57th SEASON

In accordance with the requirements of Westminster City Council persons shall not be permitted to sit or stand in any gangway. The taking of photographs and use of recording equipment is strictly forbidden without formal consent from St John’s. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in St John’s. Refreshments are permitted only in the restaurant in the Crypt. Please ensure that all digital watch alarms, pagers and mobile phones are switched off. During the interval and after the concert the restaurant is open for licensed refreshments.

Box office tel: 020 7222 1061. Website: www.sjss.org.uk. St John’s Smith Square Charitable Trust, registered charity no: 1045390. Registered in England. Company no: 3028678.

Russell Keable conductorAlan Tuckwood leader

Mahler Symphony No. 7

Tuesday 21 May 2013, 7.30pm St John’s Smith Square

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TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

Mahler in Vienna

Concert life in Vienna in the first decade of the twentieth century was an exclusive affair. The concerts at the Musikverein where the Vienna Philharmonic performed were private occasions, and a second concert hall did not exist until the construction of the Konzerthaus in 1913. Most people’s experience of music making was through playing at home and through dancing in the dance halls. This was not to say that events in the high cultural life of the city were not of concern to the citizens. The newspapers were a powerful force for debate, and reports on such matters as Mahler’s appointment as director of the Vienna Court Opera in 1897 were the fuel for many debates and arguments in middle-class households, most of whom would never actually have attended an opera or concert. For the emerging bourgeoisie, not having much actual experience of high art was no barrier to having an opinion about it.

This growing number of people whose experience of culture was based on reading about it in the papers rather than experiencing it first hand (whether through attending concerts or playing at home) is reflected in an innovation introduced by the Vienna Philharmonic in the 1890s: programme notes. That the orchestra identified a need for explanatory notes for its audience reflects the decline in a musical tradition and literacy that would once have been taken for granted—but also the emergence of a new bourgeois audience who were keen to be seen as consumers of high culture yet came from backgrounds lacking the kind of musical education that Vienna’s elite classes took for granted.

Although by now the empire had granted its Jewish population full citizenship, old prejudices remained. Mahler converted to Catholicism in 1897 in order to secure the post at the Vienna Opera: as a Jew he would otherwise have been barred from taking the post. If Mahler’s conversion seems cynical to us, at the time it was not such a remarkable thing to do. Viennese Jews were keen to integrate with mainstream Austrian society as fully as possible, and for many their religion was more a matter of social conventions than deeply held beliefs. Although Mahler’s tenure would prove controversial, the most vocal opposition to him came from antisemitic factions that still had a prominent influence in the city (not least in necessitating Mahler’s conversion in the first place).

In his 10 years at the opera he introduced no fewer than 33 new operas to the company’s repertoire. In 1905, as he completed the Seventh Symphony, Mahler had hoped to secure the first performance of Richard Strauss’s new opera Salome. On this occasion he did not get his way.

Plaque in Vienna honouring Mahler

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TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

The Court Theatre’s Censorship Board decided that on religious and moral grounds the libretto was unacceptable, and banned it.

Mahler raised the standard of performance considerably, but not without resistance. His flamboyant conducting style and his dictatorial manner caused many ructions with his singers and musicians. It was said that he treated the players “as a lion tamer treats his animals”. By the time he resigned he had reached a level of celebrity that few could hope to attain. His work as a composer was controversial, but even his severest critics acknowledged his talent as a conductor and musician.

Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century was a city of contradictions. During the 1870s it was extensively rebuilt, and by the time Mahler returned in 1897 it had become one of the earliest examples of a modern city. It had become a fertile breeding ground for new ideas, both artistic and scientific. Sigmund Freud’s theories of the subconscious mind and the significance of dreams influenced the development of Expressionism, as seen in the work of the likes of Gustav Klimt, Arthur Schnitzler and Arnold Schoenberg.

Yet Vienna was also the centre of a large, declining empire. It was therefore also host to a population filled with a complacent, conservative mindset. The rise of a middle class also meant the rise of a middlebrow bourgeois culture. The undisputed ruler of Viennese music in 1897 when Mahler arrived at the Opera was the waltz king, Johann Strauss II. The only composer in the city with a comparable reputation was Johannes Brahms, whose last public appearance barely a month before his death that year was to attend a Strauss première. Strauss’s nostalgic, cosy music reinforced Vienna’s idea of itself as a place apart from the rest of the world. Mahler, a man of international ambitions, was uncomfortable with this insular atmosphere and determined to shake things up. Throughout the nineteenth century there developed a trend for favouring old music over new. When Mahler was a student there was already a visible trend for “historical” programming. By the time he left Vienna for the second time in 1907 this had developed into a chasm between composers and audiences, and the separation of “high” and “low” culture was entrenched: on the one hand Mahler and Richard Strauss, on the other Lehár and Johann Strauss.

Mahler’s own music reflects this heady mix of old and new, in its combination of complex music following in the traditions laid down by Beethoven and Brahms which nevertheless included “low” art, in the form of folk tunes, popular music and other sounds that could be heard on the street. This tended to result in the dismissal of his music on both sides of the cultural divide. He found supporters in a younger generation of Viennese composers determined to shake up the conservative city. Webern professed Mahler’s Seventh Symphony to be his favourite, particularly because of its highly original approach to orchestration, which influence can be seen in his own orchestral music. Webern’s teacher Schoenberg was initially a sceptic as far as Mahler’s music was concerned. However, hearing an early performance of the Seventh Symphony transformed his opinion, and he was thereafter a devoted acolyte.

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TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

Symphony No. 7

I. Langsam—Allegro risoluto, ma non troppoII. Nachtmusik (I): Allegro moderato. Molto moderato (Andante)III. Scherzo: Schattenhaft. Fließend aber nicht zu schnell (Shadowy. Flowing but not too fast)IV. Nachtmusik (II): Andante amorosoV. Rondo—Finale

Mahler’s composing routine was strict: he composed in the summer while on holiday in Maiernigg, a small alpine hamlet on the shore of the Wörthersee. He rose at 5.30am each day and swam in the lake before retreating to his studio where he would work for seven hours. He would begin work on a new symphony at the same time as he produced the final score of the work he had sketched the previous summer. Thus as he put the final touches to the score of his Sixth Symphony in 1904, he quickly drafted two movements for a seventh—the two Nachtmusiken (“Night-Music”, or nocturnes). However, when he returned the next year he found himself devoid of inspiration as to how to continue. Unusually, he had no clear overall plan for the shape of the new symphony, and struggled to find a suitable context for the two movements. After two weeks of getting nowhere, he broke his routine and went hiking in the Dolomites instead, hoping that walking would inspire him as it had in the past. Still no ideas came, and Mahler despondently marched back down to Krumpendorf, the village on the opposite shore of the lake, where he took a boat across the water back to Maiernigg. As he later related to his wife, this was the turning point: “I got into the boat to be rowed across. At the first stroke of the oars the theme (or rather the rhythm and character) of the introduction to the first movement came into my head.” His writer’s block finally cleared, Mahler proceeded to sketch out the rest of the symphony, completed the work in sketch by the end of August, and the orchestration the next year. As was his way, he would tinker with the details of the work on several occasions thereafter until (and beyond) its first performance in 1908.

The form of the Seventh Symphony harks back to the Fifth in dividing into three parts: the two large outer movements surrounding three short character pieces in the middle. Moreover, these three central pieces display a further symmetry, with the central scherzo flanked on either side by the two Nachtmusiken. The entire symphony thus forms a vast arch. The “rowing” music that opens the symphony was the idea that triggered Mahler’s imagination to complete the symphony, but the vast opening movement itself was the last to be completed. Over the slow tattoo a tenor horn (an instrument familiar to Mahler through military bands rather than orchestras) declaims a haunting theme. “Here Nature roars”, he described it. Mahler’s music frequently evokes nature, but rarely as wildly as in this movement, which takes as its inspiration the Carinthian Mountains where Mahler often walked.

GUSTAV MAHLER 1860–1911

Gustav Mahler

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The central triptych of the symphony begins with the first Nachtmusik, which Mahler composed after being entranced by Rembrandt’s painting “The Night Watch”. The movement is not an attempt to portray the painting, but merely seeks to create a similar atmosphere. The third movement is marked “Schattenhaft” [shadowy], and is one of the spookiest of the phantasmagorical scherzos in which Mahler specialised. Wisps of dance rhythms pass by; parodies of Viennese Ländler and waltzes loom out of the darkness. Then follows the second Nachtmusik, which is an altogether more romantic affair than its sibling. Here Mahler celebrates the romantic view of night, the time when lovers (perhaps illicitly) come together. It takes the character of a serenade, its character defined by the presence of a guitar and mandolin.

The finale appears to begin straightforwardly enough as an explosion of daylight after the three shadowy movements that preceded it, and soon blossoms into a triumphalist mood reminiscent of a theme from Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg. This affinity was only emphasised by Mahler’s programming of the overture from that opera alongside the Seventh Symphony at early performances. But suddenly this is cut off and the music heads down an entirely different street. This sets the pattern for the entire movement; the grand, solemn music returns again and again, but is never allowed to establish itself, and comes to seem progressively more pompous than majestic. Less important passages are given strident cadences, while more substantial ideas peter out. The effect is profoundly disorienting and unsettling. When the final peroration comes, Mahler deploys the orchestra in such a way as to make it seem bombastic and empty: blaring brass and timpani played with hard sticks to produce a harsh, brittle sound. Just at the very end Mahler unleashes one more surprise which leaves the final C major chord feeling less like a triumphant conclusion than a punch in the face.

This collision between Wagnerian grandeur and parodies of Leháresque middlebrow Viennese kitsch may be Mahler’s portrait of the society he moved in. Some commentators suggest that Mahler intended to write a conventional, triumphal finale but failed. Perhaps, though, the failure of this model is exactly what Mahler intended: Die Meistersinger is an opera about opera, so this is a symphony about symphonies, and its finale a comment on the impossibility of returning to the naïve optimism of earlier ages. Mahler himself refused to provide any kind of programme for it, despite repeated cajoling by friends, so there can be no definitive answer as to its meaning. “Everything has its price!” was all he would say. Perhaps the daylight represents not a triumph over dark night thoughts but the obliteration of profound, romantic ideals by the banality of everyday life. Where Mahler’s other symphonies are now so commonly played and so unthinkingly accepted that they are in danger of losing their meaning, the Seventh remains stubbornly resistant to easy assimilation. A century after its creation it continues to puzzle, delight and frustrate in equal measure, and remains enigmatic, complicated and problematic—just like life, in fact.

© 2013 Peter Nagle

TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

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ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

BIOGRAPHIES

Russell Keable conductor

Russell Keable has established a reputation as one of the UK’s most exciting musicians. As a conductor he has been praised in the national and international press: “Keable and his orchestra did magnificently,” wrote the Guardian; “one of the most memorable evenings at the South Bank for many a month,” said the Musical Times.

He performs with orchestras and choirs throughout the British Isles, has conducted in Prague and Paris (concerts filmed by French and British television) and recently made his debut with the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra in Dubai.

As a champion of the music of Erich Korngold he has received particular praise: the British première of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt was hailed as a triumph, and research in Los Angeles led to a world première of music from Korngold’s film score for The Sea Hawk.

Keable was trained at Nottingham and London Universities; he studied conducting at London’s Royal College of Music with Norman Del Mar, and later with George Hurst. For nearly 30 years he has been associated with Kensington Symphony Orchestra, one of the UK’s finest non-professional orchestras, with whom he has led first performances of works by many British composers (including Peter Maxwell Davies, John Woolrich, Robin Holloway, David Matthews, Joby Talbot and John McCabe). He has also made recordings of two symphonies by Robert Simpson, and a Beethoven CD was released in New York.

Russell Keable is recognized as a dynamic lecturer and workshop leader. He has the rare skill of being able to communicate vividly with audiences of any age (from school children to music students, adult groups and international business conferences). Over five years he developed a special relationship with the Schidlof Quartet, with whom he established an exciting and innovative education programme. He holds the post of Director of Conducting at the University of Surrey.

Keable is also in demand as a composer and arranger. He has written works for many British ensembles, and his opera Burning Waters, commissioned by the Buxton Festival as part of their millennium celebration, was premièred in July 2000. He has also composed music for the mime artist Didier Danthois to use working in prisons and special needs schools.

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ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Phil Cambridge Office Musician of the Year 2013

Office Musician of the Year is an annual competition run by Music In Offices, an organisation that arranges choirs and instrumental tuition in offices in and around London. KSO’s principal clarinettist Chris Horril won the title in 2010, and we are delighted to announce that in April 2013, principal trombonist Phil Cambridge was jointly awarded the title along with pianist Che Frey.

The line up of five finalists also included KSO cellist Peter Nagle, whose programme notes you have probably already been reading this evening, and whose compositions, if you are a KSO regular, you will have heard us perform.

We hope you will join with the rest of the orchestra in congratulating both of these musicians for their fantastic achievements.

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ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

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Kensington Symphony Orchestra

In its 57th year Kensington Symphony Orchestra enjoys an enviable reputation as one of the finest amateur orchestras in the UK. Its founding premise—to provide students and amateurs with an opportunity to perform concerts at the highest possible level—continues to be at the heart of its mission. It regularly attracts the best non-professional players from around London.

It seems extraordinary that KSO has had only two principal conductors—the founder, Leslie Head, and the current incumbent, Russell Keable. The dedication, enthusiasm and passion of these two musicians has indelibly shaped KSO’s image, giving it a distinctive repertoire which undoubtedly sets it apart from other groups. Its continued commitment to the performance of the most challenging works in the canon is allied to a hunger for new music, lost masterpieces, overlooked film scores and those quirky corners of the repertoire that few others dare touch.

Revivals and premières, in particular, have peppered the programming from the very beginning. In the early days there were world premières of works by Arnold Bax and Havergal Brian, and British premières of works by Nielsen, Schoenberg, Sibelius and Bruckner (the original version of the Ninth Symphony). When Russell Keable arrived in 1983, he promised to maintain the distinctive flavour of KSO. As well as the major works of Mahler, Strauss, Stravinsky and Shostakovich, Keable has aired a number of unusual works as well as delivering some significant musical landmarks—the London première of Dvořák’s opera Dimitrij and the British première of Korngold’s operatic masterpiece, Die tote Stadt (which the Evening Standard praised as “a feast of brilliant playing”). In January 2004, KSO, along with the London Oriana Choir, performed a revival of Walford Davies’s oratorio Everyman, which is now available on the Dutton label.

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If you would like to receive news of our forthcoming concerts by email, please join our mailing list. Just send a message to jo.johnson@kso.org.uk and we’ll

do our best to keep you informed.

New music has continued to be the life-blood of KSO. An impressive roster of contemporary composers has been represented in KSO’s progressive programmes, including Judith Weir, Benedict Mason, John Woolrich, Joby Talbot and Peter Maxwell Davies. Two exciting collaborations with the BBC Concert Orchestra have been highlights: Bob Chilcott’s Tandem and the première of Errollyn Wallen’s lively romp around the subject of speed dating, Spirit Symphony, at the Royal Festival Hall, both of which were broadcast on BBC Radio 3. In December 2005, Spirit Symphony was awarded the Radio 3 Listeners’ Award at the British Composer Awards. Russell Keable has also written music for the orchestra, particularly for its education projects, which have seen members of the orchestra working with schools from the inner London area.

In 2006 KSO marked its 50th anniversary. The celebrations started with a ball at the Radisson Hotel, Portman Square in honour of the occasion, attended by many of those involved with the orchestra over the previous 50 years. The public celebration took the form of a concert at London’s Barbican in October. A packed house saw the orchestra perform an extended suite from Korngold’s score The Sea Hawk, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with established KSO collaborator Nikolai Demidenko, and Prokofiev’s cantata Alexander Nevsky, with the London Oriana Choir.

KSO has an honourable pedigree in raising funds for charitable concerns. Its very first concert was given in aid of the Hungarian Relief Fund, and since then the orchestra has supported the Jacqueline du Pré Memorial Fund, the Royal Brompton Hospital Paediatric Unit, Trinity Hospice, Field Lane, Shape London and the IPOP music school. In recent years it has developed links with the Kampala Symphony Orchestra and Music School under its KSO2 programme, providing training, fundraising and instruments in partnership with charity Musequality. In February 2013, the orchestra held a sponsored play in Westfield London shopping centre, raising over £15,000 for the charity War Child.

The reputation of the orchestra is reflected in the quality of international artists who regularly appear with KSO. In recent seasons soloists have included Nikolai Demidenko, Leon McCawley, Jack Liebeck and Richard Watkins, and the orchestra has worked with guest conductors including Andrew Gourlay and Nicholas Collon. All have enjoyed the immediate, enthusiastic but thoroughly professional approach of these amateur musicians.

Without the support of its sponsors, its Friends scheme and especially its audiences, KSO could not continue to go from strength to strength and maintain its traditions of challenging programmes and exceptionally high standards of performance. Thank you for your support.

ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

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YOUR SUPPORT

To support KSO you might consider joining our very popular Friends Scheme. There are three levels of membership and attendant benefits:

Friend

Unlimited concession rate tickets per concert; priority bookings, free interval drinks and concert programmes.

Premium friend

A free ticket for each concert, unlimited guest tickets at concessionary rates, priority bookings, free interval drinks and concert programmes.

Patron

Two free tickets for each concert, unlimited guest tickets at concessionary rates, priority bookings, free interval drinks and concert programmes.

All Friends and Patrons can be listed in concert programmes under either single or joint names.

We can also offer tailored Corporate Sponsorships for companies and groups. Please ask for details.

Cost of membership for the 57th Season was:

Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £50 Premium friend. . . . . . . . . . £110 Patron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £200

To contribute to KSO by joining the Friends please contact David Baxendale on 020 8653 5091 or by email at friends@kso.org.uk.

Honorary Friends

Michael FlemingLeslie Head

Patrons

Kate BonnerGill CameronBob DrennanMalcolm and Christine DunmowGerald HjertDaan MatheussenDavid and Mary Ellen McEuenLinda and Jack PievskyNeil Ritson and familyKim Strauss-Polman

Premium Friends

David BaxendaleFortuné and Nathalie BikoroJohn DaleJohn DoveyMichael and Caroline IllingworthMaureen KeableDavid and Rachel MusgroveJoan and Sidney Smith

Friends

Robert and Hilary BruceMichele ClementJoan HackettRobert and Gill Harding-PayneHenry and Sarah Keighley-ElstubRufus Rottenberg

FRIENDS OF KSO

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OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT US

Sponsorship

One way in which you, our audience, can help us very effectively is through sponsorship. Anyone can be a sponsor, and any level of support—from corporate sponsorship of a whole concert to individual backing of a particular section or musician—is enormously valuable to us. We offer a variety of benefits to sponsors tailored especially to their needs, such as programme and website advertising, guest tickets, and assistance with entertaining.

For further details about sponsoring KSO, please speak to any member of the orchestra, email sponsorship@kso.org.uk or call James Wheeler on 07808 590176.

The KSO Endowment Trust

An Endowment Trust has been established by Kensington Symphony Orchestra in order to enhance the orchestra’s ability to achieve its charitable objectives in the long term.

The Trust will manage a capital fund derived from donations and legacies. Each year, the Trustees will make grants from its income to assist important KSO projects and activities, such as commissioning new music, which would be impossible to finance relying on concert funds alone.

Our aim is to raise at least £100,000 over the first ten years. We would be pleased to hear from individuals or organisations who would like to donate any sum, large or small, and would also be keen to talk to anyone who might consider recognising KSO’s work in their will.

For further information, please email trust@kso.org.uk or telephone Neil Ritson on 07887 987711.

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The KSO Website

An easy way to make small contributions to KSO at no cost to yourself is via our newly revised website. A number of online retailers, including Amazon, Tesco Direct and Dell, will pay a small percentage of the value of your purchase to KSO when you go via our website to make it. To learn more, please visit our website at:

www.kso.org.uk/shop

YOUR SUPPORT

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First ViolinAlan TuckwoodJason WeirTaro VisserMatthew HickmanLouise RingroseHeather BinghamClaire Maugham Jo JohnsonSusan KnightAdrian GordonSabina Wagstyl Sarah CrickBronwen FisherClaire DoveyHelen Stanley

Second ViolinDavid PievskyDanielle DawsonHelen WaitesErica JealHelen TurnellJuliette BarkerJeremy BradshawSarah HackettKatalin RingerStuart TraegerAntonio de StefanoRichard SheahanFrançoise RobinsonKathleen RuleJudith Ní BhreasláinJenny DavieLiz Errington

ViolaBeccy Spencer Sally RandallGuy Raybould Sophie Zaaijer Nick Macrae Sonya WellsToby Deller Liz Lavercombe Zen Edwards Alex Tyson Alison Nethsingha Jane Spencer-DavisLucy Ellis Matt Appleyard

CelloJoseph SpoonerDavid BaxendaleAnnie Marr-JohnsonGeorge WalkerJudith RobinsonAlex DinwiddieRosie GoddardPeter NagleAnna UnwinNatasha BriantCat MugeEllie Douglas

Double BassSteph FlemingAndrew LangOliver BatesIngela WeeksLauren Baker

FluteMike CopperwhiteClaire PillmoorHelen MillsMiranda Jackson

PiccoloDan DixonMiranda Jackson

OboeCharles BrenanJuliette Topham- MurrayNina Swann

Cor AnglaisChris Astles

ClarinetChris HorrilClaire BaughanAimee Gardner

E-flat ClarinetIvan Rockey

Bass ClarinetGraham Elliott

BassoonNick RampleyJohn Wingfield-HillSheila Wallace

ContrabassoonRobin Thompson

Music DirectorRussell Keable

TrusteesChris AstlesDavid BaxendaleJohn DoveyCat MugeHeather PawsonNick RampleyNeil RitsonRichard SheahanSabina WagstylJames Wheeler

Event TeamChris AstlesZen EdwardsBeccy SpencerSabina Wagstyl

Marketing TeamJeremy BradshawGuy RaybouldJo JohnsonDavid MusgroveLouise Ringrose

Membership TeamPhil CambridgeDavid BaxendaleCat Muge

ProgrammesDavid Musgrove

French HornJon BoswellHeather PawsonEd CornJim MoffatLauren Reeve- Rawlings

Tenor HornDavid Carnac

TrumpetSteve WillcoxJohn HackettLeanne Thompson

TrombonePhil CambridgeKen McGregor

Bass TromboneDavid Musgrove

TubaNeil Wharmby

TimpaniBrian Furner

PercussionTim AldenTommy PearsonJames ShiresRichard SouperSimon Willcox

HarpDaniel de-FryFontane Liang

GuitarJonathan Wiseman

MandolinDavid Massey

TONIGHT’S PERFORMERS

ORCHESTRA

Registered charity No. 1069620

Monday, 24 June 2013, 7.30pm (St John’s Smith Square)LYADOV 8 Russian FolksongsMATTHEW TAYLOR Storr (London première)DVORÁK Symphony No. 7

Tuesday, 15 October 2013, 7.30pm (St John’s Smith Square)BARTÓK Dance SuiteBARBER Knoxville: Summer of 1915JOHN ADAMS Harmonielehre

Monday, 25 November 2013, 7.30pm (Milton Court)PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 (piano: Nikolai Demidenko)BRUCKNER Symphony No. 3

Monday, 20 January 2014, 7.30pm (Queen Elizabeth Hall)MUSSORGSKY St John’s Night on the Bare Mountain (original version)LISZT TotentanzBERLIOZ Symphonie Fantastique

Saturday, 15 March 2014, 7.30pm (St John’s Smith Square)With guest conductor Jacques Cohen, to include:WALTON Symphony No. 1

Monday, 12 May 2014, 7.30pm (Milton Court)RACHMANINOV The Isle of the DeadDEBUSSY La MerLUTOSŁAWSKI Symphony No. 3

Monday, 23 June 2014, 7.30pm (St John’s Smith Square)TCHAIKOVSKY Romeo and Juliet - Fantasy OvertureKODÁLY Dances of GalántaNIELSEN Symphony No. 2 “The Four Temperaments”