Beer at Jahn’s Hall in Vienna. Mozart at this tine had enough commissions to be able to devote himself almost entirely to composition, writing two operas (The Magic Flute and La clemenza di Tito), a large part of a Requiem Mass, a clarinet concerto for Anton Stadler, and other works. Mozart biographer Maynard Solomon suggests that the completion of the piano concerto, his fi rst for three years, marks a renewal of Mozart’s creative impulse. The fi rst two movements may have been composed in 1788 – lying fallow until January 1791, when Mozart wrote a last movement on the same theme as a song he composed for a collection of songs for children (a commission from a bookseller). The song, ‘Longing for Spring’, begins with the words: ‘Come, dear May, and clothe the trees in green once more.’

Mozart’s last piano concerto has little in it to attract the virtuoso, or the audience in search of the sensational. Many commentators have found in it, if not a feeling of leave-taking, at least resignation and nostalgia. For others it heralds a new tone in Mozart’s work – one of simpler, unassuming, sometimes even popular expression.

We think we know how to listen to Mozart…but who is this Schreker? The title of his fi rst staged opera is suggestive: Der ferne Klang – The Distant Sound. The libretto, written by the composer, tells of a young creative

When Mozart composed his 27th piano concerto, he had no idea it would be his last. Mozart played it in his last public concert as a pianist. But this is not, as some have thought, a ‘farewell’ concerto. In 1791 he was busy with many composing projects. Intimate in scale and manner, this concerto seems to lean towards expressing feeling, and away from virtuosity for its own sake. The final movement has the same tune as Mozart’s song ‘Longing for Spring’.

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artist, Fritz, who leaves his girlfriend to search for his goal, ‘the distant sound’ – too late he realises that the secret of this distant sound lies in nature itself. Schreker’s mixture of realism, some daringly explicit subject matter, in an atmosphere of sensuality, seduction, opulence and subliminal danger, appealed to his contemporaries. In 1912 Der ferne Klang brought Schreker, at the quite advanced age of 34, overnight fame as a leading composer of new opera. This fame was confi rmed by the operas he wrote at the time of composing the Chamber Symphony: Die Gezeichneten (The Marked Ones) and Der Schatzgräber (The Treasure Seeker).

So how came Schreker to be almost completely forgotten, until a revival in recent years? The Nazis disrupted performances of his operas, and forced his resignation from 1931 to 1933 from the headship of music institutions in Berlin. This contributed to the stroke that brought Schreker’s early death. For the Nazis, Schreker’s art was an exhibit of what

Who was Schreker?

Schreker in 1916 was an up-and-coming opera composer. His operas (of which his first, The Distant Sound, is best-known), blend realism and ‘adult themes’ with near-surrealism. But in the Chamber Symphony, where there are no words, what impresses is the dream-like dramatic effect and the resourcefulness of Schreker’s orchestral writing. Schreker’s music went out of fashion along with his post-romantic style. The Nazis considered his operas degenerate, and hounded him to an early death. In recent years there has been a Schreker revival.

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they considered decadent, degenerate. What stood in the way of reassessment of Schreker’s achievement after the War was that modernists, then in the ascendancy, also had problems with his musical style. The following generation – like his Berlin colleague Hindemith – thought Schreker’s music too ornate and lacking a clear melodic line. Even in Vienna, Schoenberg followers found that Schreker clung too strongly to tonal harmony, and that his interest in tone colour as the main structural feature of music ran counter to their own preoccupation with intervals (and ultimately the ‘twelve tone row’). This, despite Schreker’s closeness to Schoenberg – he was the fi rst to conduct Gurrelieder, in 1913.

Schoenberg had composed his own Chamber Symphony in 1906, for 15 solo instruments. Schreker’s piece similarly condenses the usual four-movement form of a symphony into one. One could try to hear in Schreker’s Chamber Symphony, as did one advocate of Schoenbergian modernism: ‘a sonata allegro exposition. An adagio, a relatively lengthy scherzo. In place of a fi nale there is a recapitulation of the exposition and adagio.’ But surface is more compelling in Schreker’s piece than underlying structure. By comparison with the music of Schoenberg, Schreker’s seems indeterminate, more like a series of images and states. If sonata and symphony appear at all, it is as ghosts. This is almost ‘sound for sound’s sake’ – one recent writer refers to Schreker’s sound-bites.

Eventually he called this piece ‘Chamber Symphony’, but in the sketches Schreker referred to it as a tone poem. Knowing that it uses material from an incomplete opera called The Sounding Spheres, some fi nd it more like latent opera. Every question this music poses seems to open the door to another enigma. Is the opening an introduction, or is it the main theme? By the end we may feel that the question posed at the beginning is the conclusion, as in the search for the distant sound.

The recently renewed attraction to Schreker comes from the sense that he shows a way out of late-romanticism, diff erent from the modernist paths – whether neo-classical, atonal or serial. Aspects of romanticism appear, fl oating in an eclectic suspended reality. Schreker may have been pointing the way to post-modernism.

If we go with its fl ow, listening to Mozart’s concerto can also be a dream-like experience. This concerto begins – as no other music of Mozart’s does except the G minor Symphony No.40 – with several bars of accompaniment.

Schreker’s Chamber Symphony (1916) is a single-movement piece in which the four movements of conventional symphonic structure are condensed and blurred in a fluid music of shifting tempos, colours and textures rather than clearly discernible and worked out themes.

On the stage you’ll see seven winds, eleven strings, harp, celesta, piano, timpani and percussion – a relatively large ensemble for a ‘chamber symphony’.

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The fi rst theme sets the mood: free and expressive, yet perhaps a little weary, too, each of its three phases sinking to rest before being roused by the wind instruments. The slow movement is simple, like a celestially beautiful romance. The last movement has elements of the hunt, mostly cheerful but with shadows, and with some of the longing expressed in the words of the song on which the music is based.

DAVID GARRETT © 2013

Portrait of Mozart by his brother-in-law Joseph Lange. The painting is an incomplete enlargement of a miniature portrait from 1782–83, and would have shown Mozart seated at a piano.

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SHOSTAKOVICH Jazz Suite No.1

GERSHWIN Piano Concerto in F

PROKOFIEV Symphony No.5

James Gaffigan conductor

Jean-Yves Thibaudet piano

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet brings impeccable f lair to his performances and you’ ll want to hear him in George Gershwin’s jazz-inf lected piano concerto.

Thu 5 Dec 1.30pm . Fri 6 Dec 8pm Sat 7 Dec 2pm . Mon 9 Dec 7pm

Jazz Inspirations

THIBAUDET PLAYS GERSHWIN

sydney symphony 19

2013 season

mozart in the city

Thursday 30 May | 7pm

City Recital Hall Angel Place

Mozart’s Gran PartitaHansjörg Schellenberger CONDUCTOR

Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)Concerto for woodwinds, harp and orchestra (1949)Moderately fastGraziosoRondo (Rather fast)Featuring Janet Webb (fl ute), Shefali Pryor (oboe), Lawrence Dobell (clarinet), Roger Brooke (bassoon) andLouise Johnson (harp)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)Gran Partita –Serenade in B fl at for 13 instruments, K361Largo – Allegro moltoMenuetto – Trio I & IIAdagioMinuetto (Allegretto) – Trio I & IIRomanze (Adagio – Allegretto – Adagio)Theme with variations (Andante)Finale (Molto allegro)

Mozart Mystery MomentTo be announced on Friday. See page 3 for details.

This concert will be recorded for later broadcast on ABC Classic FM.

Pre-concert talk by David Garrett at 6.15pm in the First Floor Reception Room.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Estimated durations: 16 minutes, 43 minutes, 5 minutesThe concert will conclude at approximately 8.15pm.

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

Winds sound for a special event

This is a windy concert. Mozart called Vienna the land of the piano, his main instrument, but many of his close musical associates there were wind players, like the clarinettist Anton Stadler and horn player Joseph Leutgeb. In another century, a bassoonist late for a rehearsal of a Hindemith wind quintet was astonished to fi nd that the composer, who could play most instruments, had stepped in for him on a borrowed bassoon.

This concert is conducted by German oboist Hansjörg Schellenberger. A fortnight ago, in the Sydney Opera House, he played a concerto with the orchestra but tonight he directs. As it turns out, this is the second year running the Sydney Symphony has invited a prominent European oboist to lead it in celebrating wind music and wind playing.

Marvelling at Mozart’s creativity, we must nevertheless realise that he had to be practical. His anxious father Leopold, chafi ng in Salzburg, needed reassurance that his son in Vienna wasn’t composing just for the sake of it. He must have been glad to hear from Wolfgang that he was busy composing works that ‘will bring in money now, though not later’. Such a work was ‘A great wind piece of a very special kind’. This was presumably a commission, for which Mozart would be paid by Anton Stadler, his clarinettist friend, though the music, as we will see, may already have been written. Stadler was taking advantage of the Lenten season, when the best wind players in Vienna were free from their usual professional commitments in the theatres. He was able to put together an extraordinary number of them, 12 or 13, for a concert on 23 March 1784. This was a Musical Academy, as such concerts were called, organised for Stadler’s own benefi t. An eyewitness described Mozart’s music for this concert, and the list of instruments he gives exactly matches the ‘Gran Partita’, though he writes of only four movements being played.

This is the only known performance of any of the music of the Gran Partita in Mozart’s lifetime. Mozart himself doesn’t refer to Stadler’s concert, and it is more than possible that, on the night, he was attending the premiere by his pupil Barbara Ployer of the concerto he had written for her, K449. Her father was a well-off patron of the composer – so Mozart, having presumably pocketed Stadler’s fee, and having no part to play in his own wind music, knew what side his bread was buttered on.

Performances of the Gran Partita are special events, and the orchestra needs to find, in addition to its standard complement of wind players, a pair of basset horns (lower pitched relatives of the clarinet). The amazing thing is that the seven movements of wind music, heard consecutively, are never wearying – Mozart wonderfully contrasts pace and mood, and colour combinations.

A grand slow introduction leads to a tightly argued movement with only one basic idea. In the second of two minuets, the second trio provides an especially ear-tickling moment. There is another such delight in the fifth variation of the penultimate movement. Famous from the film Amadeus, is the beginning of the Adagio, with its long-held oboe note.

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Mozart wasn’t the only composer to miss his own premiere. Paul Hindemith’s students at Yale were surprised to meet him one day on his way to the New Haven train station. ‘I’m going to Dallas for the premiere of my Sinfonia Serena.’ ‘But you never go to premieres of your works!’ ‘True, but I have a compositional problem, and I fi nd train travel helpful for sorting those out.’ A few days later the same students ran into him again: ‘We thought you were in Dallas!’ ‘Well,’ said Hindemith, ‘by the time I got to Grand Central Station in New York I’d sorted out the problem, so I got on the fi rst train back.’

This is a timely story. It was while based in the United States that Hindemith composed most of his works for solo instrument and orchestra (Concertos for Clarinet 1947, Horn 1949, Trumpet and Bassoon 1949, and this one

Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)

Paul Hindemith was an outstandingly versatile musician who could write for any instrument and most likely play it himself. In the 1930s he was at the height of his reputation as Germany’s leading composer but chose to leave his troubled country. During and immediately after World War II he lived in the United States. That’s when he composed most of his solo concertos for wind instruments. Some feature more than one soloist, in the manner of the 18th century. Hindemith caps the games in his concerto for woodwinds and harp with a surprise for his wife Gertrud. Their silver wedding anniversary fell on the day of the concerto’s premiere, and a famous wedding march is unmistakable…

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for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon and Harp 1949). This refl ects the well-off state of American orchestras in the post-war years, their willingness to pay, and that of soloists such as clarinettist Benny Goodman. Equally it refl ects Hindemith’s exploring of a particular medium in depth, and his desire to contribute to the repertoire of as many instruments as possible.

Knowing that Hindemith had a propensity not to turn up for premieres, it’s disarming to fi nd him building into a concerto a reason why he had to be there. This Concerto for woodwinds, harp and orchestra was written in 1949 for the Fifth Festival of Contemporary American Music. Work was begun in April; the premiere was at Columbia University in New York City, on 15 May, the Hindemiths’ silver wedding anniversary. There was a surprise for Gertrud. Cheeky clarinet quotations in the third movement would have made it obvious to all that a marriage was being celebrated. ‘In honour of the occasion,’ Hindemith explained, ‘I mixed into it the Wedding March from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “skin, hair and all”.’

This portrait of the Mozart family was painted in Salzburg by Johann Nepomuk della Croce in 1780/81. Mozart and his sister sit at the keyboard, father Leopold holds his violin, and Mozart’s mother, who had died in Paris in 1778, is represented by her portrait on the wall.

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The fi rst movement is lyrical and pastoral, the second a series of canons between fl ute and clarinet, oboe and bassoon. Flute and harp are often associated, a pairing often heard on its own (or as soloists in a Mozart concerto). Taking Mozart comparisons further, Hindemith knew that in the last movement of Mozart’s Quintet for piano and winds (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn) there is a written-out cadenza in tempo, for all the instruments. Hindemith does the same thing with his soloists.

There remains a mystery about Mozart’s Gran Partita. It used to be thought that Mozart began composing it in Munich in 1781 for the premiere of his opera Idomeneo (hence the adjacent Köchel catalogue number). We know some of it was performed in Vienna in 1784, and the remaining movements may not yet have been written. But recent dating of the paper Mozart used suggests he began the piece later in 1781, soon after moving to Vienna, when he was falling in love with Constanze Weber. There is even a slim chance that Mozart intended the music for his own wedding. The outsize instrumentation, then, would be his idea, not Stadler’s. Wind music of this kind was associated with celebrations in affl uent families. Mozart, we may fantasise, thought he and his bride worthy of ‘a great wind piece of a very special kind’.

DAVID GARRETT © 2013

What’s in a name?

Wind ensemble pieces were often called ‘partita’ or ‘parthia’ – meaning simply in several parts, e.g. a sextet or octet. Mozart’s K361 somehow acquired the name ‘Gran Partita’ – big partita – and it is indeed ‘big’, unprecedentedly so.

The other title you’ll come across in connection with K361 is ‘Serenade for 13 wind instruments’, although in Vienna in 1784 the lowest part would have been played on double bass rather than the new contrabassoon – a very unreliable piece of plumbing in Mozart’s day.

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MORE MUSIC

MARY FINSTERERAmong the recent releases of Mary Finsterer’s music is the atmospheric soundtrack to South Solitary (2010). Finsterer plays piano on the disc, joined by Louise Johnson and Genevieve Lang (harps) and Fiona Ziegler and Kate Malone (violins). Christopher Gordon and Brett Kelly conduct the Sydney Scoring Orchestra.ABC CLASSICS 476 3955

For a comprehensive survey of her concert music, look for the 2-CD retrospective from 2004. The performances are by top Australian and international artists.ABC CLASSICS 476 1760maryfi nsterer.com

PAUL HINDEMITHFor Hindemith’s Concerto for woodwinds, harp and orchestra, we highly recommend the recording by Jirí Belohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. The brass have their moment in the sun with Konzertmusik for brass and strings, Op.50, and the major work is the symphony Mathis der Maler.CHANDOS 9457

FRANZ SCHREKERSchreker wasn’t the composer of his generation to compose a chamber symphony and one illuminating recording brings together chamber symphonies by George Enescu (Op.33, composed in 1954), Arnold Schoenberg (Op.9, 1906) and Franz Schreker (1916). The Gateway Chamber Orchestra is conducted by Gregory Wolynec.SUMMIT RECORDS 592

SHOSTAKOVICH/BARSHAIRudolf Barshai himself conducts the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra of Milan in a 2-CD recording of the chamber symphonies he arranged from Shostakovich string quartets, including the one heard in this series (Op.83a) and the best-known of the fi ve, Op.110a, based on the Eighth String Quartet.BRILLIANT CLASSICS 8212

AND NOW MOZART…OPERA OVERTURES

For an invigorating recording of the complete Mozart overtures – 16 in total, from the obscure Apollo et Hyacinthus to the The Magic Flute – seek out Andrea Marcon and La Cetra Barockorchester Basel.DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 477 9445

GRAN PARTITA For Mozart’s Gran Partita in a modern instrument performance, you can’t go wrong with former Sydney Symphony chief conductor Edo de Waart and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. And the

Eloquence label has paired the Gran Partita with another Mozart work featuring winds, the Serenade in E fl at, K375.ELOQUENCE 4646372

If you prefer a period instrument sound, look for Philippe Herreweghe and his Champs Élysées Orchestra in a diff erent pairing of wind serenades: Gran Partita and the Serenade in C minor, K388.HARMONIA MUNDI 2961570

PIANO CONCERTOSThe two Mozart piano concertos in this year’s Mozart in the City series (K459 and K595) are happily paired on a release featuring Alica De Larrocha accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra and Colin Davis. ‘Few other artists,’ wrote one reviewer, ‘are more attuned to Mozart’s mix of pain and radiance.’RCA VICTOR RED SEAL 68289

JUPITER SYMPHONYMozart’s Jupiter is one of the most frequently recorded of his symphonies and choosing between the diff erent options is diffi cult! But for a connection with our own performance, look for the recording by Colin Davis, one of Jessica Cottis’s teachers at the Royal Academy of Music. He conducts the Dresden Staatskapelle in 13 of Mozart’s late symphonies, a generous collection that includes the Paris and Prague symphonies and the great G minor symphony (No.40) as well as the Jupiter. Five CDs and excellent value.DECCA 475 9120

Broadcasts and Webcasts

Most Sydney Symphony concerts are recorded by ABC Classic FM for live or delayed broadcast. Broadcast listings can be found at www.abc.net.au/classic

Fine Music 102.5Fine Music 102.5 broadcasts a regular Sydney Symphony spot at 6pm on the second Tuesday of each month. Tune in to hear musicians, staff and guest artists discuss what’s in store in our forthcoming concerts.

Selected Sydney Symphony concerts are webcast live on BigPond and Telstra T-box and made available for later viewing On Demand.

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Mozart’s Jupiter SymphonyJessica Cottis CONDUCTOR

Kees Boersma DOUBLE BASS

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)The Magic Flute: Overture

Mary Finsterer (born 1962)Lake Ice – Double Bass ConcertoPREMIERE

Commissioned by the Sydney Symphony for Kees Boersma and the orchestra.

MozartSymphony No.41 in C, K551 (Jupiter)Allegro vivaceAndante cantabileMenuetto (Allegretto) – TrioMolto allegro

Mozart Mystery MomentTo be announced on Friday. See page 3 for details.

This concert will be recorded for later broadcast on ABC Classic FM.

Pre-concert talk by David Garrett at 6.15pm in the First Floor Reception Room.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Estimated durations: 7 minutes, 22 minutes, 31 minutes, 5 minutesThe concert will conclude at approximately 8.20pm.

2013 season

mozart in the city

Thursday 29 August | 7pm

City Recital Hall Angel Place

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

The Magic Flute, a play with songs, is more like a musical than an opera. It was written for a theatre in the Vienna suburbs, and the author of the words played the stock funny man. But, as its overture suggests, there was a serious message in The Magic Flute, partly hidden in the code of Freemasonry. That’s what the three tellingly sounded chords at the beginning are about.

Magic, Myth and Majesty

This looks like a normal concert program: an overture, a concerto and a symphony. Two works are masterpieces of late Mozart, but the concerto is new. The new music makes this more like a concert in Mozart’s day. But Mozart never did write a concerto for double bass. If you think that isn’t surprising, assuming no one else did either, you’re wrong. Mozart came closer than you imagine to composing a concerto for the double bass. Haydn composed one (now lost), Dittersdorf two, and another Austrian composer, called Sperger… 18 concertos for his own instrument, the double bass.

There was an Austrian school of double bass virtuosity in Mozart’s day, and through tonight’s overture we come close to Mozart’s direct involvement with one of the virtuosos, Friedrich Pischlberger. He was the soloist in a concert aria Mozart composed for the bass who sang Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Franz Xaver Gerl. In this aria, ‘Per questa bella

Magic Flute Overture

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mano’, the bass singer is matched by the deepest bass string instrument with an obbligato part that’s daunting even to bass players of today.

When Mozart composed The Magic Flute, overtures in the theatre were beginning to include musical material from the opera itself. Previously a sinfonia (or overture) aimed to gain the public’s attention before the curtain rose, and was so general as to be transferable (say from a fl op to a hit opera). Mozart’s overture to The Magic Flute has elements of the old and the new: the fast sections are essentially the kind of brilliant imitative writing typical of such sections in Italian overtures. But the grand introduction, with its three chords, a pattern repeated later, refers to the subject matter of the opera.

Both Mozart and the author of the words of The Magic Flute, Emmanuel Schikaneder, were Freemasons. To adepts in the ritual of the Masonic lodge, these three chords represented the knocking at the door of the candidate for initiation. They recur in the opera, where Tamino and Pamina are similarly initiated into the mysteries of Sarastro and his priests. Initiated musicians might also have detected in the key signature, E fl at, with its three fl attened notes, another reference to the number three of Masonic code. What is not to be found in the overture is any reference to the hits from Mozart and Schikaneder’s entertainment, such as the songs sung by the bird catcher Papageno, especially the one with the magic bells.

Part of the reason the overture to this concert makes no references to the songs of the opera is that simpler ideas are better suited to musical development. In the fi lm Amadeus Mozart is shown taking simple, even banal, musical ideas and transforming them. Such is the fi gure in repeated notes which is the main allegro theme of the Magic Flute overture. (Very likely, and possibly unconsciously, Mozart got it from what his rival Clementi played in the piano contest set up for his diversion by the Emperor Joseph II.)

For Mary Finsterer, something akin to fairy story, myth and magic underlies the concept of Lake Ice, the fi rst in a series entitled Missed Tales, based on invented myths suggested by ancient legends and landscapes. The concerto continues the explorations in her most recent orchestral work, In Praise of Darkness. Performed by The Asko|Schoenberg Ensemble, that work featured concertante parts for various instruments, and led, in discussion with the Sydney Symphony, to the idea of a concerto for Kees Boersma.

Acclaimed as one of Australia’s most original composers, Mary Finsterer has achieved international recognition, her work having been performed by leading ensembles and orchestras in Europe, Britain and North America. Her distinctions include International Society of Contemporary Music awards, a Churchill Fellowship and the Prestigious Paul Lowin Orchestral Prize in 2009 for her orchestral work In Praise of Darkness. Her experience incorporates also work as a director and producer, and she has been increasingly involved in multimedia, composing notated scores and electro-acoustic landscapes. Her screen music for the feature film South Solitary (directed by Shirley Barrett) received a Film Critics Circle of Australia nomination in 2010. Current projects include composition for the concert stage and an opera. Mary Finsterer is a Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University.

Mary Finsterer

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Lake Ice has been conceived in consultation with its soloist, not only about technical aspects of writing for double bass but more widely. ‘Kees is not just a great player,’ says Finsterer, ‘but also has a spirit for adventure that makes the process a whole lot more fun. His involvement personalises the work and gives it a unique signature.’

The title ‘Lake Ice’ refers to Norse mythology, Finsterer explains: From Yggdrasill, an immense tree central to the structure of the universe, nine worlds branch out. The penultimate world, Nifl hel, is made of ice and mist. Here creation began, a place where lakes of ice mixed with heat to form a creating steam. Lake Ice evokes a legendary landscape of primordial cold, when earth was shaped by pagan Gods.

The double bass can sound the colder, deeper places. But it also allows high sonorities from its distinctive harmonics, and Mary Finsterer fi nds evocative beauty in these high registers. Shivering in the cold, ice crystals – these are just two of the visual and gestural possibilities off ered by this wide-ranging solo instrument. A small orchestra allows transparency of texture, gestural detail and nuanced colours. In so far as any music in this program could be said to be narrative or illustrative, it is – unusually – the concerto, Lake Ice, where scenes and episodes follow a kind of journey, in an atmospheric landscape.

The end of tonight’s concert recalls one feature of its beginning: fugal writing, in which each successive entry imitates its predecessor in a chase. The Jupiter symphony was known in 19th-century Germany as ‘the symphony with the fugal fi nale’. The fi nale is not in fact a fugue, but a sonata-form movement with fugato episodes – that is to say, with successive imitative entries as in a fugue, but not going on to a systematic fugal working out. In the next concert in this series, we will hear an earlier and similar Mozart fi nale, that of his Piano Concerto in F, K459. [Avan Yu will perform this in October.] What is unusual for the time, both in the Jupiter symphony and in the piano concerto, is the relative seriousness and weight of the fi nale, shifting the centre of gravity towards the end of the concerto or symphony. Audiences of Mozart’s day were more likely to expect such weightiness at the beginning.

In the Jupiter Symphony we have the same four-note tag as many a composer had used. Mozart’s brilliance lies in what he does with this malleable material. We do not think of Mozart as a ‘learned’ composer, but Haydn once told his young colleague’s father Leopold that his son had the most

Mary Finsterer describes her Lake Ice concerto as a fairy tale, telling a story and evoking an atmospheric landscape. With its unusual solo instrument, this piece will have unexpected sonorities, often making the deep bass sing high.

sydney symphony 29

complete knowledge of the science of composition. In the coda of the Jupiter fi nale no fewer than fi ve motifs are combined in inverted counterpoint.

The title ‘Jupiter’ may have been coined by Haydn’s London sponsor, the violinist and entrepreneur Salomon; it fi rst appears in print on a piano arrangement of the symphony published in London in 1823 by Clementi. Jupiter has a neoclassical ring. Images of stately architecture and godly nobility are conjured up by the symphony’s grand opening.

Ironically, it’s the symphony tonight that quotes from a song, rather than the opera overture. The grand, rich orchestral exposition of this fi rst movement concludes with a quotation from a comic aria Mozart had composed earlier in the same year, to the words ‘You’re a little slow, dear Signor Pompeo! Go learn a bit of the ways of the world’. The Classical Viennese symphony establishes a balance between serious and comic elements and makes no barrier between them; this same theme becomes the basis of Mozart’s powerful development section. Mozart remains an entertainer even at his most serious.

DAVID GARRETT © 2013

It’s not certain whether Mozart’s last three symphonies, composed in that significant year for Sydney, 1788, were performed in his lifetime. But their fame soon grew after his death; Symphony No.41, especially, was considered so impressive that it acquired the extra title ‘Jupiter’.

This symphony, like tonight’s overture, begins with a three-fold call to attention. It moves effortlessly from brilliant magnificence to bantering graciousness, and back. The slow movement is most moving. When he heard of his young colleague’s death, Haydn quoted from the deeply felt slow movement in the symphony he was writing (No.98). The symphony is crowned by the movement that gave it the alternative sobriquet: ‘with the fugal finale’.

Mozart portrait from 1789

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Mozart and ShostakovichDene Olding CONDUCTOR

Avan Yu PIANO

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)Piano Concerto No.19 in F, K459AllegroAllegrettoAllegro assai

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)Chamber Symphony Op.83aorchestrated from String Quartet No.4 by Rudolf Barshai (1924–2010)AllegroAndantinoAllegretto –Allegretto

Mozart Mystery MomentTo be announced on Friday. See page 3 for details.

This concert will be recorded for later broadcast on ABC Classic FM.

Pre-concert talk by David Garrett at 6.15pm in the First Floor Reception Room.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Estimated durations: 29 minutes, 26 minutes, 5 minutesThe concert will conclude at approximately 8.15pm.

2013 season

mozart in the city

Thursday 17 October | 7pm

City Recital Hall Angel Place

32 sydney symphony

ABOUT THE MUSIC

Great music invites arrangement: Mozart and Shostakovich

Some readers will have memories of W.A. Dullo, or at least of Dullo Chocolates. Walter Dullo and his wife Annemarie came to Australia as refugees in 1937, bringing with them chocolate-making equipment. Born in Königsberg, Dullo studied mathematics, then law in Berlin and music at Heidelberg. Prevented by the Nazis from practising law, he learnt chocolate-making. In his new life in Australia, as well as making and selling the chocolates of happy memory, Walter Dullo was one of the founders of Musica Viva, and for many years his program notes could be read at Musica Viva and other concerts.

As a young man in 1921, Walter Andreas Dullo attended a memorable set of concerts in Berlin where he heard Ferruccio Busoni play six Mozart piano concertos. He was still talking about those concerts, over 50 years later. Busoni is usually linked with Bach, whose music he played magisterially, notably his own transcriptions for piano of organ works. Mr Dullo reminded us that Busoni loved Mozart too.

Busoni composed cadenzas for the piano concertos, and transcribed many Mozart pieces for piano. For two pianos he made versions of inter alia the Magic Flute Overture, and – coming to the point – the last movement of the piano concerto we hear in this concert. This arrangement, or free version was made in 1919, and published in 1921 as ‘Duettino Concertante after Mozart for two pianos’. This kind of arrangement involves reducing the instrumentation. Australian Busoni scholar Larry Sitsky, who fi rst learnt to play the music in Busoni’s version, thinks Busoni did so well that it would be worth using his version to revise Mozart’s original! Sitsky believes this could be an improvement, but I doubt you’ll sense anything lacking when the music is played – it’s just brilliant as Mozart wrote it.

But arrangement can also involve adding, and that’s relevant to the other piece on this concert program. Just as there’s Bach-Busoni (and Mozart-Busoni), so there’s Shostakovich-Barshai. We met another chamber symphony in the piece by Schreker in the fi rst concert of this Mozart series. The chamber symphonies by ‘Shostakovich-Barshai’ are Rudolf Barshai’s arrangements of several of his friend Dmitri Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets.

Barshai’s early career was as the viola player in the Moscow Philharmonic Quartet (later renamed Borodin

But arrangement can also involve adding…

sydney symphony 33

Quartet). In 1955 he turned to conducting and founded the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. One of the pieces he added to their repertoire was his transcription for string orchestra of piano pieces by Prokofi ev called Visions fugitives. With the composer’s full approval Barshai made an arrangement for string orchestra version of one of Shostakovich’s string quartets – No.8. The worldwide success of this version, which is performed at least as often as the original, was followed by Barshai’s versions of quartets 3, 4, 1 and 10 – all as chamber symphonies, but each with varying instrumentation.

Barshai’s treatment of the Fourth Quartet, which we hear tonight as Chamber Symphony Op.83a, is particularly fascinating. The work itself is diffi cult to ‘read’, as are most of Shostakovich’s quartets. Interpretation thus becomes crucial. Shostakovich was known to be dissatisfi ed with its interpretation by the Beethoven Quartet, which had premiered his previous quartets, and he no doubt made those reservations known to members of the Borodin Quartet, including Barshai, whom he wanted to premiere his fi fth quartet.

Rudolf Barshai (1924–2010)

Shostakovich (centre) with the Moscow Philharmonic Quartet: Rostislav Dubinsky (fi rst violin), Valentin Berlinsky (cello), Nina Barshai (second violin) and Rudolf Barshai (viola). This photo was taken in 1946; the group took the name Borodin Quartet in 1955.

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There were reasons why the Fourth Quartet, composed in 1949, had to wait until 1953 for its premiere. On the surface, it seems to present a balanced lyricism, mostly pleasant to listen to. It seems to hark back beyond Beethoven to a classical style, sometimes saluting Haydn, sometimes the divertimento manner. The fi rst movement could have come from some imaginary Russian folklore. So what was the problem that made Shostakovich withhold the work for years? No doubt the music’s many Jewish references, especially obvious in the last movement. Inclusion of such references was likely to be taken as deliberate fl outing of Stalin’s anti-Semitic decrees from 1948 on. In the immediate post-World War II years Shostakovich renewed his interest in Jewish music, and composed the song cycle ‘From Jewish Poetry’ (c.1948) which could not be offi cially performed during Stalin’s lifetime.

The Jewish references are especially obvious in Barshai’s orchestral version of the quartet. Its predecessor, sometimes called the ‘War Quartet’, is ostensibly more powerful than the fourth (its unpublished movement titles include ‘forces of war’ and ‘homage to the dead’). Yet in Barshai’s versions the lighter Fourth Quartet makes a more powerful eff ect than the Third Quartet, as he has chosen a larger and heavier orchestration, including percussion, single woodwinds, two horns, trumpet and celesta. This enables Barshai to underline some things, bring out others in a brighter light. The fi rst part of the string quartet only in retrospect seems to refer to Jewish music, though its folk-like melody could suggest a Yiddish affi nity. Barshai scores the fi rst two movements quite lightly, so that in the third, percussion and trumpet enter with dramatic impact. In the fi nale, Barshai’s scoring makes quite blatant Shostakovich’s debt to klezmer music. The emotional ambivalence of the whole quartet is illuminated by Shostakovich’s comments on a quality of Jewish poetry, close to his ideas of what music should be: ‘It’s almost always laughter through tears. This is close to my ideas of what music should be. There also should be two layers in music. Jews were tormented for so long that they learned to hide their despair. They express despair in dance music.’ (from Testimony).

An element of ambiguity – laughing and crying at the same time – is probably to be found in most great music. In Mozart’s Piano Concerto in F, K.459, the ambivalence mainly concerns the march rhythm pervading the fi rst movement. Mozart’s alla breve time signature, however,

Shostakovich performing in the 1950s

An element of ambiguity – laughing and crying at the same time – is probably to be found in most great music.

sydney symphony 35

shows that heaviness should be avoided (march time, but with two beats in the bar). This concerto is both brilliant and cheerful, but certainly not lightweight. A festive piece Mozart composed to show off his powers as pianist and composer, it is the real Mozart ‘Coronation Concerto’ (rather than the D major K537, usually so called). In 1790 Mozart took this concerto he had composed in 1784 on tour, playing it at the coronation festivities in Frankfurt for the Emperor Leopold II.

The second movement Allegretto is unique in Mozart’s concertos. It has been described as an idyll or an intermezzo, graceful, even capricious. A brief, passing excursion into the minor mode has the eff ect of pathos rather than tragedy. The last movement, which stimulated Busoni to his brilliant rebirthing of Mozart, is one of Mozart’s most exciting things, and all the more so for beginning almost insouciantly with a frisky, bantering idea. Several times the full power of musical knowledge is to be let loose in this movement. This concert thrives on the unexpected.

DAVID GARRETT © 2013

All about tempo

Three movements in this concert have the tempo ‘Allegretto’, normally defined as lively, but not too fast. In the Mozart piano concerto, this tempo makes for an unusual middle movement, which you’d expect to be slow. The concerto was a favourite of Mozart’s and he chose it to play at festivities in Frankfurt when the Austrian ruler was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. This, not concerto No.26, is the one that should be called Mozart’s ‘Coronation’ Concerto. The orchestra crowned Avan Yu, who plays it, with the Mozart concerto prize of the 2012 Sydney International Piano Competition.

In Shostakovich, moderate tempo indications suggest easygoing music, deceptive to the casual listener. Yet String Quartet No.4 contained danger, so much so that it couldn’t dare to be heard while Stalin was still alive. In this concert, the music is heard as a chamber symphony, an orchestration of Shostakovich’s quartet by viola player and conductor Rudolf Barshai. He underlines both the apparently harmlessness of the manner, and the danger of Shostakovich’s clear references to Jewish music. Barshai only gradually lets loose the power of the orchestra, but in his version the finale sounds unmistakably like klezmer music.

36 sydney symphony

To see photographs and biographies of the full roster of permanent musicians, visit our website: sydneysymphony.com/SSO_musicians If you don’t have access to the internet, ask one of our customer service representatives for a copy of our Musicians flyer. .

FIRST VIOLINSDene Olding 3 4

Concertmaster

Kirsten Williams 1 2 4

Associate Concertmaster

Fiona Ziegler 2Assistant Concertmaster

Julie Batty 3 4

Jennifer Booth 2 4

Marianne Broadfoot 1 3

Brielle Clapson 3 4

Sophie Cole 1 3

Amber Davis 1Georges Lentz 1 2

Alexandra Mitchell 2Alexander Norton 2 3

Léone Ziegler 1

SECOND VIOLINS Marina Marsden 1 2 3 4

Principal

Emma Jezek 2 4

Assistant Principal

Maria Durek 2 4

Shuti Huang 4

Stan W Kornel 1Benjamin Li 2 3

Emily Long 1 3

Nicole Masters 1 3 4

Philippa Paige 1 3

Biyana Rozenblit 2 3

Maja Verunica 1 2 4

VIOLASRoger Benedict 2 4

Principal

Tobias Breider 3Principal

Anne-Louise Comerford 1 3 4

Associate Principal

Justin Williams 1 2

Assistant Principal

Robyn Brookfield 3Sandro Costantino 4Jane Hazelwood 3Stuart Johnson 4Justine Marsden 1 2

Felicity Tsai 1 2

CELLOSCatherine Hewgill 4Principal

Michael Stirling 1Principal*

Leah Lynn 1 2 3

Assistant Principal

Kristy Conrau 1Fenella Gill 2 4

Timothy Nankervis 3Elizabeth Neville 1 4

Christopher Pidcock 3Adrian Wallis 2 3

David Wickham 2

DOUBLE BASSESKees Boersma 4Principal

Alex Henery 1 2 3

Principal

David Campbell 3Steven Larson 1David Murray 2Benjamin Ward 4

FLUTES Janet Webb 2 3 4

Principal

Emma Sholl 1Associate Principal

Rosamund Plummer 3Principal Piccolo

OBOESDiana Doherty 1 2

Principal

Shefali Pryor 1Associate Principal

David Papp 1Alexandre Oguey 1Principal Cor Anglais

CLARINETSLawrence Dobell 2 4

Principal

Francesco Celata 2 3

Associate Principal

Christopher Tingay 2

Craig Wernicke 3 4

Principal Bass Clarinet

Alexei Dupressoir* 2

BASSOONSMatthew Wilkie 3 4

Principal

Roger Brooke 2 Associate Principal

Fiona McNamara 2Noriko Shimada 1 3

Principal Contrabassoon

Jack Schiller† 1A/Associate Principal

HORNSRobert Johnson 1 2

Principal

Ben Jacks 3 4

Principal

Geoffrey O’Reilly 2Principal 3rd

Euan Harvey 2 3

Marnie Sebire 2Rachel Shaw° 1

TRUMPETSDavid Elton 1 3

Principal

Paul Goodchild 2 4

Associate Principal

John Foster 3

Anthony Heinrichs 2

TROMBONERonald Prussing 1Principal

Scott Kinmont 2 3

Associate Principal

Nick Byrne 3

Christopher Harris 3Principal Bass Trombone

TIMPANIMark Robinson 1 2 3

Assistant Principal

PERCUSSIONRebecca Lagos 3 4

Principal

Colin Piper 1

HARPLouise Johnson 1 2 3

Principal

KEYBOARDS Catherine Davis* 1David Drury* 1Susanne Powell* 1 4

Performing in these concerts…

# = Contract Musician | * = Guest Musician | † = Sydney Symphony Fellow

Numerals in superscript indicate the concerts in which the musician is appearing. Orchestra lists are correct at time of publication (March 2013).

1 – 28 March2 – 39 May3 – 29 August4 – 17 October

MUSICIANS

Vladimir AshkenazyPrincipal Conductor and Artistic Advisor supported by Emirates

Dene OldingConcertmaster

Jessica CottisAssistant Conductor supported by Premier Partner Credit Suisse

Andrew HaveronConcertmaster(from May)

sydney symphony 37

SYDNEY SYMPHONYVladimir Ashkenazy, Principal Conductor and Artistic AdvisorPATRON Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO

Founded in 1932 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Sydney Symphony has evolved into one of the world’s fi nest orchestras as Sydney has become one of the world’s great cities.

Resident at the iconic Sydney Opera House, where it gives more than 100 performances each year, the Sydney Symphony also performs in venues throughout Sydney and regional New South Wales. International tours to Europe, Asia and the USA have earned the orchestra worldwide recognition for artistic excellence, most recently in the 2012 tour to China.

The Sydney Symphony’s fi rst Chief Conductor was Sir Eugene Goossens, appointed in 1947; he was followed by Nicolai Malko, Dean Dixon, Moshe Atzmon, Willem van Otterloo, Louis Frémaux, Sir Charles Mackerras, Zdenek Mácal, Stuart Challender, Edo de Waart and Gianluigi Gelmetti. David Robertson will take up the post of Chief Conductor in 2014. The orchestra’s history also boasts collaborations with legendary fi gures such as George Szell, Sir Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer and Igor Stravinsky.

The Sydney Symphony’s award-winning education program is central to its commitment to the future of live symphonic music, developing audiences and engaging the participation of young people. The orchestra promotes the work of Australian composers through performances, recordings and its commissioning program. Recent premieres have included major works by Ross Edwards, Liza Lim, Lee Bracegirdle, Gordon Kerry and Georges Lentz, and the orchestra’s recording of works by Brett Dean was released on both the BIS and Sydney Symphony Live labels.

Other releases on the Sydney Symphony Live label, established in 2006, include performances with Alexander Lazarev, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Sir Charles Mackerras and Vladimir Ashkenazy. In 2010–11 the orchestra made concert recordings of the complete Mahler symphonies with Ashkenazy, and has also released recordings of Rachmaninoff and Elgar orchestral works on the Exton/Triton labels, as well as numerous recordings on the ABC Classics label.

This is the fi fth year of Ashkenazy’s tenure as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor.

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38 sydney symphony

BEHIND THE SCENES

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Rory JeffesEXECUTIVE TEAM ASSISTANT

Lisa Davies-Galli

ARTISTIC OPERATIONS

DIRECTOR OF ARTISTIC PLANNING

Peter Czornyj

Artistic AdministrationARTISTIC ADMINISTRATION MANAGER

Eleasha MahARTIST LIAISON MANAGER

Ilmar LeetbergRECORDING ENTERPRISE MANAGER

Philip Powers

Education ProgramsHEAD OF EDUCATION

Kim WaldockEMERGING ARTISTS PROGRAM MANAGER

Mark LawrensonEDUCATION COORDINATOR

Rachel McLarinCUSTOMER SERVICE OFFICER

Derek Reed

LibraryLIBRARIAN

Anna CernikLIBRARY ASSISTANT

Victoria GrantLIBRARY ASSISTANT

Mary-Ann Mead

ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT

DIRECTOR OF ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT

Aernout KerbertORCHESTRA MANAGER

Chris Lewis ORCHESTRA COORDINATOR

Georgia StamatopoulosOPERATIONS MANAGER

Kerry-Anne CookPRODUCTION MANAGER

Laura DanielPRODUCTION COORDINATOR

Tim DaymanPRODUCTION COORDINATOR

Ian SpenceSTAGE MANAGER

Elise Beggs

SALES AND MARKETING

DIRECTOR OF SALES & MARKETING

Mark J ElliottSENIOR SALES & MARKETING MANAGER

Penny EvansMARKETING MANAGER, SUBSCRIPTION SALES

Simon Crossley-MeatesMARKETING MANAGER, CLASSICAL SALES

Matthew RiveMARKETING MANAGER, WEB & DIGITAL MEDIA

Eve Le GallMARKETING MANAGER, DATABASE & CRM

Matthew Hodge

John C Conde ao ChairmanTerrey Arcus amEwen Crouch amRoss GrantJennifer HoyRory JeffesAndrew Kaldor amIrene LeeDavid LivingstoneGoetz Richter

Sydney Symphony Board

Sydney Symphony StaffDATA ANALYST

Varsha KarnikGRAPHIC DESIGNER

Lucy McCulloughCREATIVE ARTWORKER

Nathanael van der ReydenMARKETING COORDINATOR

Jonathon Symonds ONLINE MARKETING COORDINATOR

Jenny Sargant

Box OfficeMANAGER OF BOX OFFICE SALES & OPERATIONS

Lynn McLaughlinBOX OFFICE SYSTEMS SUPERVISOR

Jacqueline TooleyBOX OFFICE BUSINESS ADMINISTRATOR

John RobertsonCUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES

Steve Clarke – Senior CSRMichael DowlingSarah MorrisbyAmy Walsh

COMMUNICATIONS

HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS & SPONSOR RELATIONS

Yvonne ZammitPUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER

Katherine StevensonCOMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

Janine Harris FELLOWSHIP SOCIAL MEDIA OFFICER

Caitlin Benetatos

PublicationsPUBLICATIONS EDITOR & MUSIC PRESENTATION MANAGER

Yvonne Frindle

DEVELOPMENT

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

Caroline SharpenEXTERNAL RELATIONS MANAGER

Stephen AttfieldPHILANTHROPY, PATRONS PROGRAM

Ivana JirasekDEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Amelia Morgan-Hunn

BUSINESS SERVICES

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE

John HornFINANCE MANAGER

Ruth TolentinoACCOUNTANT

Minerva PrescottACCOUNTS ASSISTANT

Emma FerrerPAYROLL OFFICER

Laura Soutter

HUMAN RESOURCES

HEAD OF HUMAN RESOURCES

Michel Maree Hryce

Sydney Symphony Council

Geoff Ainsworth amAndrew Andersons aoMichael Baume aoChristine BishopIta Buttrose ao obePeter CudlippJohn Curtis amGreg Daniel amJohn Della BoscaAlan FangErin FlahertyDr Stephen FreibergDonald Hazelwood ao obeDr Michael Joel amSimon JohnsonYvonne Kenny amGary LinnaneAmanda LoveHelen Lynch amDavid MaloneyDavid Malouf aoJulie Manfredi-HughesDeborah MarrThe Hon. Justice Jane Mathews aoDanny MayWendy McCarthy aoJane MorschelGreg ParamorDr Timothy Pascoe amProf. Ron Penny aoJerome RowleyPaul SalteriSandra SalteriJuliana SchaefferLeo Schofield amFred Stein oamGabrielle TrainorIvan UngarJohn van OgtropPeter Weiss ao HonDLittMary WhelanRosemary White

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sydney symphony 39

SYDNEY SYMPHONY PATRONS

Sydney Symphony Leadership EnsembleAlan Fang, Chairman, Tianda GroupTony Grierson, Braithwaite Steiner PrettyInsurance Australia Grou pMacquarie Group FoundationJohn Morschel, Chairman, ANZAndrew Kaldor am, Chairman, Pelikan Artline

Lynn Kraus, Sydney Office Managing Partner, Ernst & YoungShell Australia Pty LtdJames Stevens, CEO, Roses OnlyStephen Johns, Chairman, Leighton Holdings,

and Michele Johns

Maestro’s CirclePeter William Weiss ao – Founding President & Doris WeissJohn C Conde ao – ChairmanGeoff Ainsworth am & Vicki Ainsworth Tom Breen & Rachael KohnIn memory of Hetty & Egon GordonAndrew Kaldor am & Renata Kaldor aoRoslyn Packer ao

Penelope Seidler amMr Fred Street am & Mrs Dorothy StreetWestfield GroupBrian & Rosemary WhiteRay Wilson oam in memory of the late James Agapitos oam

01 Roger Benedict Principal Viola Kim Williams am & Catherine Dovey Chair

02 Lawrence Dobell Principal Clarinet Anne Arcus & Terrey Arcus am Chair

03 Diana Doherty Principal Oboe Andrew Kaldor am & Renata Kaldor ao Chair

04 Richard Gill oam Artistic Director Education Sandra & Paul Salteri Chair

05 Catherine Hewgill Principal Cello The Hon. Justice AJ & Mrs Fran Meagher Chair

06 Robert Johnson Principal Horn James & Leonie Furber Chair

07 Elizabeth Neville Cello Ruth & Bob Magid Chair

08 Colin Piper Percussion Justice Jane Mathews ao Chair

09 Emma Sholl Associate Principal Flute Robert & Janet Constable Chair

For information about the Directors’ Chairs program, please call (02) 8215 4619.

Directors’ Chairs

01 02 03 04 05

06 07 08 09

Sydney Symphony VanguardVanguard CollectiveJustin Di Lollo – ChairKees BoersmaMarina GoDavid McKeanAmelia Morgan-HunnJonathan PeaseSeamus R Quick

Matthew ClarkBenoît CocheteuxGeorge CondousMichael CookPaul CousinsJustin Di LolloRose GalloAlistair GibsonSam GiddingsMarina GoSebastian GoldspinkDerek HandRose HercegPaolo Hooke

MembersCentric WealthMatti AlakargasNikki AndrewsJames ArmstrongStephen AttfieldAndrew BaxterMar BeltranKees Boersma Peter BraithwaiteAndrea BrownIan BurtonJennifer BurtonHahn ChauRon Christianson

Peter OutridgeJulia OwensArchie PaffasJonathan Pease Seamus R QuickMichael ReedeEmma RodigariJacqueline RowlandsBernard RyanAdam WandJon WilkieJonathan WatkinsonDarren WoolleyMisha Zelinsky

Peter HowardJennifer Hoy Damian Kassagbi Chris KeherElizabeth LeeAntony Lighten Gary LinnanePaul MacdonaldDavid McKeanHayden McLeanAmelia Morgan-HunnTaine MoufarrigeHugh MunroFiona Osler

40 sydney symphony

PLAYING YOUR PART

The Sydney Symphony gratefully acknowledges the music lovers who donate to the orchestra each year. Each gift plays an important part in ensuring our continued artistic excellence and helping to sustain important education and regional touring programs. Donations of $50 and above are acknowledged on our website at www.sydneysymphony.com/patrons

Platinum Patrons $20,000+Brian AbelRobert Albert ao & Elizabeth AlbertGeoff Ainsworth amTerrey Arcus am & Anne ArcusTom Breen & Rachael KohnSandra & Neil BurnsMr John C Conde aoRobert & Janet ConstableMichael Crouch ao & Shanny CrouchJames & Leonie FurberDr Bruno & Mrs Rhonda GiuffreIn memory of Hetty & Egon GordonMr Andrew Kaldor am & Mrs Renata Kaldor aoD & I KallinikosJames N Kirby FoundationThe late Joan MacKenzieVicki OlssonMrs Roslyn Packer aoPaul & Sandra SalteriMrs Penelope Seidler amG & C Solomon in memory of Joan MacKenzieMrs W SteningMr Fred Street am & Mrs Dorothy StreetPeter William Weiss ao & Doris WeissWestfield GroupMr Brian & Mrs Rosemary WhiteKim Williams am & Catherine DoveyRay Wilson oam in memory of James Agapitos oam

Gold Patrons$10,000–$19,999Stephen J BellAlan & Christine BishopIan & Jennifer BurtonHoward ConnorsCopyright Agency Cutlural Fund Edward FedermanNora GoodridgeMr Ross GrantThe Estate of the late Ida GuggerHelen Lynch am & Helen BauerRuth & Bob MagidJustice Jane Mathews aoThe Hon. Justice AJ Meagher & Mrs Fran MeagherMrs T Merewether oamMr B G O’ConorHenry & Ruth WeinbergJune & Alan Woods Family Bequest

Silver Patrons $5000–$9,999Doug & Alison BattersbyMr Robert BrakspearMr David & Mrs Halina BrettMr Robert & Mrs L Alison Carr Bob & Julie ClampettIan Dickson & Reg HollowayDr C GoldschmidtThe Greatorex Foundation Mr Rory JeffesJudges of the Supreme Court of NSW Mr Ervin KatzThe Estate of the late Patricia LanceTimothy & Eva PascoeWilliam McIlrath Charitable FoundationRodney Rosenblum am & Sylvia RosenblumManfred & Linda SalamonMrs Joyce Sproat & Mrs Anna CookeMichael & Mary Whelan TrustCaroline WilkinsonAnonymous (1)

Bronze Patrons $2,500–$4,999Ewen Crouch am & Catherine CrouchThe Hon. Ashley Dawson-DamerFirehold Pty LtdStephen Freiberg & Donald CampbellVic & Katie FrenchMrs Jennifer HershonMichael & Anna JoelGary LinnaneMatthew McInnesJ A McKernanR & S Maple-BrownRenee MarkovicMora MaxwellJames & Elsie MooreDrs Keith & Eileen OngIn memory of Sandra Paul PottingerDr John Roarty oam in memory of Mrs June RoartyIn memory of H St P ScarlettJulianna SchaefferDavid & Isabel SmithersMarliese & Georges TeitlerMr & Mrs T & D YimAnonymous (2)

Bronze Patrons $1,000–$2,499Mrs Antoinette AlbertAndrew Andersons aoMr Henri W Aram oamDr Francis J AugustusRichard and Christine Banks David BarnesNicole BergerAllan & Julie BlighDr & Mrs Hannes BoshoffJan BowenLenore P BuckleM BulmerIn memory of RW BurleyIta Buttrose ao obeJoan Connery oam & Maxwell Connery oamConstable Estate Vineyards Debby Cramer & Bill CaukillMr John Cunningham SCM & Mrs Margaret CunninghamGreta DavisLisa & Miro DavisMatthew DelaseyMr & Mrs Grant DixonColin Draper & Mary Jane BrodribbMrs Margaret EppsMr Ian Fenwicke & Prof. Neville WillsMr James Graham am & Mrs Helen GrahamWarren GreenAnthony Gregg & Deanne WhittlestonAkiko GregoryTony GriersonEdward & Deborah GriffinRichard Griffin amIn memory of Dora & Oscar GrynbergJanette HamiltonMichelle HiltonThe Hon. David Hunt ao qc & Mrs Margaret HuntDr & Mrs Michael HunterIn memory of Bernard M H KhawMr Justin LamMr Peter Lazar amIrene LeeAssociate Professor Winston LiauwDr David LuisCarolyn & Peter Lowry oamDeirdre & Kevin McCannIan & Pam McGawMacquarie Group FoundationMs Jackie O’Brien

sydney symphony 41

To find out more about becominga Sydney Symphony Patron, pleasecontact the Philanthropy Officeon (02) 8215 4625 or emailphilanthropy@sydneysymphony.com

JF & A van OgtropMr & Mrs OrtisMr Andrew C PattersonPiatti Holdings Pty LtdAndy & Deirdre Plummer Robin PotterErnest & Judith RapeeKenneth R ReedPatricia H Reid Endowment Pty LtdCaroline SharpenDr Agnes E SinclairCatherine StephenJohn & Alix SullivanThe Hon. Brian Sully qcMildred TeitlerJohn E TuckeyMrs M TurkingtonIn memory of Joan & Rupert VallentineDr Alla WaldmanMr Robert & Mrs Rosemary WalshAnn & Brooks Wilson amDr Richard WingMr R R WoodwardIn memory of Lorna WrightDr John YuAnonymous (9)

Bronze Patrons $500–$999Mrs Lenore AdamsonMr & Mrs Garry S AshBarlow Cleaning Pty LtdBeauty Point Retirement ResortMrs Margaret BellMinnie BiggsMrs Jan BiberDr Anthony BookallilR D & L M BroadfootArnaldo BuchAnn & Miles BurgessPat & Jenny BurnettThe Hon. Justice JC & Mrs CampbellDr Rebecca ChinMrs Sarah ChissickMrs Catherine J ClarkR A & M J ClarkeMr & Mrs CoatesCoffs Airport Security Car Park

Mr B & Mrs M ColesMrs Joan Connery oamJen CornishMr David CrossPhil Diment am & Bill ZafiropoulosElizabeth DonatiThe Dowe FamilyJohn FavaloroMalcolm Ellis & Erin O’NeillIn memory of Peter EverettMr Tom FrancisMr John GadenVivienne GoldschmidtClive & Jenny GoodwinHarry & Meg HerbertSue HewittDorothy Hoddinott aoMr Joerg HofmannMrs Kimberley HoldenMr Gregory HoskingNiki KallenbergerMrs Margaret KeoghDr Henry KilhamChris J KitchingAnna-Lisa KlettenbergSonia LalMr Luigi LampratiDr & Mrs Leo LeaderMargaret LedermanErna & Gerry Levy amSydney & Airdrie LloydMrs A LohanMrs Panee LowDr David LuisPhilip & Catherine McClellandMelvyn MadiganAlan & Joy MartinMrs Toshiko MericMs Irene Miller & Ms Kim HardingP J MillerDavid MillsKenneth N MitchellMs Margaret Moore oam & Dr Paul Hutchins amChris Morgan-HunnMrs Milja MorrisA NhanMr Graham North

Dr Mike O’Connor amMr R A OppenOrigin FoundationDr A J PalmerDr Kevin PedemontDr Natalie E PelhamMichael QuaileyRenaissance ToursAnna RoLesley & Andrew RosenbergMrs Pamela SayersGarry Scarf & Morgie BlaxillPeter & Virginia ShawMrs Diane Shteinman amMs Stephanie SmeeMs Tatiana SokolovaDoug & Judy SotherenMrs Judith SouthamMrs Karen Spiegal-KeighleyMargaret SuthersNorman & Lydia TaylorDr Heng Tey & Mrs Cilla TeyMrs Alma Toohey & Mr Edward SpicerKevin TroyGillian Turner & Rob BishopProf Gordon E WallMrs Margaret WallisRonald WalledgeMs Elizabeth WilkinsonAudrey & Michael WilsonA Willmers & R PalDr Peter Wong & Mrs Emmy K WongGeoff Wood & Melissa WaitesGlen & Everly WyssMrs Robin YabsleyAnonymous (22)

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…our section needs to play louder than the first violins

Orchestra, which means that I go back to work with them four times a year.’ Combined with her job in the Sydney Symphony, that means almost no time for holidays! ‘It doesn’t matter, because I’m so restless – the change feels like a holiday.’

Though initially appointed Associate Concertmaster with the Sydney Symphony, Kirsty soon made the switch to leading the second violins. ‘I like playing the inner parts, and sitting in the middle of the orchestra. I don’t like being stuck physically on the edge of the stage.’

Ironically, the challenges for the second violins are inherent in where that section sits, and the musical material they have to play. ‘Really, our section needs to play louder than the first violins,’ explains Kirsty. Depending on the string section’s configuration, the Seconds are either tucked in behind the first violins, or seated antiphonally (on the opposite side of the conductor’s podium), with their instruments facing away from the audience. Either way, they need to ‘beef it up’. ‘The firsts often rely on us because we’ll be playing the motor semiquavers,’ explains Kirsty. Occasionally, there might be disagreement within the ensemble about where to play. ‘It’s tricky because we don’t often have the melody. We have to decide in a split second about whether to follow the cellos, or the firsts.’

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Kirsty Hilton loves where she lives. Nicknamed the ‘Rose Bay Hilton’ by friends, her apartment allows her – and her guests! – to live near the harbour. ‘I really missed not being by the water all those years I was in Europe,’ she says. ‘All those years’ included a period of study in London with David Takeno, followed by admis-sion into the prestigious Karajan Academy in Berlin. ‘That was my most intense study time,’ says Kirsty. ‘We had to play almost every week with the Berlin Phil-harmonic, and four times a year we’d give a big chamber music

concert in the Berliner Philhar-monie.’

Kirsty was soon appointed to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. ‘[Mariss] Jansons is my favourite conductor from my time in Munich. He always had time for you personally, even though he could seem quite shy and distant. And he would always give 100 per cent in rehearsal and in concert.’

A touch homesick, Kirsty returned to Sydney in 2007. These days, however, she still divides her time between Australia and Europe: ‘I have a 50 per cent position with the Mahler Chamber

POCKET ROCKETDiminutive in stature but with towering international orchestral experience, for second violin principal Kirsty Hilton, it’s all about location, location, location.

ORCHESTRA NEWS | MARCH–APRIL 2013

with Damien Beaumont Vienna – Dresden – Berlin – Cologne – Paris24 May–9 June 2013 (17 days)

Experience the great orchestras of Europe on this wonderful musical odyssey from Vienna to Paris, including the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, and Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw!

Great Orchestras of Europe

For detailed information call 1300 727 095 visit www.renaissancetours.com.auor contact your travel agent

Sir Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic © Monika Rittershaus

Artistic HighlightIntroducing S. Katy Tucker

Come July, Chief Conductor designate David Robertson will embark on his annual opera-in-concert series, with a semi-staged performance of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. For this project, there will be a new face in the house with a very important role to play.

‘I don’t have any musical talent,’ says S. Katy Tucker. ‘But I do have a deep, deep love of music that I can connect with in an unconventional way through video projections.’

Katy has been engaged to create a dramatic environment for the orchestra and soloists for our performances of Wagner’s first great opera. She’ll do this through the projection of images and abstractions on a large screen, cut to resemble the sails of a square-rigger. ‘We want to make the performance of Dutchman more “splashy”.’ Touché.

Katy describes her projections as holistic. ‘It’s up to me to balance the attention and focus of the audience. I don’t want my visuals to compete with, or detract from, the music.’

skatytucker.com

Philanthropy HighlightNew Sinfonia ScholarshipLast year we mourned the passing of Joan MacKenzie, a member of the Sydney Symphony Council and one of our most committed supporters and advocates. Joan had enjoyed a long career in fashion – from modelling in New York to leading the David Jones couture department – and she ensured that her support for the orchestra would live on in a characteristically vibrant way through a substantial bequest in her will.

This gift has been generously matched by her nephew Gavin Solomon and his wife Catherine, and the funds have been invested to establish an annual scholarship for a violinist in our Sinfonia mentoring orchestra. The new scholarship will support travel for a regional or interstate participant and private lessons with SSO musicians.

The recipient of the inaugural scholarship will be announced, in the presence of Joan’s relatives and friends, at the Sinfonia’s first concert of the year: Discover Beethoven’s Pastoral on 5 March at City Recital Hall Angel Place.If you’re considering making a notified bequest to the Sydney Symphony, write to philanthropy@sydneysymphony.com or call (02) 8215 4625.

Playing FavouritesAsk Vladimir Ashkenazy outright about his favourite composers or musical works and the response is usually tactfully non-commit-tal: ‘How could I possibly name one? – they are all so great!’ Genuinely awed by the wonder of musical creation, he comes across like an unswervingly fair parent – refusing to play favourites.

But, of course, there are com-posers and pieces that are close to his heart, that make his eyes light up, that prompt him to en thusiastic discussion and wonderful anecdotes. And he has chosen three such works for the second of his programs in May.

There’s Russian romanticism in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet – the heartfelt storytelling that Ashkenazy does so well. And there’s elegant neoclassicism in the form of Richard Strauss’s late oboe concerto, with soloist Hansjörg Schellenberger. But the real highlight is Walton’s First Symphony.

The choice of an English sym-phony might seem unexpected, until you remember Ashkenazy’s Elgar festival in 2008, when Russian and English sensibilities met to powerful effect. ‘I love Walton’s First,’ says Ashkenazy, ‘it’s an absolute favourite.’ The appeal is in its ‘tremendous energy’ and Walton’s distinctive style – nostalgic sometimes, but spirited and colourful. And the anecdote? Stay tuned for the story of the trumpet solo…

Ashkenazy’s FavouritesMaster Series 15, 17, 18 May | 8pm

The Score

TRUE GRITEducation Focus

mentoring and have the opportun- ity of working with a professional orchestra. This combination en- sures that we’ll all come out of the program as musically balanced, ex- perienced and inspired individuals.’

The continued support from premier partner Credit Suisse, as well as from individual donors, has ensured the quality of training our Fellows receive, and helped the Fellowship program reach its 12th year. Testament to the program’s success are the achievements of its alumni, with well over half employed in full-time orchestral positions, including seven past Fellows who are now members of the Sydney Symphony itself. Previous Fellows also include violinist Jane Piper, who is now a full-time member of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which is touring Australia later this year.

For violinist Kelly Tang, earning a place in the Fellowship program has been her confirma-tion that her career in music is on the right track. ‘I’ve known that I’ve wanted to be a musician from the age of five. Achieving a place in the Fellowship has made me even more determined and now I can’t imagine doing anything else that I love this much!’ CB

Follow the Fellows on their journey this year: blog.ssofellowship.com

Hundreds of graduate musicians across the country dream of per-forming in professional orchestras. Despite this, full-time orches tral positions are rare and competition is fierce. But for the eight young musicians selected for this year’s Sydney Symphony Fellowship program, that dream is much closer to becoming reality.

‘I was so excited when I heard I’d been accepted into the 2013 Fellowship!’ said viola Fellow Nicole Greentree, at their first get-together this year. ‘I keep thinking about how much I’m going to learn from working with the Sydney Symphony.’

Chosen from nearly 300 appli-cants nation-wide, the Fellows rep-resent the most talented emerg ing musicians of their generation. But in order to develop into well- rounded professionals, these young musicians require skills and ex peri- ences that cannot be taught in an academic environment. The pur- pose of the Fellowship program is to provide these musicians with the training and mentoring they need to bridge the divide between student and professional.

For horn Fellow Brendan Parra- vicini, originally from Perth, it’s the diversity of the program that makes it so valuable. ‘We’ll perform chamber music together on a regu- lar basis, benefit from individual

From left: Brendan Parravicini, Nicole Greentree, Som Howie, James sang-oh Yoo, Rebecca Gill, Laura van Rijn, Kelly Tang, Jack Schiller

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Eight young musicians on the cusp of musical careers have secured a place in the Sydney Symphony’s hotly contested Fellowship program.

APP-TASTIC!Our Sydney Symphony app has hit 9,000 downloads across 51 countries. If you haven’t tried it yet, why not down- load to watch videos, listen to music and watch live webstreams – all free, and all on your mobile! Visit the iTunes store, or Google Play to download for Android.

PROGRAM BOOKS ON THE RUNYou can pick up a free program book at nearly every concert we give. But did you know you can also download our programs in advance? For one-stop downloading, bookmark sydney symphony.com/program_library and read the program on your desktop computer or mobile device.

HONOUREDIn February our principal conductor, Vladimir Ashkenazy, was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music by the University of Leicester. He is in good company: other recipients include Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, Malcolm Arnold, John Barbirolli and Colin Davis. Bravo maestro!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VANGUARDThe Sydney Symphony Vanguard – our membership program for Gen X/Y philanthropists – celebrates its first birthday in March. The program has paired hip-hop dancer Nacho Pop with classical musicians, created a percussion-only performance zone in a Kings Cross car park, and more, and it has attracted 75 members so far. Sound interesting? Contact Amelia Morgan-Hunn on 02 8215 4663 for more info.

WOLGAN WONDERSThose in search of a special weekend destination might be interested to hear about the Sydney Symphony’s new involvement with Emirates Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa. The first weekend in March saw several of our musicians travel off the beaten track, past the upper Blue Mountains, for the inaugural Sydney Symphony chamber music weekend at Australia’s only six-star resort. Guests were treated to four concerts, including one by the Sydney Symphony Brass Ensemble in which the audience – armed with balloons, paper bags, pots and pans – accompanied a quintet arrangement

of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, to great delight! We hope this new mini festival of music will become a regular feature of the Wolgan Valley calendar.

ON THE ROADThe Sydney Symphony hits the road in May for two residencies in Canberra and Albury. Associate Conductor Jessica Cottis will lead our merry band of musicians in a series of schools concerts and outreach activities, as well as evening performances. The repertoire will delight young and old, with music from Handel’s Water Music suites, selections from Stravinsky’s Pulcinella and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony.

CANBERRA Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music Wed 22 May – 7.30pm concert Thu 23 May – Primary and secondary schools concerts

ALBURY Albury Entertainment Centre Fri 24 May – Primary and secondary schools concerts Sat 25 May – 8pm concert

CODA

BRAVO EDITOR Genevieve Lang sydneysymphony.com/bravoCONTRIBUTOR Caitlin Benetatos

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