Good evening and a very warm welcome to our final concert of this season. We are delighted that you could join us tonight for some wonderful, exciting music to end a great year that has included Beethoven, Berg, Bizet, Copland, Lalo, Mozart, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky Vaughan Williams, Warlock and John Williams. Keep in touch for next season; we have lots of highlights, many more fabulous soloists and exciting concerts to come! First up tonight, a terrifying/exciting 5 minutes in a Mustang…
Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
The most famous American fanfare is Hail to the Chief. Next comes Aaron Copland’s thumping huff and puff in honour, Fanfare for the Common Man. Most fanfares are brilliant, some even aggressive, though John Adams has also explored the possibilities of the restrained and pianissimo fanfare, in his Tromba lontana, for example. Short Ride in a Fast Machine features the usual minimalist earmarks: repetition, steady beat, and, perhaps most crucially, a harmonic language with an emphasis on consonance unlike anything in Western art music in the last five hundred years. Adams is not a simple, or simple-minded, artist. His concern has been to invent music at once familiar and subtle. For all of their minimalist features, works such as Harmonium, Harmonielehre, and El Dorado are full of surprises, always enchanting in the glow and gleam of their sonority, and bursting with the energy generated by their harmonic movement. Tonight’s work is a joyfully exuberant piece, brilliantly scored for a large orchestra. The steady marking of a beat is typical of Adams’s music. Short Ride begins with a marking of crotchets (woodblock, soon joined by the four trumpets) and quavers (clarinets); the woodblock is fortissimo and the other instruments play forte. Adams sees the rest of the orchestra as running the gauntlet through that rhythmic tunnel. If you were wondering about the title:
“You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn’t?”
I’m so pleased that I was at last able to entice baritone Charles Rice to come and sing with us tonight with some epic arias by Verdi, Gounod and Britten. Firstly, ‘Per me giunto’ from Don Carlo by Verdi. Charles here plays Rodrigo, who has planned to save Carlos from his death sentence (for treason) by falsely confessing himself, thus proving Carlos innocent. He arrives to tell Carlos, knowing that he will be killed, but content to lay down his life for his friend. He asks Carlos not to mourn him, for God will see them both reunited in Heaven. Next, to 16th century Germany, and our young hero is being called off to war. In Gounod’s ‘Avant de quitter ces lieux’ from Faust, the devoted brother that he is, Valentin worries that no one will protect his sister Marguerite while he is gone. Even though Marguerite has given him a holy medallion to ward off death, his concern is for her safety and he asks God to protect his sister. A few hours later, having been stabbed by Faust he condemns her to hell. Mascagni: ‘Intermezzo’ from Cavalleria Rusticana “It was a pity I wrote Cavalleria first. I was crowned before I was king.” This is how Pietro Mascagni evaluated his own musical career, citing his youthful success in 1890 with Cavalleria Rusticana. Responding to an advertisement for a one-act opera competition promoted by a publisher, he composed his masterpiece in only a few weeks but did not consider it suitable. His wife, however, submitted the score of Cavalleria without his knowledge, and the rest is history. The single act includes an adulterous love triangle, jealousy, betrayal and a duel to the death. The Intermezzo comes at the beginning of the final scene, as the people are in church celebrating Easter Sunday, and just before the fatal duel. On board the HMS Indomitable, now a young sailor, Billy Budd is pressed into the Royal Navy, finding himself serving under the repressive regime of master-at-arms John Claggart. Unable to bear the goodness that Billy radiates, Claggart determines to destroy him, and incites a false charge of mutiny. Enraged by these accusations, Billy strikes the master-at-arms – and kills him. In Britten’s haunting aria ‘Look, through the port’, we find Billy waiting for his execution. To Verdi’s Rigoletto now for our last two arias. First up, ‘Pari Siamo’ and we are with Rigoletto who has just met the assassin Sparafucile. Rigoletto compares himself to the murderer: as Sparafucile used a knife, Rigoletto uses his tongue. Rigoletto has, though, just been cursed by the elderly Count Monterone (whose daughter has been seduced by the promiscuous Duke)
at a grand court ball for mocking his anger, and he is terrified by the old man’s curse. Jumping then to Act 2, and Rigoletto’s own daughter Gilda (who he has kept secret, away from court and public) has been abducted by courtiers, who think she is his mistress, and taken to the palace. First, Rigoletto tries to find her by pretending not to care, but eventually admits he is looking for his daughter. He is furious with the courtiers for withholding her whereabouts and rages at them: ‘Cortigiani, vil razza dannata’. ‘Courtiers, vile cursèd people’ he says, ‘what price did you sell her for? You’ll do anything for gold but she is a priceless treasure’.
Interval
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances
I Non allegro II Andante con moto III Lento assai - Allegro vivace A couple of weeks ago, on twitter, I wrote; “The Rachmaninoff is probably the best piece ever written. Discuss”. I was only half-joking, and the responses I got weren’t all “Are you joking?” (one was), but I have to say, as someone who has already loved this piece for a long time, in the last few weeks I’ve started to wonder more and more why it isn’t often up there in contention. It’s beautiful, engaging, electrifying, skilfully and brilliantly orchestrated, and above all personal music which was to be Rachmaninoff’s last work. It’s a piece which fuses the excitement of dance, the skill of a great composer, and a subtle and poignant individualism; clearly a piece that meant a great deal to him and it’s a definite Desert Island Disc for me! By the mid-1930s, Rachmaninoff had nearly stopped composing. He had always struggled to balance his three careers as composer, conductor, and pianist, and in the twenties and thirties he was chiefly a pianist, a great one at that, and immensely successful though unhappy with a life of constant travel. Furthermore, his most recent compositions, the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Variations on a Theme by Corelli, were failures with the public. The Paganini Rhapsody was received with delight, but the Third Symphony, which came along two years later, met with indifference. Hit again by the devastation of public failure, from 1937 to 1939, Rachmaninoff composed nothing.
He needed another Second Piano Concerto moment (which had led him out of severe depression around the turn of the century). Thankfully, in spite of his conditions and anxiety about his daughter in Paris, he suddenly turned again to composing during the summer of 1940. On August 21, Rachmaninoff wrote to Eugene Ormandy:
“Last week I finished a new symphonic piece, which I naturally want to give first to you and your orchestra. It is called Fantastic Dances. I shall now begin the orchestration. Unfortunately my concert tour begins on October 14. I have a great deal of practice to do and I don’t know whether I shall be able to finish the orchestration before November. I should be very glad if, upon your return, you would drop over to our place. I should like to play the piece for you.”
In spite of the pressures of practicing and touring, work on the Symphonic Dances went forward. Much of the third movement was scored on the road, and wherever Rachmaninoff checked into a hotel he was handed a package from the publishers to proofread. With some trepidation, Ormandy remarked at the first rehearsal on the extreme difficulty of some of the bowings indicated for the string players. “Ah yes,” said Rachmaninoff, “Fritz did those for me”—the great violinist Fritz Kreisler and Rachmaninoff had been friends since 1918.
Not only did Rachmaninoff compose the score with singular eagerness and urgency; he also made in his music psychological and autobiographical statements whose specific meaning is enigmatic but which were of intense consequence to him.
The first movement starts as an ominous march, with its quietly threatening start, is no ordinary first movement. A slower middle section gives way to the march once more, and then followed by a long coda. This is a surprising musical moment because it introduces a new melody of great poignancy, beautifully scored, and accompanied by piano, harp, glockenspiel, flute, and piccolo. With this melody Rachmaninoff reaches back to one of the most painful moments in his life; the crashing failure in 1897 of his First Symphony led to the barren years before the Second Piano Concerto. It’s intriguing that he uses a melody from this early work in quotation and reinforces what I said above about this being intensely personal music. No-one except him would have known where this melody came from, he believed the score to have been lost or destroyed, but the way he sets this melody in the Symphonic Dances speaks to me of redemption, acceptance; it is as if he is laying old ghosts to rest privately and somehow publicly as well.
The second movement is in waltz tempo. Waltz allusions are used with psychological and compositional mastery as Rachmaninoff shifts between the real and the ghostly, and the play of orchestral colour contributes to the
source of mystery. To me it feels like a dance which keeps trying to escape the shackles of the brass’s initial statements. Finally, it does break free and glorious it is too.
In the finale, another quick movement with a slower middle section, Rachmaninoff alludes to and finally quotes explicitly a theme that ghosts so often through his music, the Gregorian Dies irae melody from the Mass for the Dead. Its first quotation here by the trumpet is preceded by diabolic danse macabre fiddle-tunings. Shortly before the end of the movement, Rachmaninoff writes “Alliluya” at the top of the page. Here, too, he is reaching back across the years to the All-Night Vigil he had composed in 1915, when his first hopes for a balletic collaboration with Fokine had fallen through. Rachmaninoff did not intend this to be a secret quotation like the one from the First Symphony, though it seems to have remained so for many years. Given what we know of Rachmaninoff’s state of mind in 1940, it is likely that he thought of this as his last composition. We see him then taking leave of his craft with a hymn of thanks and praise. Perhaps it is not too much to imagine that the symbolic victory of the exultant theme over the Dies irae is Rachmaninoff’s own affirmation of the faith that “Death shall be swallowed up in Victory.” Programme notes by Chris Hopkins
Chris Hopkins is enjoying a busy season with symphony concerts and opera as well as concertos, solo and chamber recitals. Recent highlights include performances in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, Royal Festival Hall, and appearances on BBC 1, Radio 3 and Radio 4. A permanent member of the music staff at ENO, his work as a pianist and conductor extends to Welsh National Opera, Northern Ireland Opera, Wide Open Opera, OTC Ireland, Garsington and Holland
Park Opera, Landmark Productions, RAM Opera, Opera Danube, as well as Presteigne and Aldeburgh Festivals, Crash Ensemble, London Mozart Players, Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Blaze Ensemble. Recently he has enjoyed working with and acting as assistant to conductors including David Parry, Mark Wigglesworth, Sir Richard Armstrong, Sir Charles Mackerras, Edward Gardner, Lothar Koenigs, and Andre de Ridder amongst others.
Chris continues into a seventh season as Musical Director of Orchestra of the City which continues the tradition of inviting performances from some of the country's most exciting soloists as well as supporting new music with several world premieres and wide ranging programmes. As a pianist, recent solo appearances include concertos by Brahms, Mozart, Rachmaninoff and a complete Beethoven cycle.
Chris was honoured in 2013 to be made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. Charles Rice - Baritone Anglo-French baritone Charles Rice studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the National Opera Studio. He was a finalist at Les Azuriales Young Artists Competition 2009 in France and winner of the Garsington Prize 2009. His most recent engagements in named roles have included appearances at international festivals and venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall Stadttheater Klagenfur, Vorarlberger Landestheater and the Alternative Opera, as well as part of opera companies including Grange Park Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Bregenz Festival and the Festival de Sédières, to name but a few. Charles has also appeared in many concert engagements including Carmina
Burana with The Philharmonia Chorus, Messiah at the Royal Festival Hall, Haydn’s The Seasons with Dulwich Choral Society, Faure’s Requiem at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Mozart’s Requiem at the Cadogan Hall, and Rutter’s Mass of the Children at the Mayfield Festival. Rebecca Saunders – Leader
Rebecca began learning the violin at the age of four and studied at Wells Cathedral School and the Junior Department at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. At Junior Guildhall, she was leader of the Junior Guildhall String Ensemble, winner of the Principal's Prize, and a finalist in the Lutine Prize competition. She also performed with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Rebecca studied Economics at Cambridge University, where she led Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra and performed Wieniawski's Concerto No.1 with Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra. Following university, she worked in investment banking in London, whilst playing as a founder member and co-leader of the Orchestra of the City.
In 2006, Rebecca moved to New York to pursue an MBA at Columbia University and became Principal Second Violin in the Musica Bella Orchestra of New York, performing the Bruch Violin Concerto in 2007. She has been the leader of Orchestra of the City since returning to London in 2008.
Orchestra of the City was founded in April 2003 by Benjamin Bayl and made its debut at St John’s Smith Square in July of that year. In June 2010 Classical Music Magazine listed the Orchestra of the City as one of the top five non-professional orchestras in London. The Orchestra gives talented and enthusiastic voluntary musicians the opportunity to play in an orchestra of the highest standard with challenging repertoire, and is noted for its active and friendly social culture. When Benjamin Bayl was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra in September 2006, the orchestra worked with a number of guest conductors, including Nicholas Collon, Robert Tuohy, Dominic Grier and Sam Laughton. Chris Hopkins was then appointed as the new Music Director of Orchestra of the City, taking up the role in September 2008. Performing up to 6 concerts per year at London venues including St. John’s Smith Square, St John’s Waterloo and its regular home, St James’s Piccadilly, the orchestra thrives on a diverse range of challenging repertoire including Mahler’s Symphony No.5, Walton Symphony No.1, Holst’s The Planets, Shostakovich’s Symphonies 5 & 10, Bartok’s 2nd Violin Concerto, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Beethoven’s 7th Symphony and Haydn’s The Creation. Committed to the advocacy of contemporary classical music, in April 2014 the orchestra performed the world premiere of Nedudim ("wanderings") Fantasia-Concertante for mandolin and string orchestra by emerging Israeli composer Gilad Hochman, with mandolin-player Alon Sariel. Over its formative decade, the orchestra has developed a policy of working with exciting young soloists at the outset of their careers, including Benjamin Grosvenor, Oliver Coates, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers and Charlie Siem, as well as established artists such as Piers Lane, Simon Preston, Guy Johnston and Craig Ogden. In July 2013, Orchestra of the City celebrated its 10th Birthday at St James’s, Piccadilly, with a thrilling programme including Bernstein’s Overture from Candide and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3. The celebrations continued into their tenth season, which saw an exciting collaboration with Opera Danube - a semi-staged production of Lehar’s The Merry Widow at St John’s, Smith Square – and a succession of orchestral greats including Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, Smetana’s Ma Vlast and Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration.
We would like to thank the following for their continued support of Orchestra of the City: Our helpers on the door and everyone at St. James’s Piccadilly
