61st SEASON

Beethoven Coriolan Overture Brett Dean Testament Interval – 20 minutes Korngold Symphony in F sharp Holly Mathieson conductor Alan Tuckwood leader

Saturday 4 March 2017, 7.30pm St John’s Smith Square

Cover image: from Coriolan supplié par sa famille by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665)

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.

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TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

Coriolan Overture

Beethoven’s overtures stand beside the symphonies as statements about the human condition whose significance transcends the particular circumstances of their origin. The impressive Coriolan Overture was written early in 1807 for a play by Heinrich Joseph von Collin, poet laureate to the Viennese imperial court. The three years leading up to it were the most prolific of Beethoven’s career, when he produced an astonishing series of masterpieces, each very different in character. These included the ‘Waldstein’ Piano Sonata, the ‘Eroica’ Symphony, the Triple Concerto, the ‘Appassionata’ Piano Sonata, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the three ‘Razumovsky’ String Quartets, the Fourth Symphony and the Violin Concerto.

The first performance of the Coriolan Overture was a private one in March 1807, the first public performance being given in April 1808. The frustrated rage of Collin’s hero, which leads to his own destruction, is expressed by Beethoven in a taut Classical sonata movement shaped into a symphonic picture of a titanic struggle. It is the most explosive and violent expression of his ‘C minor mood’, which caused even Benjamin Britten, not generally an admirer of Beethoven, to declare: ‘What a marvellous beginning, and how well the development in sequence is carried out!’. The overture has one predominating emotional drive, with even the lyrical second subject turning quickly to the minor and then into a fortissimo outburst. Only at the end do the furious syncopated gestures of the coda subside into the symbolic dissolution of the main theme. Coriolan’s defiance is broken and the overture dies away with almost inaudible pizzicati in the strings.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 1770–1827

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TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

Testament The Australian composer, conductor and viola player Brett Dean was born in Brisbane. He began composing in 1988 with experimental film and radio projects, as well as improvisational performances, and since then has created orchestral and chamber works and an opera. Perhaps his most successful work is Carlo of 1997 for strings, sampler and tape, inspired by the strangely dissonant music of Carlo Gesualdo. Simon Rattle conducted the first performance of his Songs of Joy in Philadelphia in 2008 and in 2013 The Last Days of Socrates was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic. His Electric Preludes was first performed at the BBC Proms in 2014, conducted by Sakari Oramo.

Dean likes shaping musical extremes, from harsh explosions to inaudibility, treating single instrumental parts with complex rhythms. Much of his work draws on literary, political or visual stimuli, carrying a non-musical message. Testament grew out of a work for twelve violas written in 2002 for the viola section of the Berlin Philharmonic, with whom Dean played for many years. He later expanded this into a work for full orchestra which was first performed in Hobart in March 2008 by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sebastian Lang-Lessing. It was inspired by Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, which he wrote in 1802 on learning of his irreversible hearing loss. Its sense of pathos, despair and self-pity makes the document intensely moving: ‘Ah,’ Beethoven wrote, ‘how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others, which I once possessed in highest perfection’. But as we have seen, the years following the Heiligenstadt Testament marked one of the most creative periods of his life. As Dean says: ‘His time in Heiligenstadt then was a leave-taking, an acceptance and a fresh start.’

The main material for the work is presented in the opening scherzo-like section. This was inspired by a haunting sonic idea which struck Dean: the quietly feverish sound of Beethoven’s quill writing manically on parchment paper. Each string player has two bows; one with rosin (a solid form of resin rubbed onto the bow hair to ensure grip on the string and to make the sound speak clearly) and one entirely without. First they play with their rosinless bows gliding over the strings whilst the wind players only blow air through their instruments, resulting in much action but little sound. The composer describes the effect of the music ‘as if behind a gauze, or as if itself hampered by a hearing ailment’. A slow section follows with a high melody in the flute, informed by a setting of some words from Beethoven’s text which Dean describes as ‘a kind of song with words, but without voices’. Quotations from Beethoven’s first ‘Razumovsky’ String Quartet then try to establish themselves but keep getting broken off, creating a sense of ‘loss and alienation’. Having taken up their rosined bows, the full strings express the intense anguish that has been lying beneath the surface. A fast section follows which develops the music of the opening, sometimes aggressive, sometimes inward, rather like Beethoven’s music. But as Dean says: ‘The air of ambivalence remains until the end of Testament, suspended between languor and resolve.’

BRETT DEAN born 1961

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TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

Symphony in F sharp

Moderato ma energico

Scherzo: Allegro molto — Trio: Molto meno (tranquillo)

Adagio: Lento

Finale: Allegro

Korngold was not only one of the greatest orchestral composers of the twentieth century, but also its most remarkable musical prodigy, just as Mozart (whose first name he was given and whose music he worshipped like no other) had been of the eighteenth. Korngold’s works all have a tremendous generosity of spirit and are full of some of the most beautiful and touching music ever written. This was why he was such a successful film composer. But a myth which needs thoroughly debunking is that his music sounds like film scores, when in fact it’s the other way round: film scores sound like Korngold, who poured his richest musical invention into them. His style was hugely influential; John Williams’s scores for Star Wars and Superman, for example, wouldn’t sound as they do without the magnificent model of Korngold.

In 1947, after a severe heart attack, Korngold returned to concert works after many years of writing for Hollywood. He was encouraged by an offer from the Vienna State Opera to stage his 1930s opera Die Kathrin and to revive his operatic masterpiece Die tote Stadt. His Symphony in F sharp (Korngold didn’t specify major or minor), completed in 1952, had been preceded by concertos for violin and cello and several other instrumental works. It is dedicated to the memory of the great American president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died in 1945. Korngold clearly admired and respected Roosevelt and the work is also his tribute to the United States, which had saved him and his family from the gas chamber. In reality the work is his second symphony as his earlier Sinfonietta, begun when he was just fourteen, is a full-blown symphony in all but name, having four movements and lasting over forty minutes. Korngold was well aware that musical fashions had changed since his works as a child prodigy, which at the time had been considered new, daring and harmonically innovative. ‘I believe’, he wrote, ‘that my newly completed symphony will show the world that atonality and ugly dissonance at the price of giving up inspiration, form, expression, melody and beauty will result in ultimate disaster for the art of music.’

But conductor after conductor turned down giving the first performance. Even Bruno Walter, an old friend who called it a work of ‘real musical substance, masterfully written, modern in language yet generally accessible’, said he was ‘too old’ to perform it. An American performance in Pittsburgh conducted by William Steinberg fell through and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna also rescinded their plan to perform it at the Musikverein. Eventually it was premiered on Austrian radio in October 1954 by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Harold Byrns. This was a disaster as the work wasn’t given enough rehearsal time; Korngold’s plea to the musical

ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD 1897–1957

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TONIGHT’S PROGRAMME

director of the radio station to cancel the broadcast was ignored. So the symphony was never performed in public in Korngold’s lifetime. Sadly his hopes for his operas were also to be dashed. Die Kathrin had only six performances and the theatre was not full; ‘I am forgotten,’ lamented Korngold after the premiere. And when Die tote Stadt was eventually revived in Munich in 1954 the reviews were terrible: ‘Die tote Stadt remains dead,’ announced one newspaper. These must have been bitter blows for one who had been hailed as a genius by Mahler and Strauss and whose works had been admired by composers as diverse as Puccini and Sibelius. Realising he had no future in Europe, Korngold returned to California.

Two years after Korngold’s death the great Greek-born American conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos discovered the piece: ‘All my life I have searched for the perfect modern work. In this symphony I have found it. I shall perform it next season.’ Mitropoulos, who was known for the passionate intensity of his performances, would have been the ideal interpreter of the symphony. But the piece seemed ill-fated, as sadly the conductor died the following year before he got the chance. In the end the first concert performance was not given until 1972 by the Munich Philharmonic conducted by Rudolf Kempe; the first American performance had to wait until 1984. Happily, since then the realisation that this was a neglected masterpiece has grown and it has now been recorded several times. A pity Korngold didn’t live to see it.

Lasting about fifty minutes, the symphony is one of Korngold’s most substantial works. In four movements, it is scored for his characteristically large orchestra. Although this includes a piano, marimba, harp and celeste, gone are the glittering, opalescent textures of his earlier scores. In many ways it sounds more American, almost like Copland in places with its open intervals. There is also a bitter, dramatic terseness in contrast to his earlier pieces, the music often sounding concentrated, incisive and gritty. But it is full of his usual drama and lyricism.

Brendan Carroll, an authority on Korngold, described the intense and stormy opening, with its jagged main theme, as ‘one of the most arresting to any symphony’; the first movement has also been called ‘a dance of death’. It is certainly full of tension and brilliant orchestral colouring, with dramatic fanfares contrasting with darkness lurking just beneath the surface. Terse, biting chords suggest a striving, menace-laden drama, but there is a little hint of a love theme from the woodwind. The second movement is a scherzo with an adventurous chase-like theme for the strings, and drums like heartbeats, whilst the spirals of descending chromatic lines in the trio are loosely related to the death motif from Die tote Stadt. A memorial to Roosevelt, the long, profound and meditative third movement has a touchingly haunting, dream-like quality. It draws on themes from two of Korngold’s film scores: Anthony Adverse of 1936 and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex of 1939, both of which express the anguish of doomed love. The celebratory finale has an optimistic, almost military air, with its references to the wartime song ‘Over There’. It also incorporates the ‘Cheerful Heart’ motif — three ascending fourths — which held a special significance for Korngold. It first appeared in his early sketchbooks and occurs in nearly all of his major works. A number of the symphony’s earlier themes are recalled, a particularly striking moment being when a theme from the third movement eerily returns out of the jollity on mysterious, almost mystical, brass chords.

© Fabian Watkinson 2017

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BIOGRAPHIES

Holly Mathieson conductor

New Zealand-born Holly Mathieson is currently Assistant Conductor at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (2016–18), Resident Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland Junior Orchestra, and has guest engagements across New Zealand, the UK and America. In the current season these include two projects with the London Symphony Orchestra, concerts with the Farnborough Symphony Orchestra, Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra and Corinthian Chamber Orchestra in London, and a trial as Music Director of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra.

In the 2015/16 season she worked as Assistant Conductor with Opera North (L’elisir d’amore) and Longborough Festival Opera (Tannhäuser), and made her debut with the Southbank Sinfonia. During the summer months she returned to New Zealand for concerts with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, St Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra, Opus Orchestra and Dunedin Symphony Orchestra.

Previously Holly was the Leverhulme Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, assisting Donald Runnicles at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She made her debut in London as the 2015 Christine Collins Young Artist Associate Conductor at Opera Holland Park, to critical acclaim. She has assisted Marin Alsop, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Christoph von Dohnányi, amongst others. She is founder and Artistic Director of the Horizont Musik-Kollektiv, which aims to introduce works by New Zealand composers to European audiences, and in March 2016 Zonta New Zealand named her as one of the country’s Top 50 Women of Achievement.

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ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

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ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Kensington Symphony Orchestra

Founded in 1956, Kensington Symphony Orchestra enjoys an enviable reputation as one of the finest non-professional orchestras in the UK. Its founding aim — ‘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.

KSO has had only two Principal Conductors: the founder, Leslie Head, and the current incumbent, Russell Keable, who recently celebrated three decades with the orchestra. The dedication, enthusiasm and passion of these two musicians has shaped KSO’s image, giving it a distinctive repertoire which sets it apart from other groups.

Revivals and premières of new works frequently feature in the orchestra’s repertoire alongside the major works of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. World and British premières have included works by Arnold Bax, Havergal Brian, Nielsen, Schoenberg, Sibelius, Verdi and Bruckner. Russell 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, a recording of which is available on the Dutton label.

Contemporary music has continued to be the life-blood of KSO. An impressive roster of composers working today has been represented in KSO’s programmes, most recently including Magnus Lindberg, Charlotte Bray, Benedict Mason, Oliver Knussen, Thomas Adès, Brett Dean,

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ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Julian Anderson, Rodion Shchedrin, John Woolrich, Joby Talbot and Jonny Greenwood. In December 2005 Errollyn Wallen’s Spirit Symphony, performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra and broadcast on BBC Radio 3, was awarded the Radio 3 Listeners’ Award at the British Composer Awards. In 2014 KSO performed the world première of Stephen Montague’s From the Ether, commissioned by St John’s Smith Square to mark the building’s 300th anniversary. During the 2014/15 season KSO was part of Making Music’s Adopt a Composer scheme, collaborating with Seán Doherty on his work Hive Mind.

From the very beginning KSO has held charitable aims. Its first concert was given in aid of the Hungarian Relief Fund, and since then the orchestra has supported many different charities, musical and non-musical. 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 the charity Musequality. In 2013 and 2015 the orchestra held Sponsored Play events in Westfield London shopping centre, raising over £30,000 for War Child. The orchestra also supports the music programme at Pimlico Academy, its primary rehearsal home.

The reputation of the orchestra is reflected in the quality of international artists who regularly appear with KSO. In recent seasons soloists have included Sir John Tomlinson, Nikolai Demidenko, Richard Watkins, Jean Rigby and Matthew Trusler; and the orchestra enjoys working with the new generation of up-and-coming musicians, including BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014 Martin James Bartlett and Young Classical Artists Trust artists Ji Liu and Richard Uttley. The orchestra works annually with guest conductors including most recently Michael Seal, Nicholas Collon, Alice Farnham, Andrew Gourlay and Jacques Cohen.

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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 concessionary 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 sixty-first season is:

Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £60 Premium Friend . . . . . . . . . £125 Patron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £220

To contribute to KSO by joining the Friends please telephone David Baxendale on 020 8650 0393 or email friends@kso.org.uk.

Patrons Sue and Ron Astles Kate Bonner Sim Canetty-ClarkeCWA International Ltd John and Claire Dovey Bob and Anne Drennan Malcolm and Christine Dunmow Mr and Mrs G Hjert Nick Marchant Jolyon and Claire Maugham David and Mary Ellen McEuenJohn and Elizabeth McNaughton Michael and Jan Murray Linda and Jack Pievsky Neil Ritson and family Kim Strauss-Polman Keith Waye

Premium Friends David Baxendale Dr Michele Clement and Dr Stephanie Munn John Dale Alastair Fraser Michael and Caroline Illingworth Maureen Keable Jeremy Marchant Richard and Jane Robinson

Friends Anne Baxendale Robert and Hilary Bruce Yvonne and Graeme Burhop George Friend Robert and Gill Harding-Payne David JonesRufus Rottenberg Paul Sheehan Alan Williams

FRIENDS OF KSO

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OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT US

Sponsorship and Donations

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 David Baxendale on 020 8650 0393.

As a charity KSO is able to claim Gift Aid on any donations made to the orchestra. Donating through Gift Aid means KSO can claim an extra 25p for every £1 you give, at no extra cost to you. Your donations will qualify as long as they’re not more than four times what you have paid in tax in that financial year. If you would like to make a donation, or to inquire about Gift Aid, please contact the Treasurer at subs@kso.org.uk for further information.

Leaving a Legacy: Supporting KSO for the next generation

Legacies left to qualifying charities — such as Kensington Symphony Orchestra — are exempt from inheritance tax. In addition, since April 2012, if you leave more than 10% of your estate to charity the tax due on the rest of your estate may be reduced from 40% to 36%.

Legacies can be left for fixed amounts (‘specific’ or ‘pecuniary’ bequests) as either cash or shares, but a common way to ensure your loved ones are provided for is to make a ‘residuary’ bequest, in which the remainder of your estate is distributed to one or more charities of your choice after the specific bequests to your family and friends have first been met.

Legacies, along with conventional donations, to KSO’s Endowment Trust allow us to better plan for the next fifty years of the orchestra’s development.

If you include a bequest to KSO in your will, telling us you have done so will enable us to keep you informed of developments and, if you choose, we can also recognise your support. Any information you give us will be treated in the strictest confidence, and does not form any kind of binding commitment.

For more information about leaving a legacy please speak to your solicitor or Neil Ritson, Chairman of the KSO Endowment Trust, on 020 7723 5490 or email neil.ritson@kso.org.uk.

YOUR SUPPORT

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YOUR SUPPORT

The KSO Website

To keep up-to-date with KSO information and events visit our website, where you can see forthcoming concerts, listen to previous performances and learn more about the history of the orchestra.

An easy way to contribute to KSO at no extra cost to you is via our website. A number of online retailers will pay us a small percentage of the value of your purchase when you visit their page through links on the KSO website. www.kso.org.uk/shop

Mailing List

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. www.kso.org.uk/mailinglist

Social Media

See the most recent news and behind-the-scenes photos of the orchestra on our channels on Facebook and Twitter. Share KSO events and related articles with your friends and family in order to help us promote the orchestra on a wider scale.

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www.facebook.com/kensingtonsymphonyorchestra

www.twitter.com/KensingtonSO

TONIGHT’S PERFORMERS

First ViolinAlan TuckwoodBronwen FisherSabina WagstylSusan KnightRia HopkinsonLea GoetzErica JealHeather BinghamRob ChatleyClaire DoveySarah HackettHelen TurnellAdrian GordonFrancoise Robinson

Second ViolinDavid PievskyJuliette BarkerLiz ErringtonJudith Ní BhreasláinKathleen RuleJeremy BradshawJenny DavieJill IvesCamilla NelsonDanielle DawsonRufus RottenbergRichard SheahanHelen EcclestoneElizabeth BellDavid Nagle

ViolaBeccy Spencer Meredith EstrenSally RandallTom PhilpottSam Blade Guy RaybouldJane Spencer-DavisAlison Nethsingha Liz Lavercombe Sonya WellsPhil Cooper

CelloJoseph SpoonerNatasha FosterKim PolmanRosi CalleryAlexander BreedonLinda MorrisHannah ReidJudith RobinsonAna RamosAnnie Marr-JohnsonDavid BaxendaleZoe Marshall

Double BassSteph FlemingAndy NealSam WiseHelen NeilsenMark McCarthyAlison Coaker

FluteChristopher WyattClaire PillmoorKatie Burling

PiccoloKatie Burling

OboeCharles BrenanJuliette Murray-Topham

ClarinetClaire Baughan Chris Horril

Bass Clarinet Graham Elliot

BassoonNick RampleySheila Wallace

ContrabassoonGrace Watts

French HornJon BoswellHeather PawsonJames Symington Gillian Bath

TrumpetJohn HackettLeanne ThompsonMichael Collins

TrombonePhil CambridgeKen McGregor

Bass TromboneStefan Terry

TubaNeil Wharmby

TimpaniTommy Pearson

Percussion Tim AldenAndrew BarnardCatherine Hockings

HarpBethan Semmens

Piano/CelesteJames Longford

Music DirectorRussell Keable

TrusteesChris AstlesDavid BaxendaleElizabeth BellJohn DoveyJudith Ní BhreasláinHeather PawsonNick RampleyRichard SheahanSabina Wagstyl

Endowment TrustRobert DrennanGraham ElliottJudith Ní BhreasláinNick RampleyNeil Ritson

Event TeamChris AstlesBeccy SpencerSabina Wagstyl

Marketing TeamJeremy BradshawJo Johnson Andrew NealGuy RaybouldLouise Ringrose

Membership TeamJuliette BarkerDavid Baxendale Phil Cambridge

ProgrammesKathleen Rule

ORCHESTRA

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Monday 15 May 2017, 7.30pm (Barbican Centre, London)

60th ANNIVERSARY CONCERTMATTHEW TAYLOR Symphony no.4 (world première)*

MAHLER Symphony no.2* with funding provided by Arts Council England

Monday 3 July 2017, 7.30pm (St John’s Smith Square)NIELSEN Rhapsody Overture: An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe IslandsARNOLD Rinaldo and ArmidaNIELSEN Symphony no.6

Monday 9 October 2017, 7.30pm (St John’s Smith Square)RICHARD STRAUSS Till Eulenspiegels lustige StreicheJOSEPH PHIBBS Rivers to the Sea STRAVINSKY Le sacre du printemps

61st SEASON

Opening concert for 2017/18 season

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cupTickets: £12.50–£30

60th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT Monday 15 May 2017, 7.30pmBarbican Centre, London

MATTHEW TAYLOR Symphony no.4 (world première)*

MAHLER Symphony no.2

Russell Keable ConductorKiandra Howarth SopranoCaitlin Hulcup Mezzo-SopranoEpiphoni ConsortVox Cordis Pegasus Choir

* with funding provided by Arts Council England