MASTER SERIES

Wednesday 13 November 2013

MAHLER AND BRUCHAshkenazy and Zukerman

SUPPORTED BY VIENNA TOURIST BOARD

Thibaudet plays GershwinJazz Inspirations

SHOSTAKOVICH Jazz Suite No.1 GERSHWIN Piano Concerto in F PROKOFIEV Symphony No.5

James Gaffigan conductor Jean-Yves Thibaudet piano

THURSDAY AFTERNOON SYMPHONY

Thu 5 Dec 1.30pm

EMIRATES METRO SERIES

Fri 6 Dec 8pm

GREAT CL ASSICS

Sat 7 Dec 2pm

MONDAYS @ 7

Mon 9 Dec 7pm

Pre-concert talk by Yvonne Frindle

Variations on an English ThemeHAYDN Symphony No.92 (Oxford) BRITTEN The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra BRITTEN Violin Concerto BRAHMS Variations on a Theme of Haydn

James Gaffigan conductor Vilde Frang violin

MASTER SERIES

Wed 11 Dec 8pmFri 13 Dec 8pmSat 14 Dec 8pm

Pre-concert talk by David Garrett

Symphony in the DomainSpread your blanket under the stars and enjoy the sounds of the orchestra with your family and friends in the Domain.

HOLST The Planets TCHAIKOVSKY 1812 Overture

Simone Young conductor John Bell actor-narrator Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

FREE EVENT PRESENTED BY THE SYDNEY FESTIVAL

Sun 26 Jan 8pmSydney Domain

Anne-Sophie Mutter plays MozartMOZART Violin Concerto No.2 in D, K211 Violin Concerto No.3 in G, K216 (Strassburger) Violin Concerto No.5 in A, K219 (Turkish)

Anne-Sophie Mutter violin-director

Tickets for these concerts on sale from Monday 2 December

SPECIAL EVENT PREMIER PARTNER CREDIT SUISSE

Fri 31 Jan 8pm Sat 1 Feb 8pm Sun 2 Feb 2pm

Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before each performance

DECEMBER – JANUARY

* Booking fees of $7.50 – $8.95 may apply.

BOOK NOW!

SYDNEYSYMPHONY.COM or call 8215 4600 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm

Tickets also available at sydneyoperahouse.com 9250 7777 Mon-Sat 9am-8.30pm Sun 10am-6pm

CLASSICAL

WELCOME

Norbert KettnerManaging Director Vienna Tourist Board

On behalf of the Vienna Tourist Board, Silver Partner of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, I’d like to welcome you to Vladimir Ashkenazy’s fi nal performances with the orchestra this year.

Vienna, the ‘City of Music’, has inspired generations of famous composers. Music is literally in the air, from inside the famed Musikverein to the memorials of Beethoven, Haydn and Schubert dotted across town.

Vienna has not only been the birthplace of some of our best-loved composers, but composers from across Europe and indeed the world have decided to take residence there. Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler are just some of the immigrated Viennese whose music now graces concert platforms everywhere. Even Sibelius, the voice of Finland, made Vienna the destination for his advanced music studies.

This week, Sydney welcomes Pinchas Zukerman, a great violinist and friend and colleague of Ashkenazy, and joining them for two of the performances, cellist Amanda Forsyth. We’re delighted to have helped support these concerts, making this meeting of fi ne artistic spirits a possibility, and giving you a chance to experience the immediacy and timelessness of great music in this concert with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Ashkenazy and his friends.

We hope you enjoy the performance!

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Mahler and BruchVladimir Ashkenazy CONDUCTOR

Pinchas Zukerman VIOLIN

Max Bruch (1838–1920)Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op.26

Vorspiel [Prelude] (Allegro moderato) –AdagioFinale (Allegro energico)

INTERVAL

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)Symphony No.5 in C sharp minor

Part ITrauermarsch (In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt) [Funeral march (With measured pace, stern, like a funeral procession)]Stürmisch bewegt. Mit grösster Vehemenz [Stormy, with utmost vehemence]

Part IIScherzo (Kräftig, nicht zu schnell) [Strong, not too fast]

Part IIIAdagietto (Sehr langsam) [Very slow]Rondo – Finale (Allegro)

master seriesWednesday 13 November | 8pmSydney Opera House Concert Hall

2013 season

The performance of this program on Saturday 16 November will be broadcast live on ABC Classic FM.

The 16 November performance will also be webcast via BigPond and will be available for later viewing on demand. Visit: bigpondmusic.com/sydneysymphony

Pre-concert talk by Roger Benedict at 7.15pm in the Northern Foyer.

Estimated durations: 25 minutes, 20-minute interval, 70 minutesThe performance will conclude at approximately 10pm

SUPPORTING PARTNER

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The first page of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Willem Mengelberg’s score shows his extensive markings in red and blue, together with a brief poem, which he has written into the left-hand margin (see page 15 for a translation). Mengelberg’s annotations also include, in the top right corner: ‘N.B. This Adagietto was Gustav Mahler’s declaration of love to Alma! Instead of a letter he sent her this in manuscript; no accompanying words. She understood and wrote to him: he should come!!!

Both told me this! W.M.’ And at the bottom of the page: ‘If music is a language, then it is one here – “he” tells her everything in “tones” and “sounds” in: music.’

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Ashkenazy and Zukerman perform Mahler and Bruch

Long before he began his tenure as Principal Conductor in 2009, Vladimir Ashkenazy had won the hearts of Sydney audiences. Perhaps you were there for the now famous Sibelius cycle in 2004, or the inspirational Rachmaninoff festival in 2007. Maybe you were fortunate enough to have heard the recitals and concertos that marked his fi rst appearances for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Now, this week, Ashkenazy off ers a program that highlights what has made his work with the SSO so special – not only for audiences, but for everyone in the orchestra.

It’s a heart-warming program. It begins with the concerto that violinist Joseph Joachim described as ‘the richest’ and ‘most seductive’ of the four great German violin concertos. (He placed Bruch’s G minor concerto in the company of Beethoven, Brahms and Mendelssohn.) And it concludes with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, with its musical declaration of love given voice by strings and harp.

The symphony is a welcome reprise from Ashkenazy’s Mahler Odyssey, the two-year journey through the complete symphonies in 2010 and 2011. Our performance then was captured on CD and has been praised for its compelling approach and vision under our principal conductor. It ‘has the vividness and energy of a live performance,’ wrote Peter McCallum in The Sydney Morning Herald, ‘blending fi re and cogency, colour and concentration.’

For the concerto we welcome back to Sydney Pinchas Zukerman, a long-standing friend and colleague of Ashkenazy’s. And in this the concert highlights something else about Ashkenazy’s work with the SSO: it is about making music among friends and for friends. Once again, we’re reminded of the T-shirt he so often wears for rehearsal, bearing one word: ‘Musician’.

INTRODUCTION

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

Max BruchViolin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op.26Vorspiel [Prelude] (Allegro moderato) –AdagioFinale (Allegro energico)

Pinchas Zukerman violin

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

Keynotes

BRUCH

Born Cologne, 1838Died Berlin, 1920

More than any other German composer, Bruch was the true successor of Mendelssohn, and their respective violin concertos share a family likeness. Bruch’s next best-known work is his Kol Nidrei, an Adagio on Hebrew Melodies for cello and orchestra. On the strength of that work alone (Bruch was a Protestant Christian), his music was later banned by the Nazi party.

VIOLIN CONCERTO NO.1

After Mendelssohn’s concerto, Bruch’s first is probably the most popular Romantic concerto in the repertoire. Bruch conducted the first performance in 1866, then revised it substantially in 1868. Bruch sold the work outright to the publisher Simrock for a pittance and never received another penny from the growing number of performances. Sadly, though he composed two more violin concertos, neither caught the public imagination in the same way as the first.

Unusually, not just the opening section but the whole of the first movement is cast as an introductory Vorspiel (Prelude), which for the violin begins and ends with cadenzas. A held note for the orchestral violins leads to the memorable Adagio that forms the concerto’s emotional centre. The finale is by turns lyrical and virtuosic, and takes on a decidedly Hungarian Gypsy feel.

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

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

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

With the main theme launched by the solo violin in sonorous double-stopping, and a contrasting descending second subject, a conventional opening movement in sonata form seems to be under way. The rhythmic fi gure heard in the plucked bass strings plays an important part. But at the point where the recapitulation would begin, Bruch, having brought back the opening chords and fl ourishes, uses them instead to prepare a soft subsiding into the slow movement, which begins without a pause. Bruch fi rst called the fi rst

The concerto’s success was a mixed blessing for Bruch, since he’d sold full rights in it for a paltry sum.

At this very moment a soloist’s heart is beating in time to the music at the Vienna State Opera. It’s a shame you can’t hear it.

VIENNA HOTELS & INFOTel. +43-1-24 555info@vienna.info WWW.VIENNA.INFO

Wiener Staatsballett, principal dancer, Olga Esina

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movement Introduzione-Fantasia, then Vorspiel (Prelude), and asked Joachim rather anxiously whether he shouldn’t call the whole work a Fantasy rather than a Concerto. ‘The designation concerto is completely apt,’ replied Joachim. ‘Indeed, the second and third movements are too fully developed for a Fantasy. The separate sections of the work cohere in a lovely relationship, and yet – and this is the most important thing – there is suffi cient contrast.’

The songful character of the violin is to the fore in Bruch’s Adagio. Two beautiful themes are linked by a memorable transitional idea featuring a rising scale. The themes are artfully and movingly developed and combined, until the second ‘enters grandly below and so carries us out in the full tide of its recapitulation’ (Tovey).

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

DAVID GARRETT © 2004

The orchestra for Bruch’s First Violin Concerto comprises pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns and two trumpets; timpani and strings.

Yehudi Menuhin was soloist in Bruch’s G minor concerto with Maurice Abravanel and a ‘full professional orchestra’ (containing many moonlighting Sydney Symphony Orchestra players) in Sydney in June 1935. Georg Schneevoigt conducted the first official performance with the SSO in 1937; the soloist was Lionel Lawson. The orchestra’s most recent performance was with Daniel Hope and conductor Oleg Caetani in 2010.

‘Because the violin can sing a melody better than the piano can, and melody is the soul of music.’Bruch, a pianist, explaining why he so loved the violin

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Keynotes

MAHLER

Born Kalischt, 1860Died Vienna, 1911

Mahler is now regarded as one of the greatest symphonists of the turn of the 20th century. But during his life his major career was as a conductor – he was effectively a ‘summer composer’. Mahler believed that a symphony must ‘embrace the world’. His are large-scale, requiring huge orchestras and often lasting more than an hour. They cover a tremendous emotional range, and they have sometimes been described as ‘Janus-like’ in the way they blend romantic and modern values, self-obsession and universal expression, idealism and irony.

FIFTH SYMPHONY

Mahler described his Fifth Symphony originally as ‘a straightforward symphony in four separate movements’, though somehow, as the introductory opening grew into a separate slow movement, a Dead March, some of the promised straightforwardness was jettisoned. Mahler was composing the work in 1901–02, around the time of his betrothal to Alma Schindler, and according to Mahler’s colleague, Willem Mengelberg, the famous Adagietto for harp and strings is a declaration of love.

Finally, Mahler caves in to the temptation to unify the work’s ‘separate’ parts. His finale duly melds ideas from all four previous movements, particularly the Dead March and the Adagietto, into a joyous (giocoso) celebration. It brings the whole symphony to the ecstatic brass hymn of the conclusion, as close as Mahler ever came to an ‘Ode to Joy’.

Gustav MahlerSymphony No.5 in C sharp minor

Part ITrauermarsch (In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt) [Funeral march (With measured pace, stern, like a funeral procession)]Stürmisch bewegt. Mit grösster Vehemenz [Stormy, with utmost vehemence]

Part IIScherzo (Kräftig, nicht zu schnell) [Strong, not too fast]

Part IIIAdagietto (Sehr langsam) [Very slow]Rondo – Finale (Allegro)

Mahler’s fi rst four symphonies were more or less programmatic in their intention, drawing their inspiration from folk poetry, incorporating themes from songs, and (in all but the fi rst) using the human voice in one or more of the movements. The Fifth Symphony, on the other hand, revealed no obvious program and was scored for orchestra alone.

It was written in 1901–02 around the time of Mahler’s meeting with, and rather hasty betrothal to, Alma Schindler. While no period in Mahler’s life could be described as unequivocally happy, there is no doubt that the Fifth Symphony was conceived at a time of substantial personal and professional satisfaction. Yet any sign of outward pleasure or optimism tends to be avoided, at least early on in the symphony – pointedly, and notoriously, it begins with a funeral march.

Mahler’s friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner recalled Mahler speaking to her about the symphony he was writing in his hut in the woods during the summer of 1901:

Within the last few days Mahler has spoken to me for the fi rst time about his work this summer, his Fifth Symphony, and in particular about the third movement: ‘The movement is immensely diffi cult to work out because of the structure and the supreme artistic mastery which it demands in all its relationships and details…The human voice would be utterly out of place here. There is no call for words, everything is said in purely musical terms. It will be a straightforward symphony in four movements too, with each movement independent and complete in itself and related to the others only by the common mood.’Mahler worked on the fi rst two movements and part of

the third movement during the summer of 1901. The rest of the symphony was completed the following summer, by

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which point Alma Schindler (whom he had met in November 1901) was very much part of his life. In her memoirs, Alma recalled the couple going to Maiernigg in June 1902:

Mahler had the sketches of the Fifth Symphony with him. Two movements were completed, the rest were being drafted. I tried to play the piano softly, but when I asked him, he [said that he] had heard me, although his working cabin was located far away in the woods. Thereafter I changed my activities…In the process I gradually became a real help to him.By the autumn of 1902 the Fifth Symphony was complete

and Mahler played it for his new wife:It was the fi rst time that he played a new work for me. Arm in arm we walked solemnly up to his studio in the woods. Soon afterwards the vacation was over, and we moved to Vienna. The Fifth was completed, and he worked all winter on the fi nal copy.When the premiere took place in Cologne on 18 October

1904, the reception was mixed. The great conductor and early champion of Mahler’s music, Bruno Walter, clearly remembered the occasion for ‘a particular reason’:

…it was the fi rst and, I think, the only time that a performance of a Mahler work under his own baton left me unsatisfi ed. The instrumentation did not succeed in bringing out clearly the complicated contrapuntal fabric of the parts, and Mahler complained to me afterwards that he never seemed able to master the handling of the orchestra: in fact he later subjected the orchestration to the most radical revision that he ever felt obliged to undertake.Walter was not alone; Richard Strauss, also an admirer of

Mahler’s music, had reservations after witnessing a further performance of the symphony some months later. Revision after revision ensued, beginning with the overwritten percussion parts and following through into the entire orchestration. So thorough was Mahler’s reworking that, even as the symphony’s popularity grew, each performance was diff erent from the previous. ‘The Fifth is an accursed work,’ Mahler wrote. ‘No one understands it!’

The symphony follows Mahler’s principle of ‘progressive tonality’, working its way from the beginning in C sharp minor to a conclusion in a triumphant D major. On its travels it passes through a vast range of moods and emotions – ‘passionate, wild, pathetic, sweeping, solemn, gentle, full of all the emotions of the human heart’ in Bruno Walter’s memorable description. A massive work, it is in three parts and fi ve movements (rather than the four movements Mahler had planned in 1901).

Gustav Mahler (portrait by Emil Orlik, 1902) and Alma Mahler

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The opening movement begins with a distinctive trumpet call which recurs as the movement proceeds, and which Mahler noted in the score should be played ‘somewhat hurriedly, in the manner of military fanfares’. Like Berlioz and Tchaikovsky before him, Mahler opens with a funeral march and the fi rst movement itself is fi lled with pain and grief.

As if to belie the claim that the symphony is ‘absolute’ rather than ‘programmatic’ music, the main theme is actually based on a song by Mahler called Der Tamboursg’sell – a song about a drummer boy facing execution. There are two trios in the movement: the fi rst in B fl at minor with a brief violin theme, the second a quieter section in A minor following the return of the march theme. After an impassioned climax toward the end, the movement dies away amid echoes of the opening trumpet call.

Mahler leaves no doubt as to the intended mood of the second movement – marked ‘Stormy, with utmost vehemence’. Much of the material in this allegro movement derives from that in the fi rst and there is a distinct reminiscence of the march rhythms. A brass chorale in part anticipates the conclusion of the symphony as a whole; after some distinctly sinister turns, the main themes of the allegro return as the movement ends quietly and ominously.

The Scherzo, which forms the third movement, is another matter altogether. Its energetic main thematic material is in the form of a joyous ländler. Ideas tumble over themselves in an inventive contrapuntal display while a slower waltz theme is juxtaposed with the main material. Contrasting trios add a more sombre note and in one of these there occurs a striking obbligato passage for the principal horn.

The Adagietto – arguably the most famous single movement in all the Mahler symphonies – is essentially a song without words. Scored for harps and strings alone, it is closely related to Mahler’s song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world). According to Mahler’s colleague, Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, the Adagietto was intended as a declaration of love for Alma and was composed shortly after the couple met. More like a fascinated bystander than a conductor, Mengelberg wrote in his score:

Instead of a letter, he sent her this in manuscript, no accompanying words. She understood and wrote to him: he should come!!! Both have told me this!…If music is a language, then it is one here. He tells her everything in tones and sounds, in: music.

At the dress rehearsal, your Fifth Symphony again brought me great pleasure, which was dimmed for me only by the little Adagietto. It serves you right that precisely that movement was liked the most by the audience. The first two movements especially are quite splendid; the ingenious Scherzo seemed a bit too long. How much this is the fault of the inadequate performance is beyond my judgement.RICHARD STRAUSS

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Before World War II, Mahler’s symphonies were not universally greeted as masterworks. When Georg Schnéevoigt conducted the SSO’s first performance of the Fifth in the Sydney Town Hall on 5 August 1937, the Sydney Morning Herald reviewer found it:…a long work, and an uncommonly patchy one… the composer seemed to be going through the motions of grief, joy, or frenzy, but conveying nothing but a disturbing noise. Mahler’s well-known fondness for brass instruments expressed itself in frequent and by no means uncertain terms. This, more than anything else, made the symphony fatiguing. Still, a score which includes such superb ideas as the Dead March in the first movement and the tender sincerity of the Adagietto is not lightly to be thrust aside.

And also in Mengelberg’s score at the beginning of the Adagietto was the following brief poem, presumably written by Mahler himself:

Wie ich Dich liebeDu meine SonneIch kann mit Worten Dir’s nicht sagenNur meine Sehnsucht kann ich Dir klagenUnd meine LiebeMeine Wonne!

The Adagietto gained a wider audience when used in the soundtrack for Visconti’s fi lm Death in Venice.

The Rondo–Finale shares material with each of the previous four movements, particularly the Funeral March and the Adagietto. The movement is a joyous (giocoso) celebration which begins with a series of folk-like fi gures on solo wind instruments. (The opening of the movement quotes the witty Lob des hohen Verstandes (In Praise of Higher Understanding) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.) The main rondo theme is fi rst stated on the horns and the other ideas are woven contrapuntally around this as counter-subjects. When the main melody from the Adagietto returns it is so transformed with energy that it is practically unrecognisable. The development is elaborate, and the movement as a whole works its way towards the ecstatic brass chorale of the conclusion – as close as the melancholy Mahler ever came to writing an ‘Ode to Joy’.

MARTIN BUZACOTT, SYMPHONY AUSTRALIA © 1997

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is scored for four flutes (two doubling piccolo), three oboes (one doubling English horn), three clarinets (one doubling E flat clarinet and bass clarinet), three bassoons and contrabassoon; seven horns, four trumpets, three trombones and tuba; timpani and four percussion; harp and strings.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra was the first ABC orchestra to perform this symphony, with conductor Georg Schnéevoigt on 5 August 1937. The most recent performance was in 2010 with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting, also recorded as part of the SSO’s Mahler Odyssey.

How I love you,my sun,I cannot tell you in words,I can only pour out to you my longingand my love,my delight!

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MORE MUSIC

ZUKERMAN PLAYS BRUCH

Pinchas Zukerman has recorded the Bruch G minor violin concerto with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Look for it in a pairing with the Brahms violin concerto (Mehta conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra) on RCA, or in a program with Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No.5 (Grétry) and Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole in a Sony Classical Essential Classics release.

ASHKENAZY CONDUCTS MAHLER

Vladimir Ashkenazy conducted the SSO in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in 2010 as part of the Mahler Odyssey, in which we performed and recorded the complete symphonies and several major song cycles. The symphony is available on its own, and also as part of a handsome boxed set.SSO LIVE 201003

Visit www.sydneysymphony.com/shop to buy the SSO Mahler recordings and other music.

PINCHAS ZUKERMAN

Pinchas Zukerman and Vladimir Ashkenazy were frequent chamber music partners during the 1990s and they appear together in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5 (the ‘Turkish’), recorded in concert with Ashkenazy conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. On the same disc Ashkenazy conducts Richard Strauss’s Symphonia domestica.AUDITE 97535

Zukerman and Ashkenazy’s chamber music recordings include the complete Schubert piano trios with cellist Lynn Harrell (who will perform with the SSO in 2014).DECCA 455 6852

Also a violist, Zukerman has recorded Berlioz’s Harold in Italy with Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Available in a 2CD Berlioz collection that includes the Symphonie fantastique and highlights from Roméo et Juliette.DECCA 455 3612

To hear Zukerman in more core concerto repertoire, look for his recording of Beethoven’s violin concerto with Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Also in the 2CD set, Nathan Milstein in his fi nal studio recordings of the Brahms, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky concertos, accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic.DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 453 1422

On the Eloquence label, Zukerman plays the much-loved Lark Ascending in an all-English collection of music by Delius, Vaughan Williams and Walton. Daniel Barenboim conducts the English Chamber Orchestra.ELOQUENCE 442 8333

Broadcast DiaryNovember–December

abc.net.au/classic

Thursday 14 November, 1.30pmsibelius & brahmsVladimir Ashkenazy conductorPinchas Zukerman violinAmanda Forsyth cello

Saturday 16 November, 8pmmahler & bruchSee this program for details.

Thursday 28 November, 1.05pmwagner madnessNicholas Carter conductorJanet Webb fl uteHaydn, L Liebermann, Ledger, Wagner

Saturday 14 December, 8pmvariations on an english themeJames Gaffi gan conductorVilde Frang violinHaydn, Britten, Brahms

Fine Music 102.5sydney symphony 2013Tuesday 10 December, 6pmMusicians, staff and guest artists discuss what’s in store for 2014.

Webcasts

Selected Sydney Symphony Orchestra concerts are webcast live on BigPond and Telstra T-box and made available for later viewing On Demand. Our next webcast:mahler & bruchFrom Saturday 16 November at 8pm

Visit: bigpondmusic.com/sydneysymphony

We recommend our free mobile app, now optimised for the iPad, if you want to watch SSO live webcasts on your mobile device.

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Sydney Symphony LiveThe Sydney Symphony Live label was founded in 2006 and we’ve since released more than a dozen recordings featuring the orchestra in live concert performances with our titled conductors and leading guest artists, including the Mahler Odyssey cycle, begun in 2010. To purchase, visit sydneysymphony.com/shop

Glazunov & ShostakovichAlexander Lazarev conducts a thrilling performance of Shostakovich 9 and Glazunov’s Seasons. SSO 2

Strauss & SchubertGianluigi Gelmetti conducts Schubert’s Unfi nished and R Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Ricarda Merbeth.SSO 200803

Sir Charles MackerrasA 2CD set featuring Sir Charles’s fi nal performances with the orchestra, in October 2007. SSO 200705

Brett DeanBrett Dean performs his own viola concerto, conducted by Simone Young, in this all-Dean release. SSO 200702

RavelGelmetti conducts music by one of his favourite composers: Maurice Ravel. Includes Bolero. SSO 200801

Rare Rachmaninoff Rachmaninoff chamber music with Dene Olding, the Goldner Quartet, soprano Joan Rodgers and Vladimir Ashkenazy at the piano. SSO 200901

Prokofi ev’s Romeo and JulietVladimir Ashkenazy conducts the complete Romeo and Juliet ballet music of Prokofi ev – a fi ery and impassioned performance.SSO 201205

Tchaikovsky Violin ConcertoIn May this recording with James Ehnes and Ashkenazy was awarded a Juno (the Canadian Grammy). Lyrical miniatures fi ll out the disc. SSO 201206

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Mahler 1 & Songs of a Wayfarer SSO 201001

Mahler 2 SSO 201203

Mahler 3 SSO 201101

Mahler 4 SSO 201102

Mahler 5 SSO 201003

Mahler 6 SSO 201103

Mahler 7 SSO 201104

Mahler 8 (Symphony of a Thousand) SSO 201002

Mahler 9 SSO 201201

Mahler 10 (Barshai completion) SSO 201202

Song of the Earth SSO 201004

From the archives:

Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder, Das Lied von der Erde SSO 201204

LOOK OUT FOR…

Our next release featuring music by Brett Dean.

MAHLER ODYSSEY

During the 2010 and 2011 concert seasons, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy set out to perform all the Mahler symphonies, together with some of the song cycles. These concerts were recorded for CD and the set is now complete, together with a special disc of historical SSO Mahler performances. Available individually or as a handsome boxed set.

MORE MUSIC

18 sydney symphony

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Vladimir Ashkenazy PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR AND ARTISTIC ADVISOR

Vladimir Ashkenazy fi rst came to prominence on the world stage in the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw and as winner of the 1956 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Since then he has built an extraordinary career, not only as one of the most outstanding pianists of the 20th century, but as a revered and inspiring artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities.

Conducting has formed the largest part of his music-making for the past 20 years, and this is his fi fth season as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Sydney Symphony. He has also been Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic (1998–2003) and Music Director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo (2004–2007), and he is Conductor Laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, with whom he has developed landmark projects such as Prokofi ev and Shostakovich Under Stalin and Rachmaninoff Revisited.

He also holds the positions of Music Director of the European Union Youth Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He maintains strong links with a number of other major orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra (where he was formerly Principal Guest Conductor) and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Chief Conductor and Music Director, 1988–96), as well as making guest appearances with major orchestras around the world.

Vladimir Ashkenazy continues to devote himself to the piano, building his comprehensive recording catalogue with releases such as the 1999 Grammy award-winning Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No.3 (which he commissioned), Rachmaninoff transcriptions, Bach’s Wohltemperierte Klavier and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. His most recent solo releases feature the music of Rachmaninoff .

A regular visitor to Sydney since his Australian debut in 1969, he has conducted subscription concerts and composer festivals for the Sydney Symphony, with highlights including the acclaimed Sibelius festival of 2004 and his Rachmaninoff festival of 2007. In 2010–11 he conducted the Mahler Odyssey concerts and live recordings, and his artistic role with the orchestra includes annual international touring.

Russian-born Vladimir Ashkenazy inherited his musical gift from both sides of his family: his father David Ashkenazy was a professional light music pianist and his mother Evstolia (née Plotnova) was daughter of a chorusmaster in the Russian Orthodox church.

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Pinchas Zukerman VIOLIN

Pinchas Zukerman has remained a phenomenon in the world of music for over four decades, equally respected as violinist, violist, conductor, teacher and chamber musician. His extraordinary musicianship, prodigious technique and unwavering artistic standards are a marvel to audiences and critics. His busy annual performance schedule takes him all over North America, Europe and Asia, appearing in the 2013–14 season with such orchestras as the Vienna Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Salzburg Camerata, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

As a chamber musician he appears this season with pianist Yefi m Bronfman in a North American recital tour, and his ensemble, the Zukerman ChamberPlayers, will perform at the Ravinia, Verbier and Miyazaki festivals, and make their third South American tour.

Over the past decade, Pinchas Zukerman has become equally regarded as a conductor, directing many of the world’s top orchestras. He is in his 15th season as Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa and has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since 2009.

His devotion to the next generation of musicians has resulted in innovative teaching programs in London, New York, China, Israel and Ottawa. He chairs the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, pioneering the use of distance-learning technology, and in Canada he established the NAC Institute for Orchestra Studies and Summer Music Institute.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1948, he moved to America in 1962, studying at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian. He has been awarded the Medal of Arts and the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence, and was appointed as the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’s fi rst instrumentalist mentor in the music discipline. His extensive discography contains more than a hundred titles and has earned him 21 Grammy nominations and two awards.

Pinchas Zukerman’s most recent visit to Sydney was in 2000 as part of the Olympic Arts Festival, appearing for the Australian Youth Orchestra and Musica Viva. On this visit to Australia he also performs with the Adelaide and West Australian symphony orchestras.

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MUSICIANS

Vladimir AshkenazyPrincipal Conductor and Artistic Advisor supported by Emirates

Dene OldingConcertmaster

Jessica CottisAssistant Conductor supported by Premier Partner Credit Suisse

Andrew HaveronConcertmaster

To see photographs of the full roster of permanent musicians and find out more about the orchestra, visit our website: www.sydneysymphony.com/SSO_musiciansIf you don’t have access to the internet, ask one of our customer service representatives for a copy of our Musicians flyer.

The men of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra are proudly outfitted by Van Heusen.

FIRST VIOLINS

Dene Olding Concertmaster

Sun Yi Associate Concertmaster

Kirsten WilliamsAssociate Concertmaster

Lerida Delbridge Assistant Concertmaster

Fiona Ziegler Assistant Concertmaster

Julie BattyJenny BoothMarianne BroadfootBrielle ClapsonSophie ColeAmber DavisGeorges LentzNicola LewisAlexander NortonLéone ZieglerRebecca Gill†Andrew Haveron Concertmaster

Jennifer HoyAlexandra Mitchell

SECOND VIOLINS

Kirsty Hilton Marina Marsden Emma Jezek A/ Associate Principal

Emily Long A/ Assistant Principal

Shuti HuangStan W KornelBenjamin LiNicole MastersPhilippa PaigeBiyana RozenblitMaja VerunicaAlexandra D’Elia*Elizabeth Jones*Emily Qin*Kelly Tang†

Maria DurekEmma Hayes

VIOLAS

Roger Benedict Tobias Breider Anne-Louise Comerford Justin Williams Assistant Principal

Robyn BrookfieldSandro CostantinoJane HazelwoodGraham HenningsStuart JohnsonJustine MarsdenFelicity TsaiLeonid VolovelskyAmanda Verner

CELLOS

Catherine Hewgill Leah Lynn Assistant Principal

Kristy ConrauFenella GillTimothy NankervisElizabeth NevilleChristopher PidcockAdrian WallisDavid WickhamJames sang-oh Yoo†

DOUBLE BASSES

Kees Boersma Alex Henery Neil BrawleyPrincipal Emeritus

David Campbell Steven LarsonRichard LynnDavid MurrayBenjamin Ward

FLUTES

Janet Webb Emma Sholl Carolyn HarrisRosamund PlummerPrincipal Piccolo

OBOES

Diana Doherty Shefali Pryor David PappAlexandre OgueyPrincipal Cor Anglais

CLARINETS

Lawrence Dobell Francesco Celata Christopher TingayCraig Wernicke Principal Bass Clarinet

BASSOONS

Matthew Wilkie Fiona McNamaraNoriko Shimada Principal Contrabassoon

HORNS

Robert Johnson Geoffrey O’Reilly Principal 3rd

Euan HarveyRachel SilverAbbey Edlin*Jenny McLeod-Sneyd*Brendan Parravicini†

Ben Jacks Marnie Sebire

TRUMPETS

David Elton Paul Goodchild Anthony HeinrichsDaniel Henderson*

TROMBONES

Scott Kinmont Nick ByrneChristopher Harris Principal Bass Trombone

Ronald Prussing

TUBA

Steve Rossé

TIMPANI

Richard Miller

PERCUSSION

Rebecca Lagos Colin PiperMark Robinson Brian Nixon*

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Louise Johnson

Bold = PrincipalItalics = Associate Principal* = Guest Musician† = SSO FellowGrey = Permanent member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra not appearing in this concert

sydney symphony 21

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAVladimir Ashkenazy Principal Conductor and Artistic AdvisorPATRON Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO

Founded in 1932 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra 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 SSO 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 Orchestra’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 Orchestra’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 recordings of works by Brett Dean have been released on both BIS and Sydney Symphony Live.

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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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

Amy Walsh

LibraryAnna CernikVictoria GrantMary-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 Spence

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 HodgeGRAPHIC DESIGNER

Lucy McCulloughCREATIVE ARTWORKER

Nathanael van der Reyden

Sydney Symphony Orchestra Staff

MARKETING 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 Robertson CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES

Karen Wagg – Senior CSR Michael DowlingKatarzyna OstafijczukTim Walsh

COMMUNICATIONS

HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS & SPONSOR RELATIONS

Yvonne ZammitPUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER

Katherine StevensonCOMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

Janine Harris DIGITAL CONTENT PRODUCER

Kai RaisbeckFELLOWSHIP SOCIAL MEDIA OFFICER

Caitlin Benetatos

PublicationsPUBLICATIONS EDITOR & MUSIC PRESENTATION MANAGER

Yvonne Frindle

DEVELOPMENT

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

Caroline SharpenHEAD OF CORPORATE RELATIONS

Jeremy GoffHEAD OF MAJOR GIFTS

Luke Andrew GayDEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Amelia Morgan-HunnDEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR

Sarah Morrisby

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

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

Sydney Symphony Orchestra Board

Sydney Symphony Orchestra 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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06 Kirsty Hilton Principal Second Violin Corrs Chambers Westgarth Chair

07 Robert Johnson Principal Horn James & Leonie Furber Chair

08 Elizabeth Neville Cello Ruth & Bob Magid Chair

09 Colin Piper Percussion Justice Jane Mathews ao Chair

10 Emma Sholl Associate Principal Flute Robert & Janet Constable Chair

11 Janet Webb Principal Flute Helen Lynch am & Helen Bauer Chair

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PATRONS

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

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

Sydney Symphony Orchestra Corporate AllianceTony Grierson, Braithwaite Steiner PrettyInsurance Australia Grou pJohn Morschel, Chairman, ANZ

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

02 Lawrence Dobell Principal Clarinet Terrey Arcus am & Anne Arcus 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

Chair Patrons

01 02 03

04 05 06

07 08 09

10 11 For information about the Chair Patrons program, please call (02) 8215 4619.

David BluffKees Boersma Andrew BraggPeter BraithwaiteBlake BriggsAndrea BrownHelen CaldwellHilary CaldwellHahn ChauAlistair ClarkMatthew ClarkBenoît CocheteuxPaul ColganGeorge CondousJuliet CurtinJustin Di Lollo

Alistair FurnivalAlistair GibsonSam GiddingsMarina GoSebastian GoldspinkTony GriersonLouise HaggertyRose HercegPhilip HeuzenroederPaolo HookePeter HowardJennifer HoyScott JacksonJustin JamesonAernout KerbertTristan Landers

Gary LinnanePaul MacdonaldKylie McCaigRebecca MacFarlingDavid McKeanHayden McLeanAmelia Morgan-HunnPhoebe Morgan-HunnTaine MoufarrigeNick NichlesTom O’DonnellKate O’ReillyFiona OslerArchie PaffasJonathan PeaseJingmin Qian

Seamus R QuickLeah RanieMichael ReedePaul ReidyChris RobertsonBenjamin RobinsonEmma RodigariJacqueline RowlandsKatherine ShawRandal TameSandra TangAdam WandJon WilkieJonathan WatkinsonDarren WoolleyMisha Zelinsky

Justin Di Lollo – ChairKees BoersmaMarina GoDavid McKeanAmelia Morgan-HunnJonathan PeaseSeamus R Quick

MembersCentric WealthMatti AlakargasStephen AttfieldDamien BaileyMar BeltranEvonne BennettNicole Billet

Sydney Symphony Orchestra VanguardVanguard Collective

24 sydney symphony

PLAYING YOUR PART

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra 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 AinsworthTerrey Arcus am & Anne ArcusTom Breen & Rachael KohnSandra & Neil BurnsMr John C Conde aoRobert & Janet ConstableMichael Crouch ao & Shanny CrouchJames & Leonie FurberDr Bruno & Mrs Rhonda Giuff reIn memory of Hetty & Egon GordonMr Andrew Kaldor am & Mrs Renata Kaldor aoD & I KallinikosHelen Lynch am & Helen BauerVicki OlssonMrs Roslyn Packer aoPaul & Sandra SalteriMrs Penelope Seidler amG & C Solomon in memory of Joan MacKenzieMrs W SteningMr Fred Street am & Mrs Dorothy StreetPeter Weiss ao & Doris WeissWestfi eld GroupMr Brian & Mrs Rosemary WhiteKim Williams am & Catherine DoveyRay Wilson oam in memory of James Agapitos oam

Gold Patrons: $10,000–$19,999Doug & Alison BattersbyAlan & Christine BishopIan & Jennifer BurtonCopyright Agency Cultural Fund Edward & Diane FedermanNora GoodridgeMr Ross GrantMr Ervin KatzJames N Kirby FoundationMs Irene LeeRuth & Bob MagidThe Hon. Justice AJ Meagher & Mrs Fran MeagherMrs T Merewether oamMr John MorschelMr John SymondAndy & Deirdre Plummer Caroline WilkinsonAnonymous (1)

Silver Patrons: $5000–$9,999Stephen J BellMr Alexander & Mrs Vera BoyarskyMr Robert BrakspearMr David & Mrs Halina BrettMr Robert & Mrs L Alison Carr Bob & Julie ClampettEwen Crouch am & Catherine CrouchIan Dickson & Reg Holloway

Dr C GoldschmidtThe Greatorex Foundation Mr Rory Jeff esJudges of the Supreme Court of NSW J A McKernanR & S Maple-BrownJustice Jane Mathews aoMora MaxwellMrs Barbara MurphyDrs Keith & Eileen OngTimothy & Eva PascoeWilliam McIlrath Charitable FoundationMr B G O’ConorRodney Rosenblum am & Sylvia RosenblumEstate of the late Greta C RyanManfred & Linda SalamonSimpsons SolicitorsMrs Joyce Sproat & Mrs Janet CookeMichael & Mary Whelan TrustJune & Alan Woods Family BequestAnonymous (2)

Bronze Patrons: Presto $2,500–$4,999Mr Henri W Aram oamThe Berg Family Foundation in memory of Hetty GordonMr B & Mrs M ColesMr Howard ConnorsGreta DavisThe Hon. Ashley Dawson-DamerFirehold Pty LtdStephen Freiberg & Donald CampbellVic & Katie FrenchMrs Jennifer HershonGary LinnaneRobert McDougallRenee MarkovicJames & Elsie MooreMs Jackie O’BrienJ F & A van OgtropIn memory of Sandra Paul PottingerIn memory of H St P ScarlettDavid & Isabel SmithersMarliese & Georges TeitlerMr Robert & Mrs Rosemary WalshMr & Mrs T & D YimAnonymous (1)

Bronze Patrons: Vivace $1,000–$2,499Mrs Antoinette AlbertAndrew Andersons aoMr & Mrs Garry S AshDr Francis J AugustusSibilla BaerRichard and Christine Banks David BarnesMark Bethwaite am & Carolyn Bethwaite

Allan & Julie BlighDr & Mrs Hannes Boshoff Jan BowenLenore P BuckleM BulmerIn memory of RW BurleyIta Buttrose ao obeMr JC Campbell qc & Mrs CampbellDr Rebecca ChinDr Diana Choquette & Mr Robert MillinerMr Peter ClarkeConstable Estate Vineyards Debby Cramer & Bill CaukillMr John Cunningham SCM & Mrs Margaret CunninghamLisa & Miro DavisMatthew DelaseyMr & Mrs Grant DixonColin Draper & Mary Jane BrodribbMalcolm Ellis & Erin O’NeillMrs Margaret EppsPaul R EspieProfessor Michael Field AMMr Tom FrancisMr James Graham am & Mrs Helen GrahamWarren GreenAnthony GreggAkiko GregoryTony GriersonEdward & Deborah Griffi nRichard Griffi n amIn memory of Dora & Oscar GrynbergJanette HamiltonMrs & Mr HolmesThe Hon. David Hunt ao qc & Mrs Margaret HuntDr & Mrs Michael HunterIrwin Imhof in memory of Herta ImhofMichael & Anna JoelIn memory of Bernard M H KhawMr Justin LamMr Luigi LampratiMr Peter Lazar amProfessor Winston LiauwDr David LuisPeter Lowry oam & Dr Carolyn Lowry oamDr David LuisDeirdre & Kevin McCannIan & Pam McGawMatthew McInnesMacquarie Group FoundationMrs Toshiko MericHenry & Ursula MooserMilja & David MorrisMrs J MulveneyOrigin FoundationMr & Mrs OrtisDr A J PalmerMr Andrew C Patterson

sydney symphony 25

Learn how, with the people who know books

and writing best.

Faber Academyat ALLEN & UNWIN

T (02) 8425 0171

W allenandunwin.com/faberacademy

D O Y O U H A V E A S T O R Y T O

T E L L ?

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

Dr Natalie E PelhamAlmut PiattiRobin PotterTA & MT Murray-PriorDr Raffi QasabianMichael QuaileyErnest & Judith RapeeKenneth R ReedPatricia H Reid Endowment Pty LtdDr John Roarty oam in memory of Mrs June RoartyRobin RodgersLesley & Andrew RosenbergJulianna Schaeff erCaroline SharpenDr Agnes E SinclairMrs Judith SouthamMrs Karen Spiegal-KeighleyCatherine StephenJohn & Alix SullivanThe Hon. Brian Sully qcMildred TeitlerKevin TroyJohn E TuckeyIn memory of Joan & Rupert VallentineDr Alla WaldmanMiss Sherry WangHenry & Ruth WeinbergThe Hon. Justice A G WhealyMs Kathy White in memory of Mr Geoff WhiteA Willmers & R PalMr & Mrs B C WilsonDr Richard WingMr Robert WoodsIn memory of Lorna WrightDr John YuAnonymous (12)

Bronze Patrons: Allegro $500–$999Mrs Lenore AdamsonDavid & Rae AllenMichael Baume ao & Toni BaumeBeauty Point Retirement ResortRichard & Margaret BellMrs Jan BiberMinnie BiggsMrs Elizabeth BoonMr Colin G BoothDr Margaret BoothMr Peter BraithwaiteMr Harry H BrianR D & L M BroadfootDr Miles Burgess

Pat & Jenny BurnettEric & Rosemary CampbellBarrie CarterMr Jonathan ChissickMrs Sandra ClarkMichael & Natalie CoatesCoff s Airport Security Car ParkJen CornishDom Cottam & Kanako ImamuraDegabriele KitchensPhil Diment am & Bill Zafi ropoulosDr David DixonElizabeth DonatiThe Dowe FamilyMrs Jane DrexlerDr Nita Durham & Dr James DurhamJohn FavaloroMs Julie Flynn & Mr Trevor CookMrs Lesley FinnMr John GadenVivienne GoldschmidtClive & Jenny GoodwinMs Fay GrearIn Memory of Angelica GreenMr Robert GreenMr & Mrs Harold & Althea HallidayMr Robert HavardRoger HenningSue HewittIn memory of Emil HiltonDorothy Hoddinott aoMr Joerg HofmannMr Angus HoldenMr Kevin HollandBill & Pam HughesDr Esther JanssenNiki KallenbergerMrs Margaret KeoghDr Henry KilhamChris J KitchingAron KleinlehrerAnna-Lisa KlettenbergMr & Mrs Giles T KrygerThe Laing FamilySonia LalDr Leo & Mrs Shirley LeaderMargaret LedermanMrs Erna Levy Sydney & Airdrie LloydMrs A LohanMrs Panee LowMelvyn MadiganBarbara MaidmentHelen & Phil MeddingsDavid Mills

Kenneth Newton MitchellMs Margaret Moore oam & Dr Paul Hutchins amHelen MorganChris Morgan-HunnMr Darrol NormanMr Graham NorthDr Margaret ParkerDr Kevin PedemontDr John PittMrs Greeba PritchardMr Patrick Quinn-GrahamMiss Julie RadosavljevicRenaissance ToursDr Marilyn RichardsonAnna RoMr Kenneth RyanMrs Pamela SayersGarry Scarf & Morgie BlaxillPeter & Virginia ShawMr & Mrs ShoreMrs Diane Shteinman amVictoria SmythDoug & Judy SotherenRuth StaplesMr & Mrs Ashley StephensonMargaret SuthersThe Taplin FamilyDr & Mrs H K TeyMrs Alma Toohey & Mr Edward SpicerJudge Robyn TupmanMrs M TurkingtonGillian Turner & Rob BishopMr & Mrs Franc VaccherProf Gordon E WallRonald WalledgeIn memory of Denis WallisThe Wilkinson FamilyEvan Williams am & Janet WilliamsAudrey & Michael WilsonDr Richard WingateDr Peter Wong & Mrs Emmy K WongGeoff Wood & Melissa WaitesMrs Robin YabsleyAnonymous (24)

List correct as of 1 October 2013

26 sydney symphony

SALUTE

PREMIER PARTNER

Fine Music 102.5

MARKETING PARTNER

SILVER PARTNERS

THE LEADING SCHOOL FOR TODAY’S MUSIC INDUSTRY

PLATINUM PARTNERS

PRINCIPAL PARTNER GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra is assisted by the NSW Government through Arts NSW

EDUCATION PARTNER MAJOR PARTNERS

GOLD PARTNERS

REGIONAL TOUR PARTNERS

It’s an extension of my body…

already; I can see it, and I can hear it.’

For the first few years in the job, says Leah, there’s no amount of preparation that compares with the experience of repeating a piece, and what that brings to your bank of skills. ‘Although I heard the words many times as a younger professional about “needing experience”, I don’t think I quite understood what that meant, what experience really can bring.

‘Having been in the orchestra for over 15 years, I feel like I’ve reached a different point of reference. It’s not that the music still always feels fresh, but most pieces you just take a different approach to. The only pieces that will ever feel tired to me are ones that I really dislike. For everything else, I just try to change and hopefully improve my perspective each time.’

For more information about donating to the instrument fund, contact Luke Gay at luke.gay@sydneysymphony.com or (02) 8215 4625.

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Like many of our musicians, Assistant Principal cellist Leah Lynn has a very close relationship with her instrument. ‘Most of the time, it’s like an extension of my body,’ she says, ‘it’s a comfortable and symbiotic relationship.’ Running around after three kids with her husband Richard, who plays double bass in the orchestra, sometimes leaves less than the ideal amount of time to practise. ‘If life has been busy and I’ve had too little time with my cello, the symbiotic sense is lost. It can feel like I’m holding some kind of strange “thing” – it can feel a bit alien.

A few years ago, the orchestra purchased a 1901 Vincenzo

Sannino cello, an acquisition made possible through our Instrument Fund; Leah was the very happy recipient of this magnificent Italian cello. ‘I’ve now got this new and expressive language of colour and timbre available to me. It has a sonority with which I can express myself so much better [than before].

‘The sound [of the Sannino] is just so close to my ideal sound, to what’s in my head. I think all music starts in the your head. When I was younger, I often thought – quite naively – that if I was to loose a sense, I would least mind losing my hearing, because I’ve got the music in my head

HELLO CELLOAssistant Principal cellist Leah Lynn is at one with her instrument.

ORCHESTRA NEWS | NOVEMBER 2013

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Our Education Partner Tenix recently gave three aspiring young Australian musicians the chance to travel to Sydney for the inaugural Tenix Sydney Symphony Orchestra Experience Day. Seventeen-year-old Grace Halloway (right) made the trip from Kingsley in Perth to take part in a private bassoon

lesson with SSO principal Noriko Shimada (left). With Madeline Baker (clarinet) and Murphy Guo (piano) from Victoria, Grace also enjoyed lunch with the SSO’s Fellows, a personalised Sydney Opera House tour with our Assistant Conductor Jessica Cottis, and a concert by the orchestra.

‘I absolutely loved the sound of the Wagner tubas in the Orchestral Adventure concert,’ writes one concert-goer. ‘They look like a euphonium given the once-over by Salvador Dali!’Wagner tubas are the brainchild of Richard Wagner, who was searching for a bridge in the sound between the horns and trombones at the time of composing his Ring cycle.

SSO horn player Marnie Sebire is often called on to play this notoriously unwieldy instrument: ‘Let’s just say it’s “interesting” to play!’ Despite the name, Wagner tubas are normally assigned to the horn section, rather than tuba players; the shape of the instrument might be very different to the horn, but the mouthpiece used is identical.

‘Wagner tubas have a few inherent flaws; often the notes don’t “centre”. On the horn, we can move our right hand around in the bell to alter the intonation, but we lose that advantage when the bell is pointing straight up.’ Instead the player has to alter the shape of their embouchure. ‘We’re always lipping up or down to get the notes in tune.’

Few composers use the instrument – Richard Strauss in some of his symphonic tone poems, Stravinsky in The Rite of Spring, Wagner of course – but every orchestra will own a set of four. ‘We need the instruments there for us to practise on and keep familiar,’ says Marnie. The SSO is currently investigating the purchase of a new set, at a cost of about $40,000.

Challenges aside, Marnie says the sound of the Wagner tuba is one of the most honest and honourable. ‘They have a rich, warm and resonant sound. When you’ve got a good quartet playing, it’s something very special.’

Have a question about music, instruments of the inner workings of an orchestra? ‘Ask a Musician’ at yoursay@sydneysymphony.com or by writing to Bravo! Reply Paid 4338, Sydney NSW 2001

Ask a MusicianEducation HighlightLove music. Will travel.

Kamikaze kookaburras. Cake and cookies from the Country Women’s Association. All in a day’s work for our SSO Fellows when they took to the road to join in the music-making at the Moorambilla Festival in September.

‘The festival’s a celebration of music which brings local communities together, and gives rural kids the opportunity to be involved in a large-scale musical event,’ says clarinet Fellow Som Howie. The heart of the festival was hosted at Coonamble, seven hours’ drive northwest of Sydney. ‘Some of the schools involved have only ten students enrolled, so without Moorambilla, it’s unlikely those kids would have the chance to sing in a large choir or music ensemble.’

Our Fellows, alongside other professional and amateur ensembles from Sydney, worked with local groups, sharing their passion and expertise. Events culminated in an enormous combined gala performance. Horn Fellow Brendan Parravicini found it a moving experience: ‘When we were accompanying the children’s choir, made up of hundreds of kids, I felt humbled to share in such a special occasion.’

Dancing with BrittenOur final set of concerts for the year offers ‘Variations on an English Theme’: music for the English, music by an Englishman, and music celebrating variation technique – sometimes all three at once!

And at the centre of the program is Britten’s Violin Concerto, which will also see the Australian debut of young Norwegian violinist, Vilde Frang.

Those who’ve heard Vilde Frang play know she’s a leading musician of her generation. She was discovered by Mariss Jansons at the age of 13, and last year made her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Lucerne Festival, at which she received the 2012 Credit Suisse Young Artists Award.

It’s less well-known that she studied ballet for many years and dreamed of being a choreographer. Maybe it’s appropriate then that her current musical focus is the Britten – a concerto that ends with a Passacaglia, a massive set of dance variations.

The concerto begins with a sense of impending doom (it was composed in 1939) but also has a wonderful intensity to it. And the Passacaglia introduces the variation form that Britten loved so much (think Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra), making for an expansive and virtuosic finale. Ideal music for a violinist with dancing in her bones; ideal music for a violinist with multifaceted sound and a maturity that belies her youth.Variations on an English ThemeMaster Series11, 13, 14, December | 8pm

The Score

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JP ON THE VANGUARDPhilanthropy Focus

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‘The main thing is that people don’t know what they don’t know. If you say to someone who’s never seen the SSO, “Do you like this sort of music? Are you into it?” they’ll probably say “No”. But bring them to Vanguard – to a car park in Kings Cross, or a warehouse in Surry Hills – to witness the SSO playing our sort of music, and they walk away saying, “Wow. I really love that.” I haven’t brought anyone to Vanguard who hasn’t loved it and wanted to come back.’

In addition to the car park and the warehouse, Vanguard has hosted events in a basement and a brewery, and has raised over $45,000 to fund three year-long places in the SSO’s Sinfonia mentoring orchestra for talented young musicians.

‘We’re going to continue to push it, do new and creative things. The next one might be in an aircraft carrier,’ laughs JP, ‘or maybe we’ll launch the SSO blimp!’ Watch the skies…

Visit sydneysymphony.com/ vanguard for more information or contact Amelia Morgan-Hunn: amelia.morgan-hunn@sydneysymphony.com or (02) 8215 4663.

When Development Manager Amelia Morgan-Hunn was interviewed for her job in 2010 she pitched us the idea of ‘SSO Vanguard’. It got us excited, and needless to say, she got the job!

One of the first to join Amelia on this initiative was Jonathan Pease, ‘JP’ to everyone. With a 20-year background in marketing and advertising for the biggest guns in town, JP jumped at the chance to do something for the greater cultural good. ‘I love art. I love music. I think without art and music around you, everything becomes extremely transactional and boring. I don’t want to live in a world without either. When Amelia invited me to be involved, it was a no-brainer.’

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra Vanguard encourages young philanthropists to discover and enjoy classical music by taking it into unexpected spaces. ‘We want a new audience to fall in love with music,’ says JP. ‘And we’re doing that by taking the orchestra out of the Opera House, giving it a twist, and making it more relevant for a Gen X–Y demographic. These are people who don’t have a season pass, and who may never go to the Opera House for a performance.’

JP (Jonathan Pease) was one of the first to join the SSO’s Vanguard Collective.

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Operating in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart & Darwin

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BRAVO EDITOR Genevieve Lang Huppert sydneysymphony.com/bravo

SSO FAMILYFirst violinist Alexandra Mitchell and husband Charles welcomed daughter Chloe in September. She didn’t give her mum much time to recover from the rigours of Wagner before demanding her entry to the world. Brava Alex!

CONDOLENCESWe were saddened to learn of the death of Douglas Trengove, a horn player with the SSO for 42 years. In a Sydney Morning Herald review from 1962, he was praised for the ‘liquescent cut and curl of the passagework’ in Mozart’s Horn Quintet. Our thoughts are with Douglas’s wife Barbara, children Christopher and Caroline, and extended family and friends.

NEW CHAIR PATRONSWe’re delighted to announce two new Chair Patrons for the orchestra. The Principal Flute Chair (Janet Webb), is now supported by Helen Lynch AM & Helen Bauer. And Corrs

Chambers Westgarth have come on board to support the Principal Second Violin Chair (Kirsty Hilton). Our Chair Patrons program –formerly Directors’ Chairs – builds special relationships between our musicians and members of our community of supporters. For more information, call (02) 8215 4619.

STUDENT RUSHDid you know we offer student rush tickets to many of our concerts? Follow our Facebook page to find out where, when, and how many. Tickets are always strictly limited, but you’ll often spend no more than $15. Bargain!

FELLOWS ON FILMWhy does Brendan Parravicini call the SSO Fellowship program an ‘arranged marriage’? Get to know our 2013 Fellows through a series of short videos, created by Premier Partner Credit Suisse: bit.ly/5MinutesWithTheFellows

3 x 3August and September saw us present three world premieres in three weeks. John Adams’ Saxophone

Concerto, Mary Finsterer’s Double Bass Concerto, and Compassion by Lior and Nigel Westlake, were heard by more than 10,000 people, thanks to ABC Classic FM broadcasts and our webcast of the Lior-Westlake concert.

INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENTFly with Emirates and enjoy the SSO in flight! A selection of webcast performances – including our 2010 performance of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony with Vladimir Ashkenazy – can now be viewed on Emirates’ ice, which recently took out the award for best inflight entertainment system for the ninth year running in the Skytrax Awards.

CATCHING THE WORMOur 2014 Season Emirates Early Bird prize has been won by Mrs Margaret Harlow, an SSO subscriber for more than 17 years. Mrs Harlow (and a lucky travel partner) will fly Emirates’ luxurious business class to Dubai and enjoy five nights in the JW Marriot Marquis Dubai. Congratulations!

CODA