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Copland Fanfare for the Common Man

Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1

Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2

Image (c) Andrew Dunn

Cambridge Philharmonic Society 2011 – 2012 Season Programme

Saturday 30 June 2012 King’s College Chapel, Cambridge

Parry I Was Glad, Blest Pair of Sirens

Elgar In the South

Puccini Crisantemi, Messa di Gloria with soloists

Bonaventura Bottone and Dean Robinson

2012 – 2013 Season Dates

Sunday 28 October 2012 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Sunday 9 December 2012 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Saturday 19 January 2013 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Children’s Concert

Sunday 10 March 2013 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Joint Concert with the Fairhaven Singers

Saturday 20 April 2013 King’s College Chapel, Cambridge

Saturday 25 May 2013 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Saturday 13 July 2013 Ely Cathedral

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Cambridge

Philharmonic

Society

Cordelia Williams Piano

Timothy Redmond Conductor

Steve Bingham Leader

Sunday 19 May 2012 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

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Cambridge Philharmonic Society acknowledges the continued support of our

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Honorary Patron The Right Worshipful Mayor of Cambridge

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Cambridge Philharmonic Society is a member of Chesterton Community College Association. Registered Charity 243290

The Pye Foundation

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Programme

Copland Fanfare for the

Common Man

Brahms Piano Concerto

No.1

~~ 20 minute interval ~~

Rachmaninov Symphony No.2

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Fanfare for the Common Man Aaron Copland (1900 – 1990)

Copland’s now famous Fanfare was composed in 1942 following a request by Eugene

Goossens, the conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, for a series of stirring

fanfares to be composed which he could then use to open his orchestral concerts.

Copland’s Fanfare was one of eight that were produced in response to Goossens’

request, but is the only one to have survived to become part of the standard repertoire.

This was the dark period following Pearl Harbor and the entry of the US into WWII, and

Copland drew inspiration for the work, and its title, from a speech given by the then

Vice-President, Henry A Wallace, entitled The Century of the Common Man, in which

Wallace enunciated the goals of the War.

The heroic nature of the Fanfare, and its optimism in the face of danger, perfectly

captured the mood of the time. However it has also become part of the background of

our own age, being used for numerous events from the Montreal Olympics to the

celebration of President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, and it is perhaps fitting that we

should be performing it in the year of the London Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee.

The work is scored for brass and percussion, opening with the percussion calling

attention before the brass proclaims the theme. This grows in intensity as it is

exchanged between the different bass instruments, until finally the work concludes with a

percussion crescendo underpinning the final brass chord.

Chris Fisher

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Piano Concerto No.1 in Johannes Brahms D Minor (Opus 15) (1833 – 1897)

1st Movement - Maestoso (D minor)

2nd Movement - Adagio (D major)

3rd Movement - Rondo: Allegro non troppo (D minor/D major)

‘Your concerto is a lasting joy to me’ - Joseph Joachim, writing to Brahms in 1857

By 1854 Brahms had already sketched the outline of what might otherwise have become

his first symphony. Although there are different accounts of the chronology, it is known

that he also reworked the material into a sonata for two pianos before finally deciding on

the concerto format and what would become the D minor Piano Concerto.

The concerto was something of an innovation, with the piano and orchestra working in

partnership, unlike the virtuoso concerti that audiences were familiar with at the time. It

would be a style that Brahms would continue in subsequent works, including the famous

violin concerto that featured in last season’s Philharmonic programme.

Brahms was encouraged in his enterprise by the violinist and conductor Joseph Joachim,

and by Robert and Clara Schumann, who had become enthusiastic supporters of the

young composer. Richard Schumann’s death in July 1856 much affected Brahms, and also

had the effect of drawing him nearer to Clara, whose continuing support would later

prove crucial in winning public acceptance for the new work.

The first performance was in Hanover on 22 January 1859, with Joachim conducting, and

was followed by a second performance at Leipzig a few days later. The performances

were not a success, with the Leipzig audience in particular reacting with barely disguised

hostility. ‘Whatever was the matter with the audience?’ wrote the singer Livia Frege in a

letter to Clara Schumann. ‘At first they were silent, and when finally one or two

members wanted to applaud they were drowned in hisses. I cried for anger.’

Brahms himself seemed more philosophical. ‘I soon cheered up when I heard a C major

symphony of Haydn and Beethoven’s Ruins of Athens’, he wrote, adding ‘The concerto

will become popular when I have improved the construction of it, and a second one is

going to sound very different’. He was of course proved correct, and by the 1870s the

concerto was firmly established in the repertoire.

The problem was partly that this was not the expected virtuoso concerto, and partly

that Brahms’s adherence to classical form meant that he was widely regarded as a mere

reactionary. Yet whilst it is true that Brahms was a traditionalist in that he used the

classical form, he was also a great innovator, developing the romanticism of his

predecessors into a new musical idiom. And what comes across from the piano

concerto is beautiful music, passionate, certainly, but also somehow settled and secure,

music that simply speaks for itself.

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The three movements are as follows:

1st Movement – Maestoso

This long, magisterial movement starts with the orchestra setting out the impassioned

opening theme, complete with arpeggios and trills. There follows a quieter,

contemplative passage, which is then interrupted by a repeat of the main theme, with the

piano joining in as the music moves forward. The piano takes up the theme until we

reach the more settled second subject. And so on, as the movement develops, a long

interplay between soloist and orchestra, the themes being reworked and explored: and

then finally, as we move towards the coda, the music seems to go though the whole

range of emotions, ending with the piano driving the music into a final, determined

climax.

2nd Movement – Adagio

The beautiful adagio, headed Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domine, is said to originate

from an unpublished Mass, and is often seen as being a tribute to Richard and Clara

Schumann. It takes the form of a long reverie, at times meditative, at times impassioned,

with piano and orchestra working together as the different moods unfold. Towards the

end there is a quiet, slow cadenza before the orchestra brings the movement to a close.

3rd Movement – Rondo: Allegro non troppo

The spirited rondo opens with the soloist introducing the theme around which the

movement is built. Joachim was said to have particularly admired what he called its ‘bold

spirit’ and the softer major interlude that follows the main exposition. Although the

piano is never allowed to become dominant, Brahms allows it not one, but two, cadenzas

before piano and orchestra bring the work to its conclusion.

Chris Fisher

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Symphony No.2 in Sergei Rachmaninov E Minor (Opus 27) (1873 – 1943)

1. Largo - Allegro moderato

2. Allegro molto

3. Adagio

4. Allegro vivace

First performance - 26 January 1908, St Petersburg

Sergei Rachmaninov was born near Novgorod (a town featuring for the second time in

this Cambridge Philharmonic Society season, having been invaded by the Teutonic

Knights of the Holy Roman Empire during our November 2011 performance of

Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky). The Rachmaninov family was of aristocratic lineage but

dwindling financial resources. Sergei’s prodigious musical talent was recognised by his

mother, herself an accomplished pianist, who taught her son from the age of 4 years.

When Sergei was 9 the family moved to St Petersburg where he entered the

Conservatory. From the age of 12 he was entirely immersed in musical training in

Moscow, living with his teacher, the fearsome Nikolai Zverev.

From his teenage years onwards, Rachmaninov was internationally renowned as a

virtuoso pianist, touring the recital platforms almost continually until the last months of

his life. In addition, he was a very successful conductor, appointed to direct the Moscow

Imperial Opera and the Bolshoi Ballet during his twenties. But performing and

conducting were not sufficient to satisfy his professional and personal musical ambition.

He was also intent on composing.

After formal training in composition at the Conservatory and with encouragement from

Tchaikovsky, the musical father-figure of his generation, Rachmaninov set about writing

his 1st Symphony, which was premiered in St Petersburg in 1897. It was utterly derided

by the critics and never played again. Rachmaninov referred to this episode as ‘the most

agonising hour of my life’. Although he continued conducting, he composed not a note

for several years following this humiliation. Many writers comment on this being a

period of severe depression, or at least paralysing self-doubt – an understandable

reaction in a young man who had previously been praised for his every musical

endeavour. In later years, he was famously bad-tempered and melancholic – perhaps he

never entirely recovered from the shock of unexpected and harsh criticism.

But with the assistance of a renowned hypnotist, he rediscovered his ability to write

music and dared to place his work under scrutiny again, first with the 2nd Piano Concerto

and then with the monumental 2nd Symphony. Extraordinarily, he emerged from crisis to

find a new compositional voice that was both technically brilliant and beautiful.

Why is Rachmaninov’s music considered the epitome of “romance”? There are many

potential explanations. The elements of Rachmaninov’s enduringly popular compositions

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are deceptively simple – a good tune or two based around chant-like chromatic

melodies, extensive variations and dramatic, complex orchestrations. Solo themes and

conversations between small sections of the orchestra are bounded by rich textural

sound-painting, often using 16-part writing for strings. These intuitive methods could be

the recipe for conjuring a romantic musical mood, emulated by popular composers over

the ensuing decades. Another answer is that Rachmaninov’s style was adopted by

composers of many romantic film scores – Hollywood has informed us that ‘this is what

romance is meant to sound like’ and we therefore hear it as such. In fact the 2nd

Symphony has never contributed directly to a film score, the closest being a derivation of

the Adagio for the main theme in Cinema Paradiso (a romantic film in the best European

tradition of nostalgia, loss and loneliness).

But these dissections do not really explain why this music is so enjoyable, and why it has

such an emotional impact. Perhaps the explanation is that Rachmaninov was himself in

love when he wrote his best works. The 2nd Symphony was written during a period of

two years directly following his marriage (to his first cousin, a union not permitted by

the Orthodox church, necessitating a long period of engagement and many arguments

with family and authority). Sergei and Natalia left Russia in 1906 with their baby

daughter Irina to find tranquillity and relative anonymity in Dresden. Surely Sergei was

expressing something of this personal happiness in his music, as well as considering the

tastes of the St Petersburg public and the reactions of the ever-looming critics?

Rachmaninov never provided concrete explanations or attributed his themes to any

personal or geographical inspiration. Hence the listener is encouraged to deploy their

imagination and consider for themselves what each theme and the entire piece may

evoke, free to relate the music to their own experience whether tangible or abstract.

Perhaps that is the secret of romanticism – music that can communicate and unlock

emotion that is universal, individual, and beyond words.

Kate Baker

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CORDELIA WILLIAMS

Pianist

Since becoming the Piano Winner of BBC Young

Musician 2006, Cordelia Williams has continued

to build an international career as ‘one of the

outstanding pianists of her generation’. She has

given recital and concerto performances

throughout Great Britain, as well as in France,

Italy, Thailand, China, America, Kenya and the

Gulf States, and always likes to introduce the

music to her audience. She has recently been

awarded 1st prize at the Concours International

de Piano in Aix-en-Provence and 2nd prize at the

Dudley International Piano Competition, as well

as 1st prize at the Norah Sande Award in the UK.

Solo performance highlights for Cordelia have included a Wigmore Hall debut, as well as

concerto appearances with orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony

Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia and The Northern Sinfonia (first with conductor Yan

Pascal Tortelier and subsequently with Thomas Zehetmair). The 2010-11 season

included her debut recitals at the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Hall in London,

and Beijing Concert Hall, China. Engagements this year include concerto appearances

with the London Mozart Players and Northern Sinfonia, a recital at the Purcell Room,

London, and concerts in Salzburg, Provence and America. In Autumn 2012 she will

record Schubert’s complete Impromptus for SOMM Records.

Cordelia is a passionate chamber musician - in May 2008 she appeared with the Endellion

String Quartet and has since performed with the Fitzwilliam and Maggini String Quartets

and principal members of the London Mozart Players. She also works regularly with

fellow pianist Tom Poster and baritone Ashley Riches.

Alongside her performing career, Cordelia runs Cafe Muse, an innovative series of events

bringing classical music out of the concert hall and into the relaxed setting of London

bars and brasseries. She hopes to attract a new audience to classical music, especially

people of her own generation.

Cordelia studied at Chethams School of Music, Manchester, and then Clare College,

Cambridge, where she gained a First in Theology. She completed a Masters in

Performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she studied with Joan

Havill, and was then invited to become a Fellow of the Guildhall School. She is very

grateful for the support of the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund.

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TIMOTHY REDMOND

Conductor

Timothy Redmond conducts and presents

concerts throughout Europe. He is a regular

guest conductor with the Royal Philharmonic

Orchestra, both in the recording studio and the

concert hall, and conducts many of the UK's

leading orchestras.

He has given concerts with the London

Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool

Philharmonic, the Ulster and BBC Philharmonic

Orchestras, the Orchestra of Opera North and

the BBC Concert Orchestra. He works regularly with the Hallé and Northern Sinfonia,

has a long-standing association with the Manchester Camerata, and in 2006 was

appointed principal conductor of the Cambridge Philharmonic. He has recently guest-

conducted orchestras in Bosnia, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Macedonia, Slovenia and the US

and broadcasts regularly on TV and radio.

Timothy Redmond is well-known as a conductor of contemporary music. Since working

closely with Thomas Adès on the premiere of The Tempest at Covent Garden, he has

conducted critically-acclaimed productions of Powder Her Face for the Royal Opera

House and St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre. In 2010 he conducted the world premiere

of The Golden Ticket, Peter Ash and Donald Sturrock’s new opera based on Charlie and

the Chocolate Factory, for Opera Theatre of St Louis. Last season he conducted the

work’s European premiere at the Wexford Festival and gave the first performance of a

new oratorio by Edward Rushton with the London Symphony Orchestra.

In the opera house he has conducted productions for Opera North, English National

Opera, English Touring Opera, Almeida Opera, at the Bregenz, Tenerife and Aldeburgh

Festivals and for New York’s American Lyric Theater. Recordings include Dreams with

the French cellist Ophélie Gaillard and the RPO (Harmonia Mundi), discs with Natasha

Marsh and Mara Carlyle for EMI, and CDs with the Northern Sinfonia and Philharmonia.

His 2011/12 season includes concerts with the Hallé, Manchester Camerata, Sinfonia Viva

and Northern Sinfonia, several engagements with the Macedonian Philharmonic in Skopje

and his debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In May 2012 he will collaborate with

Valery Gergiev on The Rite of Spring and Oedipus Rex before conducting a concert of jazz-

inspired works to conclude the LSO’s Stravinsky Festival.

Timothy Redmond read music at Manchester University and studied oboe and

conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he held the RNCM’s Junior

Fellowship in Conducting. He furthered his studies in masterclasses with George Hurst,

Ilya Musin, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Pierre Boulez.

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STEVE BINGHAM

Leader

Steve Bingham studied violin with Emmanuel

Hurwitz, Sidney Griller and the Amadeus Quartet

at the Royal Academy of Music from 1981 to

1985, where he won prizes for orchestral leading

and string quartet playing. In 1985 he formed the

Bingham String Quartet, an ensemble which has

become one of the foremost in the UK, with an

enviable reputation for both classical and

contemporary repertoire. The Quartet has

recorded numerous CDs and has worked for

radio and television both in the UK and as far

afield as Australia. The Quartet has worked with distinguished musicians such as Jack

Brymer, Raphael Wallfisch, Michael Collins and David Campbell.

Steve has appeared as guest leader with many orchestras including the BBC Scottish

Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English National Ballet and

English Sinfonia. He has given solo recitals both in the UK and America and his concerto

performances include works by Bach, Vivaldi, Bruch, Prokofiev, Mendelssohn and

Sibelius, given in venues as prestigious as St John’s, Smith Square and the Royal Albert

Hall. Steve is also Artistic Director of Ely Sinfonia.

In recent years Steve has developed his interest in improvisation, electronics and World

music, collaborating with several notable musicians including guitarist Jason Carter and

players such as Sanju Vishnu Sahai (tabla), Baluji Shivastrav (sitar) and Abdullah Ibrahim

(piano). Steve’s debut solo CD Duplicity was released in November 2005, and has been

played on several radio stations including BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM. The Independent

gave it a 4-star review. Steve released his second solo CD, Ascension, in November

2008. You can find out more about Steve on his web site at www.stevebingham.co.uk.

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PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

First Violins

Steve Bingham (leader)

Kate Clow (co leader)

Graham Bush

Roz Chalmers

Hilary Crooks

Adele Martin

Meriel Rhodes

John Richards

Sarah Ridley

Sean Rock

Debbie Saunders

Pat Welch

Gerry Wimpenny

Second Violins

Emma Lawrence

Paul Anderson

Vikki Atkinson

Jenny Barna

Joanna Baxter

Leila Coupe

Fiona Cunningham

Rebecca Forster

Naomi Hilton

Michele Katzler

Anne McAleer

Edna Murphy

Katrin Ottersbach

Ariane Stoop

Violas

Gavin Alexander

Liz Andrews

Alex Cook

Anne-Cecile Dingwall

Ruth Donnelly

Jeremy Harmer

Robert Heap

Jo Holland

Samara Humbert-Hughes

Emma McCaughan

Maureen Magnay

Robyn Sorensen

Cellos

Vivian Williams

Sarah Bendall

Helen Davies

Anna Edwards

Melissa Fu

Clare Gilmour

Helen Hills

Jessica Hiscock

Lucy Mitchell

Lucy O’Brien

Amy Shipley

Double Bass

Sarah Sharrock

Stephen Beaumont

Elspeth Coult

Susan Sparrow

Flute

Cynthia Lalli

Alison Townend

Sally Landymore

Piccolo

Sally Landymore

Oboe

Rachael Dunlop

Camilla Haggett

Jenny Sewell

Cor Anglais

Jenny Sewell

Clarinet

Graham Dolby

Sarah Whitworth

Frances Richmond

Bass Clarinet

Sarah Whitworth

Bassoon

Neil Greenham

Jenny Warburton

Horn

Carole Lewis

Laurie Friday

Paul Ryder

George Thackery

Trumpet

Andy Powlson

Kate Goatman

Naomi Wrycroft

Trombones

Robert Brooks

Denise Hayles

Tomas Leakey

Tuba

David Minchin

Timps

Dave Ellis

Percussion

Oliver Butterworth

James Shires

Oli Pooley

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