ignite

sebastian lang-lessing chief conductor & artistic director

2011 season

master series

starry, starry nightFRIDAY 4 MARCH 7.30PMFederation Concert Hall, Hobart

SATURDAY 5 MARCH 7.30PMAlbert Hall, Launceston

Sebastian Lang-Lessing conductorEwa Kupiec piano

LISZTLes PréludesDuration 16 mins

RAVELPiano Concerto in G

Allegramente

Adagio assai

PrestoDuration 23 mins

INTERVAL

To mark the opening of the TSO’s 2011 season, you are invited to enjoy a complimentary glass of Moorilla sparkling wine.Duration 20 mins

RIMSKY-KORSAKOVScheherazadeLargo e maestoso – Lento – Allegro non troppo (The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship)

Lento (The Story of the Kalendar Prince)

Andantino quasi allegretto (The Young Prince and the Young Princess)

Allegro molto – Vivo – Allegro non troppo e maestoso – Lento (Festival at Baghdad – The Sea – The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior – Conclusion)Duration 42 mins

This concert will end at approximately 9.30pm.

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ABC Classic FM will be recording the Hobart concert for broadcast. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off.

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about the musicfranz liszt (1811-1886)

Les Préludes

Though Liszt’s reputation as a virtuoso pianist continues to resound, it is perhaps his creation of the symphonic poem as a genre that is his most enduring contribution to the orchestral literature. Twelve of the orchestral works composed by him during his years of residence at Weimar (1848-1861) were offered to the world as symphonic poems.

‘Symphonic poem’ is, as Liszt biographer Alan Walker says, ‘one of Liszt’s happiest terms, meant to describe a one-movement composition, connected in some way with the other arts (particularly poetry and painting), and whose internal musical contrasts are held together by thematic metamorphosis’. The term was used in public for the first time at a concert in Weimar on 19 April 1854, where Liszt’s Tasso: Lamento e trionfo was premièred. Five days after the Tasso performance, Liszt wrote to the conductor Hans von Bülow, describing Orpheus and Les Préludes, which had been premièred slightly earlier (23 February), as ‘poèmes symphoniques’.

It may seem ironic, given Walker’s definition, that Les Préludes, the most popular of Liszt’s works in this, his own genre, does not relate more closely to the poem by Alphonse de Lamartine, which gave the work its title. In 1844 Liszt began a work called The Four Elements, conceived as a choral piece with piano accompaniment to poems by Joseph Autran. The piano accompaniments were later orchestrated by a friend; but in 1848, Liszt, who had been studying orchestration himself, wrote a musical introduction to The Four Elements using the themes from the four movements – The Earth, The Winds, The Oceans, The Stars. This, following a few revisions, is what became Les Préludes. It has in common with Lamartine’s ode the combination of ‘pastoral and warlike elements closely linked together’ (in critic Humphrey Searle’s words), but the

succession of contrasting moods and statements (Norbert Ely’s ‘heroic gestures’), tied together by the resurfacing of certain themes, might be best understood from Liszt’s own literary introduction to the score:

What else is life but a series of preludes to that unknown hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death? Love is the enchanted dawn of all existence; but what fate is there whose first delights of happiness are not dissipated by some mortal blast, consuming its altar as though by a stroke of lightning? And what cruelly wounded soul, issuing from one of these tempests, does not endeavour to solace its memories in the calm serenity of rural life? Nevertheless, the man does not resign himself for long to the employment of that beneficent warmth which he first enjoyed in nature’s bosom, and when ‘the trumpet sounds the alarm’ he takes up his perilous post, no matter what struggle calls him to its ranks, that he may recover in combat the full consciousness of himself and the entire possession of his powers.

Yet, in the end, this work succeeds or fails on the basis of its musical conviction. There is the beginning here of Liszt’s mastery of orchestration, and the work, for all its poetic aspiration, structurally resembles a sonata form with slow introduction. But that didn’t stop Eduard Hanslick, the great 19th-century critic and champion of Absolute Music, from condemning symphonic poems as a species when in 1858 he had only heard one of them: this one.

Abridged from a note by Gordon Kalton Williams, Symphony Australia © 2000

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first performed this work with conductor Rudolf Pekárek in Hobart on 26 November 1952 and, most recently, with Kynan Johns in Launceston and Hobart on 19 and 21 July 2001.

ewa KuPiec

Ewa Kupiec studied in Katowice, at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. She has worked with many leading orchestras and renowned conductors, including Marin Alsop, Neeme Järvi, Herbert Blomstedt, Krzysztof Penderecki, Lothar Zagrosek, Gilbert Varga, Andrey Boreyko, Marek Janowski and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, with whom she has enjoyed a particularly fruitful performing and recording relationship. Recent engagements have included Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 with Skrowaczewski at the opening of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra’s 2010-2011 season; concerts with the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Dusseldorf Symphony and Osaka Century Orchestra; and solo recitals. This season she also appears with the Auckland Philharmonia.In addition to her affinity with the works of Chopin, Kupiec is acknowledged as one of Europe’s most dedicated interpreters of contemporary music, and her 2005 performance of Schnittke’s First Piano Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony was the first performance of the work since 1964. This collaboration led to an invitation to record all of Schnittke’s works for piano and orchestra. Her undertaking to promote the lesser known works of Polish composers has resulted in recordings of the music of Paderewski, Szymanowski, Bacewicz and Lutoslawski, and her most recent releases feature the Schnittke Piano Quintet and the solo works of Janácek, Chopin and Schubert.

sebastian lang-lessing

Sebastian Lang-Lessing has been Chief Conductor and

Artistic Director of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra since

2004. Awarded the Ferenc Fricsay Prize in Berlin at the age

of 24, he subsequently took up a conducting post at the

Hamburg State Opera, was appointed resident conductor

at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and later Chief Conductor and

Artistic Director of the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique

de Nancy. Under his direction, the Opéra de Nancy was

elevated to national status becoming the Opéra national de

Lorraine. His international career started at the Paris Opera,

followed by engagements at Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco

Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera

and the opera companies in Oslo and Stockholm. Concert

engagements include performances with the Orchestre de

Paris, Tokyo Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus and major

German Radio Orchestras. He inaugurated the TSO’s annual

Sydney season and led the orchestra on a tour of Japan. His

discography includes music by the French composer Guy

Ropartz, and his CDs with the TSO include the complete

Mendelssohn symphonies with DVD, complete Schumann

symphonies, Mozart Arias with Sara Macliver, and works

by Brett Dean, Saint-Saëns and Ravel. Forthcoming

TSO recordings include Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites, Mozart

symphonies, Beethoven overtures, Schubert’s Unfinished

symphony and a recording with Teddy Tahu Rhodes. His

Rienzi at the Deutsche Oper was recently released on DVD.

He is Music Director of the San Antonio Symphony and Music

Director of Cape Town Opera. The highlight of Sebastian’s

2011 season with the TSO will be The World of Ludwig Van

in which he will conduct all nine Beethoven symphonies.

artist Profiles

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niKolai rimsKy-KorsaKoV (1844-1908)

Scheherazade – Symphonic Suite, Op 35Largo e maestoso – Lento – Allegro non troppo (The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship)

Lento (The Story of the Kalendar Prince)

Andantino quasi allegretto (The Young Prince and the Young Princess)

Allegro molto – Vivo – Allegro non troppo e maestoso – Lento (Festival at Baghdad – The Sea – The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior – Conclusion)

Along with the Capriccio espagnol and the Russian Easter Overture, Scheherazade displays Rimsky-Korsakov’s formidable instinct for brilliant orchestration. Rimsky-Korsakov considered Scheherazade one of those works in which his ‘orchestration had reached a considerable degree of virtuosity and bright sonority without Wagner’s influence’. Such is his virtuosity, that with surprisingly modest forces he can convince us of a raging storm at sea, an exuberant festival and the exotic colours of the Orient.

In Scheherazade, Rimsky-Korsakov drew on isolated episodes from The Thousand and One Nights, a collection of fantastic stories narrated by Scheherazade to her husband, the Sultan Shahriyar. Rimsky-Korsakov drew on those episodes that had caught his imagination – ‘the sea and Sinbad’s ship, the fantastic narrative of the Kalendar Prince, the Prince and Princess, the

about the musicBaghdad festival, and the ship dashing against the rock with the bronze rider upon it’. Linking the episodes is ‘Scheherazade’s theme’, an intricately winding violin solo supported only by the harp.

A suitably cajoling melody played by solo bassoon represents the Kalendar (or ‘beggar’) Prince in the second movement, once more introduced by Scheherazade’s theme. (Rimsky-Korsakov, perhaps deliberately, neglects to tell us which of the beggar princes in The Arabian Nights he had in mind.) The dramatic middle section features muted fanfares, based on the Sultan’s theme. The third movement opens with a sinuous violin melody – it is easy to imagine that Scheherazade is telling this story in her own voice. The similarity between the two main themes (for violin and then flute and clarinet) suggests that the Young Prince and Princess are perfectly matched in temperament and character. Scheherazade’s theme interrupts, before the two themes are woven together in delicate figurations.

An agitated transformation of the Sultan’s theme, in dialogue with Scheherazade’s theme, prefaces the final tale. The fourth movement is a curious elision of the Festival in Baghdad and the tale of the shipwreck, described by one writer as a ‘confused dream of oriental splendour and terror’. Triangle and tambourines accompany the lively cross-rhythms of the carnival; and the mood builds in intensity before all is swamped by the return of the sea theme from the first movement. But after the fury of the shipwreck, it is Scheherazade who has the last word. Her spinning violin solo emerges in gentle triumph over the Sultan’s bloodthirsty resolution.

Abridged from a note by Yvonne Frindle © 1998

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first performed this work in Hobart with conductor Thomas Matthews on 26 September 1962 and, most recently, with Vladimir Verbitsky in Hobart and Launceston on 23 and 24 November 2006.

‘The Sultan Shahriyar, convinced of the duplicity and infidelity of all women, had vowed to slay each of his wives after the first night. The Sultana Scheherazade, however, saved her life by the expedient of recounting to the Sultan a succession of tales over a period of a thousand and one nights.’

about the musicmaurice raVel (1875-1937)

Piano Concerto in GAllegramente

Adagio assai

Presto

Given that Ravel was a concert pianist, it is surprising not that he wrote two great piano concertos (the Concerto for the Left Hand and this work) but that he wrote them at the end of his career.

During the 1920s, Ravel became a frequenter of the late-night jazz clubs featuring black American musicians which had sprang up all over Paris. The influence of jazz is most clearly observable in the G major Piano Concerto. The idea for the opening theme came to Ravel in 1927 as he was travelling by train from Oxford to London. He then lifted themes from an unfinished Basque Rhapsody he had intended for piano and orchestra in 1919, and reworked them into a more distinctively modern idiom. Perhaps the biggest impetus of all came in America in 1928 when Ravel met George Gershwin and heard his Rhapsody in Blue, whose influence is obvious in the middle of the first movement.

Ravel originally intended to perform the solo part of the concerto himself, but in the end his ailing health prevented him from doing so. Instead, the concerto was premièred by Marguerite Long at the Salle Pleyel in 1932, with Ravel himself conducting. (The Concerto for the Left Hand had always been intended for Paul Wittgenstein.)

For all its jazziness, Ravel thought of this as a ‘classical’ concerto:

Planning the two concertos simultaneously was an interesting experience. The one in which I shall appear as the interpreter is a concerto in the true sense of the word: I mean that it is written very much in the same spirit as those of Mozart and Saint-Saëns.

The music of a concerto should, in my opinion, be lighthearted and brilliant, and not aim at profundity or dramatic effects.

Indeed Ravel considered calling it a ‘divertissement’. In any case, it became a true concerto in which fun, self-parody, and exquisite beauty all play their part; but there is a ‘brittleness’ in the concerto’s high spirits, not to mention a pervasive and ‘in-spite-of-itself’ sadness to the slow movement.

The work begins with the crack-of-a-whip and it barely stops racing during the entirety of its first movement. Scored with virtuosic dexterity and lightness, the jazzy rhythm drives on through spiky arpeggios in the piano, a piccolo solo, tremolos and pizzicati in the strings and a trumpet solo. Even the harp takes the spotlight. The Adagio – one of Ravel’s most sublime achievements – was modelled on the equivalent movement in Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. Writing painstakingly, two bars at a time, Ravel agonised over this movement for many months, confessing later that it ‘almost killed him’. Its prevailing mood is that of a nocturne and the piano’s achingly beautiful main theme seems almost hesitant, yet somehow inexorable and assured. Amidst trills on the piano, this most astonishing of slow movements draws to a close.

Ravel told Marguerite Long that he was going to end the concerto on those trills, but in fact he added a finale – and exceeds the frenetic pace of the opening movement.

Martin Buzacott Symphony Australia © 1997

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first performed this work with conductor Vanco Cavdarski and soloist Michel Beroff in Launceston and Hobart on 25 and 28 July 1975 and, most recently, with En Shao and Michel Dalberto in Launceston and Hobart on 21 and 22 November 2002.

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chair sPonsors

Chair Sponsors provide valuable financial assistance to the TSO through an annual donation of $5,000 or more. Their donation, which is nominally placed beside an orchestra chair of their choosing, supports the entire orchestra. All donations to the TSO are fully tax deductible.

Chief Conductor GHDConcertmaster Mike and Carole RalstonAssociate Concertmaster R H O’ConnorPrincipal Second Violin Dr Joanna de BurghPrincipal Viola John and Jo StruttPrincipal Cello Richard and Gill IrelandPrincipal Double Bass Patricia LearyPrincipal Clarinet Dr Peter StantonPrincipal Bassoon Julia FarrellRank and File Bassoon Alan and Hilary WallacePrincipal Horn Mr Kenneth von Bibra am and Mrs Berta von Bibra oam

Principal Trumpet Joy Selby SmithPrincipal Timpani John and Marilyn CanterfordPrincipal Harp Dr and Mrs Michael TreplinPiano Mrs Neale Edwards

tso Patrons

His Excellency The Honourable Peter Underwood AC, Governor of Tasmania TSO CHAIRMAN EMERITUS

TSO Patrons are individuals and couples who support the TSO with an annual donation of $500 or more. All donations to the TSO are fully tax deductible.

Yvonne and Keith AdkinsPeter and Ruth AlthausTony and Joanna AustinHans Bosman and Sue MaddenAileen BuchanDr Howard Bye and Mrs Dianne ByeJohn and Marilyn CanterfordHeather CartledgeGeorge and Jan CasimatyDr Alastair ChristieStephanie CooperThe Cretan FamilyDr Louise CrossleyJoanna de BurghJohn Dickens and Dr Ian PayneLyn EdwardsMrs Neale EdwardsMr Hansjuergen EnzJulia FarrellMrs S FyfeEmeritus Professor A R Glenn and Dr O F GlennKaaren HaasPatricia HaleyBarbara HarlingBrian and Jacky HartnettRobyn and John HawkinsAndrew Heap and Judith HillhouseDr Don Hempton and Mrs Jasmine HemptonNicholas Heyward and Allanah DopsonMr Ian Hicks and Dr Jane TolmanLola Hutchinson oam

Richard and Gill IrelandColin and Dianne JacksonRuth JohnsonDarrell Jones and James MainwaringVeronica KeachAndrew and Elizabeth KempRichard KentPatricia LearyLinda and Martin LutherMacquarie AccountingKatherine MarsdenDavid & Jennifer McEwan

Senator Christine MilneJill MureR H O’ConnorKim PatersonJim PleasantsJohn and Marilyn PugsleyMike and Carole RalstonJan and Alan ReesDr H Rees and Dr C DrewPatricia H ReidProfessor David Rich and Mrs Glenys RichDr John Roberts and Mrs Barbara RobertsMr and Mrs S RobertsKay RoddaAndrew ScobieJoy Selby SmithBrian ShearerEzekiel SolomonDr Tony SprentMr Tony Stacey am and Mrs Jeanette StaceyDr Peter StantonJohn and Jo StruttDr and Mrs Michael TreplinAlan Trethewey and Jean Trethewey oam

His Excellency The Honourable Peter Underwood ac, Governor of Tasmania, and Mrs Frances UnderwoodJohn UpcherMr Kenneth von Bibra am and Mrs Berta von Bibra oam

Jessie VonkAlan and Hilary WallaceMichelle WarrenMichael WilkinsonGeoff and Vicki WillisJ ZimmermanAnonymous x 8

If you wish to become a Chair Sponsor or TSO Patron, please contact Lisa Harris on (03) 6232 4414 or harrisl@tso.com.au

chair sPonsors and Patrons

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ViolinJun Yi Ma ConcertmasterElinor Levy Associate ConcertmasterLucy Carrig Jones Principal SecondDaniel Kossov Principal FirstJessica BellRohana BrownMiranda CarsonYue-Hong ChaFrances DaviesCherelle GadgeBelinda JezekRob JohnMichael JohnstonChristine LawsonAlison Lazaroff-SomssichSusannah NgChristopher NicholasGeorge Vi

Viola Janet Rutherford*Christopher CartlidgeRodney McDonaldMary McVarishWilliam NewberyAnna Roach

cello Sue-Ellen Paulsen*Dale BrownBlair HarrisIvan JamesMartin PenickaBrett Rutherford

double bass Stuart Thomson*Michael FortescueEmma SullivanAndrew Tait

flute Douglas Mackie*Lloyd Hudson PiccoloFiona Perrin

oboeDavid Nuttall*Dinah Woods Cor Anglais

clarinetAndrew Seymour#

Chris Waller Bass Clarinetbassoon Lisa Storchheim*John Panckridge Contrabassoonhorn Wendy Page*Heath Parkinson*Jules EvansRoger JacksonGreg Stephens

trumPet Yoram Levy*Mark Bain

trombone Donald Bate*Liam O’Malley

bass tromboneRobert Clark*

tubaTimothy Jones*

timPaniMatthew Goddard*

Percussion Gary Wain*Emily le BisCalvin McClaySteve MarskellTracey Patten

harPBronwyn Wallis#

*principal player #guest principal

Jun Yi Ma plays a violin attributed to Guarneri on loan from Nathan Waks.

Chief Conductor & Artistic DirectorSebastian Lang-Lessing

Managing DirectorNicholas Heyward

Australian Music Program DirectorLyndon Terracini

TSO ChorusmasterJune Tyzack

TSO BoardGeoff Willis ChairmanPatricia Leary Deputy ChairDon ChallenMaria GrenfellNicholas HeywardPaul OxleyDavid RichJohn UpcherColin Norris Company Secretary

TSO Foundation Chairman Colin Jackson oam

FOTSO President Susan Williams

TASMAniAn SyMPHOny ORCHeSTRA Federation Concert Hall 1 Davey Street, Hobart Tasmania 7000 Australia GPO Box 1450, Hobart Tasmania 7001 Australia Box Office 1800 001 190 boxoffice@tso.com.au Administration (03) 6232 4444

www.tso.com.au

tasmanian symPhony orchestra tso Partners

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Foot & Playsted Fine Printers, Fuji Xerox Shop Tasmania

major Partners

Partners

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and through Arts Tasmania by the Minister for the Arts, and the Tasmanian Icon Program.

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0209

Discover

Chopin

HIDDEN REPUBLIC

ticKets from $20 booKings – 1800 001 190 or tso.com.au

This lecture and concert will open your mind and your ears to one of the best loved of all concertos, Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2.

Federation Concert Hall Sebastian Lang-Lessing conductor Ewa Kupiec piano

CHOPIN Piano Concerto No 2

saturday 12 mar 7pm

Voted one of Australia’s favourite concertos in a recent national survey, the Brahms Violin Concerto comes from the heart to the heart. Internationally-renowned violinist Henning Kraggerud brings feeling, imagination and stunning virtuosity to this timeless classic. Tchaikovsky’s rousing Symphony No 4, another all-time favourite, caps off a night of orchestral music at its stirring and passionate best.

A Ten Days on the island event

Federation Concert Hall Sebastian Lang-Lessing conductor Henning Kraggerud violin

BRAHMS Violin Concerto TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No 4

saturday 26 mar 7.30pm

The TSO and The Black Arm Band come together for Hidden Republic, a celebration of hope and resistance that delves deep into the songbook of contemporary Indigenous Australian music.Featuring renowned artists, Hidden Republic is a powerful and symbolic meeting of different cultural traditions in a language that speaks to us all, the language of music.

A Ten Days on the island event

Wrest Point Entertainment Centre Benjamin Northey conductor Archie Roach, Jimmy Little, Shane Howard, Lou Bennett, Dewayne Everettsmith

saturday 02 apr 7pm

tso calendar of concerts