Energy...the first rehearsal conductor Hans von Bülow recognised it as ‘gigantic, altogether a...

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the Sydney Opera Housefor the inaugural concert of the EnergyAustralia Master Series for 2007.

This evening, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, MaestroGianluigi Gelmetti brings the harmony and warmth of Brahms’symphonic music alive as the Sydney Symphony commences its 75th anniversary season with a tribute to Johannes Brahms.

With the compelling and finely crafted Symphonies No.2 and 4, we will hear the Orchestra perform music that composer LeonardBernstein said ‘enriched and ennobled the world’.

With one of the most recognised brands in the energy industry, weare proud to be associated with the Sydney Symphony, and we’revery excited to be linked to the Symphony’s flagship Master Series, a showcase for great music performed by the world’s finest soloistsand conductors.

EnergyAustralia is one of Australia’s leading energy companies,with more than 1.8 million customers in New South Wales, Victoria,the ACT, South Australia, and Queensland.

I hope you enjoy the Brahms Festival and hope you also have achance to experience future concerts within the EnergyAustraliaMaster Series program.

George MaltabarowManaging Director

SEASON 2007

BRAHMS FESTIVAL

ENERGY AUSTRALIA MASTER SERIES

BRAHMS’ SYMPHONIES 2 & 4

Wednesday 28 February | 8pm

Friday 2 March | 8pm

Saturday 3 March | 8pm

Sydney Opera House Concert Hall

Gianluigi Gelmetti conductor

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897)

Symphony No.4 in E minor, Op.98

Allegro non troppoAndante moderatoAllegro giocoso – Poco meno prestoAllegro energico e passionato – Più allegro

INTERVAL

Symphony No.2 in D, Op.73

Allegro non troppoAdagio non troppoAllegretto grazioso (Quasi andantino) – Presto ma non assaiAllegro con spirito

This concert will be broadcastlive across Australia on ABC Classic FM 92.9 onWednesday 28 February.

Pre-concert talk by David Garrettat 7.15pm in the Northern Foyer.

Estimated timings:42 minutes, 20 minute interval,43 minutesThe performance will concludeat approximately 9.55pm.

Cover images: see page 30 for captions

Program notes begin on page 5

Artist biographies begin on page 21

PRESENTING PARTNER

Welcome to tonight’s concert and to our first year of free programs.

Following the enthusiastic response to our free concertflyers in 2006, the Sydney Symphony is delighted to beable to offer free program books at all our subscriptionand gala concerts.

If you’ve purchased programs in the past you’ll findfamiliar features and the same high quality musicjournalism from some of Australia’s leading writers onmusic. If you’re new to programs we hope they’ll give you a deeper insight into the music we play as well asproviding a convenient guide to what’s happening on the stage.

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NEW FEATURES

KEYNOTES

A brief introduction to read

while the orchestra tunes up;

look for Keynotes in the

margin at the beginning of

each program note.

HISTORICAL SNAPSHOTS

Celebrating our 75th

anniversary season, a series

of illustrated articles by

historian and concert

programmer David Garrett.

EXPANDED CONCERT

INTRODUCTION

This popular overview of the

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program notes.

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5 | Sydney Symphony

INTRODUCTION

The Brahms Symphonies: Stars and Sunshine

The Sydney Symphony’s Brahms Festival concludes with a contrasting pair: Brahms’ ‘brainiest’ symphonyand his most melodic. The Fourth Symphony highlightsBrahms the scholar as well as Brahms the composer andsuggests that these two aspects of his creative instinctswere intimately linked. It begins with a compact gestureof just a few notes – almost a musical abstraction – thatprovides the essence for the whole symphony. It was thekind of thing that a modernist composer like Schoenbergwould admire in 1947.

Schoenberg was in sympathy with Brahms in anotherway: he, too, believed there were ‘essentials’ to be learnedfrom the masters and that those lessons could be appliedwithout loss of personality. One of the masters Brahmsmost revered was Johann Sebastian Bach, a fact emergingin the Fourth Symphony with its grand finale in theBaroque tradition. What Brahms’ contemporaries heardin the symphony – and what we can admire today – wasthe marriage of apparent opposites: the Classical and the Romantic spirit, scholarship and creativity. Itsdemands are also its rewards, and the 19th-centurycritic Hanslick concluded that it was ‘like a dark well: the longer we look into it, the more brightly the starsshine back’.

If Brahms’ Fourth Symphony was admired, his SecondSymphony was loved. There was a time – at the turn ofthe 20th century – when the Second Symphony was themost popular of Brahms’ symphonies. And this is hardlysurprising. The First Symphony had been music thatinvited close inspection (‘with a magnifying glass’ saidHanslick) and was full of intricacies for serious musiclovers. Brahms immediately followed this with a lyricalsymphony that, even in its darker moments, ‘radiates likethe sun, warming connoisseurs and amateurs; it belongsto all who long for good music, whether they understandits most difficult aspects or not’.

7 | Sydney Symphony

ABOUT THE MUSIC

Keynotes

BRAHMS

German composerborn 1833, Hamburgdied 1897, Vienna

Brahms completed his final

symphony in 1885. He had

spent the summers of 1884

and 1885 working on it in an

Austrian mountain retreat,

Mürzzuschlag, but the

inspiration seems to have come

less from nature – unlike the

‘pastoral’ Second Symphony –

and more from his musical and

intellectual enthusiasms, in

particular the ‘old masters’

such as J.S. Bach.

FOURTH SYMPHONY

The Fourth Symphony has

been described as the

‘brainiest’ of Brahms’

symphonies. This is a

response to the opening

movement (‘two tremendously

witty people’) and to the finale

– a monumental movement

based on the Baroque

technique of a repeating bass,

above which Brahms spins an

elaborate set of 30 variations.

The inner movements bring

beauty, serenity and good

humour. The glowing Andantebegins with a gently moving

theme featuring Brahms’

favourite instrument, the horn.

The playful scherzo – Brahms’

first – brings extremes: the

high-pitched piccolo and

the lowest woodwind, the

contrabassoon. And watch

out for the triangle, heard

only in the third movement.

Brahms conducted the

premiere of his Fourth

Symphony with the tiny

Meiningen Orchestra (49

players) on 25 October 1885.

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No.4 in E minor, Op.98

Allegro non troppoAndante moderatoAllegro giocoso – Poco meno prestoAllegro energico e passionato – Più allegro

Brahms spent years skirting around the symphonic genre,and when he did begin to write symphonies he agonisedover them, apologetically circulating drafts to his musicalfriends. To his publisher, Simrock, Brahms wrote: ‘Somehonourable colleagues (Bach, Mozart, Schubert) havemischievously overindulged the world. But if we are notable to write as beautifully as they could, then we mustsurely in addition protect ourselves from trying to write as quickly as they did…’

But the real culprit in Brahms’s struggle with thesymphony was Beethoven. ‘I shall never compose asymphony!’ wrote Brahms. ‘You don’t have any idea howit feels if one always hears such a giant marching behindone.’ Brahms needed to preserve his own identity againstthe expectations and precedents set by Beethoven. At thesame time, more than any of his contemporaries, he had a deep reverence for the past, and his highly personalsolutions to musical problems are often founded on the formal strength of Classical structures.

After the long and difficult gestation of his firstsymphony, Brahms gathered momentum, and the FourthSymphony appeared only two years after the Third (in 1885)following two summers’ work at his mountain retreat inMürzzuschlag in Austria. It can be heard as a ‘summing-up’of Brahms’s aims: the marriage of past techniques withcontemporary idioms and the close-knit integration ofmaterial. Especially in its weighty final movement, thesymphony unleashes a certain ‘cumulative power’, even atthe first rehearsal conductor Hans von Bülow recognised it as ‘gigantic, altogether a law unto itself, quite new, steelyindividuality. Exudes unparalleled energy from first note to last.’

Listening Guide

The first movement opens not with a slow introduction(which Brahms discarded from his early draft), nor with a theme, but with a mighty gesture of falling thirds andrising sixths. It is a motto that Schoenberg later admired

8 | Sydney Symphony

for its economy and almost abstract value as a pattern, andits fundamental significance lies in the way it hints at tonalrelationships and provides the germ of melodic materialfor the whole symphony. Later, in the development, thealternation of the two intervals takes on a conversationaltone. When the critic Eduard Hanslick heard Brahms and Ignaz Brüll play through a two-piano version of the draft symphony he commented: ‘During the whole firstmovement I felt as if I were being beaten soundly by twotremendously witty people.’ The duo piano arrangementmay have contributed to this impression, and inperformances such as this one where the first and secondviolins sit either side of the conductor’s podium there is a vivid sense of the dialectic that Brahms wrote into the music.

The Andante opens with a horn melody apparently in C major to prelude a movement in E major. The 21-year-old Richard Strauss heard this movement as ‘a funeralprocession moving in silence across moonlit heights’. The cellos introduce the second subject, a sympatheticallyglowing and tender theme.

The third movement represents the first appearance ofa ‘scherzo’ in a Brahms symphony. Rather than adoptingthe usual three-part scherzo and trio structure, Brahms’sAllegro giocoso is a boisterous sonata movement. Its exultantplayfulness emerges in orchestral extremes – both piccoloand contrabassoon appear in the texture for the first time,and a triangle solo provides the only percussion momentin the symphony.

The previous year Brahms had received his copy of the30th issue of the Bach Complete Edition, including CantataNo.150 ‘Nach dir Gott verlanget mich’ (Unto thee, O Lord,will I lift up my soul). Brahms was drawn to its concludingchoral passacaglia, and contemplated the symphonic use ofits ground bass, asking von Bülow: ‘What would you thinkif someone were to write a symphony movement on thesame theme? But it is too bulky, too straightforward; onemust change it somehow.’

And change it he did: chromatically altering just onenote (the fifth in the sequence) and elevating it fromground bass to melody line, with newly implied chords.This theme is stated at the beginning of the finale by brassand wind, establishing from the outset a sombre anddramatic atmosphere. Its austerity is further strengthenedby the introduction of the trombones, which Brahms has

‘During the whole first

movement I felt as if

I were being beaten

soundly by two

tremendously witty

people.’

EDUARD HANSLICK, AFTERHEARING A DRAFT OF THESYMPHONY

9 | Sydney Symphony

held in reserve for this magnificent finale. Thirty variationsfollow, demonstrating a huge range of colour and emotion,concluded by a long, elaborate coda.

At first the passacaglia finale was thought aninappropriate conclusion for a symphony. The grandclosing passacaglia or chaconne was a Baroque theatricalconvention; and while Brahms – editor of Couperin andcollector of Bach – would have appreciated this, few of hislisteners did. But one critic at the Leipzig premiere in 1886understood the gesture:

‘The [finale] is not only constructed on the form displayedin Bach’s Chaconne for violin, but it is filled with Bach’sspirit. It is built up with such astounding mastery...and in such a manner that its contrapuntal learning remainssubordinate to its poetic contents...It can be compared with no former work of Brahms and stands alone in thesymphonic literature of the present and the past.’

As this anonymous critic recognised, Brahms hadcreated the perfect marriage of learning and poetry, of pastand present, and the Classical and Romantic spirit.

YVONNE FRINDLE ©2006

The orchestra for Brahms’ Fourth Symphony comprises two flutes,one doubling piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons andcontrabassoon; four horns, two trumpets, and three trombones (in thefourth movement only); timpani and triangle (third movement only);and strings.

The first Sydney Symphony performance on record of Brahms’ FourthSymphony took place in 1938 under Malcolm Sargent. The mostrecent performance was in 2005 with conductor Simone Young.

‘…It can be compared

with no former work of

Brahms and stands

alone in the symphonic

literature of the present

and the past.’

FROM AN 1886 REVIEW

Hans von Bülow and Brahms (1889). The conductor recognised Brahms’ Fourth

Symphony as ‘gigantic, altogether a law unto itself, quite new, steely

individuality’.

10 | Sydney Symphony

Back to Bach: Brahms and the Past

Brahms’ awe for the legacy of Beethoven is well-documented.His respect for Classical forms is evident in his music. Andin the Fourth Symphony there is Brahms’ admiration forBach, as he builds a Baroque-style passacaglia for the finale.

This healthy respect for the past reflected a 19th-centurytrend – still strong today – in which old music assumed acentral role in the concert halls. If you’ve ever compared acontemporary work unfavourably with music of an earlierperiod you are not alone: Brahms frequently did this too.

Brahms was not the only composer to be interested inold music. Mozart made arrangements of Bach and Handel– admittedly on commission; Mendelssohn stimulated the 19th-century Bach revival with performances of theMatthew Passion. But, as Michael Musgrave points out,‘for a major composer of his period, the range of [Brahms’]interest was unique’.

Brahms had a vast collection of original manuscriptsand early editions representing composers well-known and obscure. He could quote the bass line of a Bach cantatain his Fourth Symphony precisely because he had beenavidly following the release of the Bach Complete Edition.He also collected each new volume from the Handel andSchütz editions, he conducted the music of GiovanniGabrieli in concerts, and was the co-editor of Augener’sedition of Couperin’s keyboard works (still available in aDover reprint). It was Brahms who, in editing Mozart’sRequiem for the first Collected Edition, scrutinised theautograph, establishing what was original Mozart and whatwas Süssmayr.

This wasn’t simply an antiquarian hobby for Brahms or an expression of his affinity with past styles. Brahmsbelieved in the value of music of the past – these wereexalted models in his eyes – and found an intense creative stimulus in his studies of old music, stimulus that emerged in often highly complex counterpoint,conservative forms, and borrowings in tribute tocomposers such as Haydn and Bach.

It’s been said that one of the reasons Brahms sits at theheart of the orchestral repertoire is that with Brahms wehave a sense of all the other music that we love so much:Schubert and Mendelssohn (who, in dying young, hadalready entered Brahms’ past), Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart.And Bach.

YVONNE FRINDLE ©2007

Brahms admired Bach and eagerly

awaited each new issue of the BachComplete Edition.


Johannes Brahms

Symphony No.2 in D, Op.73

Allegro non troppoAdagio non troppo Allegretto grazioso (Quasi andantino) – Presto ma non assaiAllegro con spirito

Composed in the summer of 1877 at his favourite resortvillage of Pörtschach, on the edge of Lake Worth in theAustrian Alps, the Second Symphony is the sunniest ofBrahms’ symphonies. There, in solitude and in betweendawn swims and long daily walks – Brahms was always a keen trekker – he composed this bucolically joyouswork with rare swiftness. Four months is all it took,nothing like the tortuous, two decades’ struggle of theFirst Symphony.

A personal tone and easy lyrical warmth immediatelyset the Second Symphony apart from the First. Brahmsseems at last able to put the weighty symphonicinheritance of Beethoven behind him and arrive ata more individual position. Clara Schumann was one of the first to cast comment: on hearing Brahms playparts of the score on piano, she remarked that the newsymphony was more original than its predecessor, andshe predicted correctly that the public would prefer it.The premiere by the Vienna Philharmonic underconductor Hans Richter on 30 December was aresounding success, critics praising the work as‘attractive’, ‘understandable’ and refreshingly un-Beethovenian.

Paradoxically, the Second’s originality lies partly in its mild, backward-looking stance. Gentle pastoralimagery and a compressed, Haydnesque expressive scale seem to evoke a past world. The work’s character is genial: all four movements are like companions, notdramatically set against one another – and all are inmajor keys.

More than anything else, it is a melodic symphony.Brahms wrote to Eduard Hanslick about how inspired he was finding Pörtschach: ‘The melodies fly so thickhere that you have to be careful not to step on one.’Indeed each movement abounds with lyricism. In thefirst movement a leisurely, lilting waltz serves as themain subject, followed by an equally lilting ‘lullaby’second subject in the cellos. No doubt the birdsong later

Keynotes

BRAHMS

German composerborn 1833, Hamburgdied 1897, Vienna

Having finally completed

his first symphony after

a 14-year struggle, Brahms

almost immediately

began work on a second,

completing it the following

year, in 1877. He did much of

the work in a lakeside resort

in Austria’s Carinthia region,

where ‘the melodies fly so

thick…that you have to be

careful not to step on one.’

SECOND SYMPHONY

Brahms’ First Symphony

was dubbed ‘the Tenth’

and his Third ‘Brahms’

Eroica’ – both references

to Beethoven. In another

reference, his Second

Symphony came to be

known as ‘Brahms’ Pastoral’.

This annoyed Brahms, but

it is hardly surprising: the

Second is the most melodic

of Brahms’ symphonies,

and its lyrical and radiant

character assured its place

as the most popular during

his lifetime. But it has a

darker side as well, which

Brahms half-joked about,

saying that the music

should be printed with a

black border. We can hear

that, for example, in the way

he introduces the sombre

sounds of timpani and

trombones very early in

the first movement.

Hans Richter conducted

the premiere of the Second

Symphony with the

Vienna Philharmonic on

30 December 1877.


in the flute, decorating the main subject’s return, helpedthis to become ‘Brahms’ Pastoral Symphony’ – which label greatly annoyed the composer.

The flowing melodic vein continues in a noble,expansively romantic Adagio, one of Brahms’ finestsymphonic movements. Tuneful in a different way is thediminutive third movement, which consists of a suite of elegant Baroque-sounding dances. The finale is theonly outrightly dramatic movement: it bursts out withresplendent melody as if proclaiming victory.

But a victory over what? If one listens with differentears to the Second Symphony, its radiantly lit landscapeseems continually threatened. A brooding quality seemsto grow out of the first movement’s initial three-notemotif, heard in the cellos, and it is emphasised by thismotif ’s numerous reappearances not only in thismovement but in the second as well. Even the third and fourth movements with their lighter mood have ashadowy side, in wistful major-minor inflections andmoments of muted introspection.

So maybe all is not so sunny after all. One perceptivelistener of the time, Vincenz Lachner, questioned Brahmsabout his intent in the symphony, in particular on whyhe introduces the gloomy sounds of tremolo timpani and low trombones so early in the first movement – justone minute in. Brahms’ reply is extraordinary for what itreveals about himself and the work:

I would have to confess that I am…a severely melancholicperson, that black wings are constantly flapping above us,and that in my output – perhaps not entirely by chance – thissymphony is followed by a little essay about the great ‘Why’. If you don’t know this [motet, Warum] I will send it to you. It casts the necessary shadow on the serene symphony andperhaps accounts for those timpani and trombones.

Thus it is a Janus-faced Brahms who found his idyll in the mountainous retreat of Pörtschach: the sombresounding motet he mentions, Warum ist das Licht gegeben,Op.74, dates from his same summer there.

All of which has led Malcolm MacDonald to suggestthat the Second is ‘one of the darkest of major-keysymphonies’. Not to be overlooked either is Brahms’own wryly exaggerated comment to the publisher FritzSimrock: ‘The new symphony is so melancholy that youcan’t stand it. I have never written anything so sad, sominorish: the score must appear with a black border.’

Brahms in the 1870s

‘The melodies fly so

thick here that you

have to be careful not

to step on one.’

BRAHMS WRITING FROM THE ALPINE VILLAGE OFPÖRTSCHACH

Paradoxically, the

Second’s originality

lies partly in its mild,

backward-looking

stance.


The Second does not easily disclose itself but is likethe man himself, wrapped in ambiguity and internalcontradictions. Friends loved him yet found himinsufferable, fearing that, as Hermann Levi put it toClara, the ‘demon of abruptness, of coldness and ofheartlessness’ would finally snatch his ‘better self ’away. That cold-warmth, or warmth at a distance, is feltparticularly in this work; but with granite-like creativestrength Brahms turns his own frailties into humanuniversalities.

The Second is too amiable to be revolutionary. Butin its tone-painting without glory, its fatalism and its‘taint of the real’, Brahms points the way toward thesymphonies of Mahler. Reinhold Brinkmann calls theSecond ‘an emphatic questioning of the pastoral world,a firm denial of the possibility of pure serenity’. Itsrevelation is of a composer, a nature lover, for whomthere was no joy without sadness, and no sadness without joy.

GRAHAM STRAHLE ©2004

The orchestra for Brahms’ Second Symphony comprises pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons (it is the only Brahmssymphony not to use the contrabassoon); four horns, two trumpets,three trombones and tuba; timpani and strings.

The first Sydney Symphony performance on record of Brahms’Second Symphony took place in 1938 under Joseph Post; the mostrecent performance was in 2004 under Gianluigi Gelmetti.

‘The new symphony is

so melancholy that you

can’t stand it. I have

never written anything

so sad, so minorish:

the score must appear

with a black border.’

BRAHMS TO HIS PUBLISHERSIMROCK


INTERLUDE

Brahms’ Worldly Freedom

Goetz Richter examines the background to Brahms’ developmentas a symphonic composer.

Brahms was already 44 years old when his first symphonyappeared in print in 1877 after its first performance in 1876.Further symphonies followed, interestingly, in relativelyquick succession in 1878, 1884 and 1886. Given that Brahmshad a precocious musical imagination, his hesitation to write symphonies has inspired much speculation. We are inclined to settle the question of why Brahms, likeBruckner, wrote symphonies so relatively late in his life,with a ready answer, which is indeed widely advocated andgarrulously supported in the literature about Brahms: thedelay to turn to the symphonic genre is simply a result ofthe composer’s initial difficulties in coping with the aspectsof orchestration.

This view fits neatly with early criticisms of Brahms’orchestration as being thick, ‘muddy’ and generallyunsophisticated, which already greeted his first orchestralwork, the Piano Concerto, Op.15. Not surprisingly,commentators do not find it difficult to underpin this viewof a technically untrained composer with an assembly ofready-made judgements about Brahms’ earlier orchestralworks up to 1877. The two Serenades (Opp 11 and 16) aredismissed as apprentice works in orchestration. The firstPiano concerto (Op.15) is viewed as an abortion of a two-piano version of a symphony, whose orchestration did not proceed successfully under the ‘untrained hand’(Geiringer) of the composer, and the Requiem (Op.45)becomes a further ‘experience in orchestration’ (Latham) for the composer, who has finally, we are relieved to note,attained mastery in the Variations on a Theme of Haydn(1873), which empowers him to tackle a symphony.

If we accept this representation as adequate, we fail to see three important aspects characterising the relationshipbetween the composer and his work. First, we ignore thesubtle difference between the activities of production andcreation. We can be certain that Brahms did not composelike a retired school teacher who churns out symphonies in his spare time after attending a series of evening classesin which he acquired the technical prerequisites for thetask. As late-comers rather than creators, we tend to assumethat the creative process is sufficiently explained anddemystified by a reflective analysis which reveals to us aproduction, a producer and a ‘technique’. Authentic musical

For Wagner,

Beethoven

represented the

progressive, the

innovator of new

musical devices…

For Brahms,

Beethoven was

mainly a supreme

master of his craft in

regard to symphonic

form and content.


creativity knows no such divisions and essentially preservesthe unity of means and ends in the making of music. We will accordingly not really understand the activity ofcomposition by reference to compositional technique.

Second, we forget that the young Brahms already had a considerable grasp of symphonic form and orchestralsound-texture and could have acquired any musical‘technique’ whenever necessary. The most powerful witnessfor this may be Robert Schumann, whose admiration forBrahms as ‘one of the elect’ did not only extend to thepianist who ‘transformed the piano into an orchestra ofwailing and jubilant voices’, but also to the composer whopromised to be an outstanding symphonist. After seeing his earliest compositions in 1853 Schumann was certainthat if Brahms ‘will now lift his magic wand over themassed forces of chorus and orchestra, even morewonderful glimpses into the depths of the spirit world will emerge before us’.

Finally, we forget Brahms’ own artistic backgroundwithin the historical situation of the time. Like Wagner,Brahms could not escape the all-pervasive influence ofBeethoven. We know that, as late as 1870, Brahms expressedhis dilemma of being the subject of a Hegelian ‘tragedyof consciousness’ to the conductor Hermann Levi: ‘I shallnever compose a symphony! You have no idea how one of our craft feels when he hears a giant like Beethovenstriding behind him.’

The shadow of Beethoven, the musical herald of the ‘end of art’, loomed large over the 19th century. For Wagner,Beethoven represented the progressive, the innovator ofnew musical devices, in conjunction with the ever-restlesssearch of dramatic composers such as Weber, Berlioz andLiszt for new orchestral effects and colours. Wagner foundin Beethoven’s revolutionary symphonic creations thelegitimation for his own new musical mythology. ForBrahms, Beethoven was mainly a supreme master of hiscraft in regard to symphonic form and content. Brahmswas not progressive (despite Schoenberg’s view), andneither was he conservative, because he never accepted anotion of progress based on the independent evolution of technical devices. He was forever concerned to exploremusical unity of content and form. The musical directionsemanating from Beethoven are also not adequately graspedby the overvalued label that Brahms was an ‘absolute’ andWagner a ‘programmatic’ musician. Brahms has ultimatelyto be placed within the wider context of Romanticism and

Brahms was not

progressive (despite

Schoenberg’s view),

and neither was he

conservative, because

he never accepted a

notion of progress

based on the

independent evolution

of technical devices.

Brahms could not escape the all-

pervasive influence of Beethoven


its desire to reconcile the finite and the infinite, necessityand freedom.

If this is done, we recognise in Brahms’ symphonies thetraces of the struggle of the Romantic who overcomes thehomelessness of man and his yearning for reconciliation inan acceptance of freedom within limits of necessity.Obvious examples are the final movement of the firstSymphony, opening with a confused, tragic Adagio andending in a chorale-like affirmation of a musical equivalentto the ‘categorical imperative’, and the third symphonywhich, despite its exultant tone (especially of the first andlast movements), ends in a mood of calm acceptance. Thelistener who has not been desensitised by musical effects ofall kinds will appreciate Elgar’s observation, ‘how curious itis that all the movements of this work end piano or pianissimo’.

On a purely musical level this acceptance expresses itself in Brahms’ return to the pre-classical roots ofpolyphonic music, the contrapuntal art of Bach (mostcompellingly in the passacaglia of the Fourth Symphony)and the symphonic creations of Haydn and Beethoven.Brahms does not significantly deviate in his approach to orchestration from Beethoven – unlike Wagner, Lisztor Berlioz – and his music does not invoke colourful,often illustrative orchestral effects (it features neither thesensuous sound of the cor anglais, nor luscious harpglissandos nor vivid percussion effects). Nor does it containvirtuosic gestures for their own sake. But this is not anindication of a technically unsophisticated orchestraltechnique. Rather it is an indication that Brahms eschewed the search for independent sound effects andconcentrated instead on a synthesis between harmonicdesign and colour.

Ultimately, Brahms’ attainment of a stoic acceptance andaffirmation of a freedom within the limitations of necessity(which Friedrich Nietzsche mistook for the ‘melancholy ofimpotence’) permeates his being and work. The symphoniesare grounded in this existential mood of an artist who didnot aim to propagate a process of technical progress, butwho had fought long and hard to (in the words of theRomantic poet Novalis) ‘be at home in the world’.

GOETZ RICHTER ©2007

Goetz Richter was the Sydney Symphony’s Associate Concertmasterfrom 1987 until 2002 and has recently been appointed to the Board ofthe Orchestra. He is currently Associate Professor for Violin and chair of strings at the Sydney Conservatorium.

Ultimately, Brahms’

attainment of a stoic

acceptance and

affirmation of a

freedom within the

limitations of

necessity (which

Friedrich Nietzsche

mistook for the

‘melancholy of

impotence’) permeates

his being and work.


GLOSSARY

CONTRAPUNTAL – a style of music in whichtwo or more different musical lines ormelodies are played at the same time(counterpoint). Historically, contrapuntaltechnique has been considered a ‘learned’or ‘academic’ approach to composingmusic. At the same time, simple forms ofcounterpoint can be found in traditionalmusic, e.g. childhood rounds.

GROUND BASS – a melody that is repeatedmany times as a support for continuousmelodic variations. Usually heard in thebass, it can be as simple as a melody, or it can include the chord pattern implied by that melody as well. The techniqueemerged in the 16th century and was verypopular through the Baroque period. (See passacaglia.)

INTERVAL – the distance in pitch betweentwo notes. If the first note is lower in pitchthan the second, the interval is said to be‘rising’; if the first note is higher in pitchthen the interval is ‘falling’. Intervals arenamed according to the number of steps of the musical scale that they cover: a thirdis an interval of three steps, a sixth sixsteps, and so on.

MAJOR / MINOR – in Western music thereare two main categories of scale, major and minor, which are differentiated by thepatterns of intervals between the notes.Aurally, a major scale will sound ‘brighter’or more cheerful, while a minor scale will sound sombre or mournful (‘HappyBirthday’ is in a major key, funeral marches are in minor keys). The keynote or main note of a scale gives it its name(e.g. E minor, a minor scale beginning onthe note E, or D major, a major scalebeginning on D).

PASSACAGLIA – a musical form with Baroqueorigins, sometimes used interchangeablywith the term ‘chaconne’. Since its revivalin the 19th century it has been characterised

by its recurring ground bass, providingsupport for an extended set of variations,and its serious tone. Many composers havetaken inspiration from the impressive butatypical passacaglias of Bach and Handel,including Brahms in the finale of hisFourth Symphony.

SCHERZO – literally, a joke; the termgenerally refers to a movement in a fast,light triple time, which may involvewhimsical, startling or playful elements.Most scherzo movements in symphoniesinclude a contrasting central section calleda ‘trio’.

BRAHMS’ TEMPO MARKINGS

As in most music of his time, Brahms heads the individual movements of his symphonieswith the Italian terms that indicate tempo.Characteristically for Brahms, several oftonight’s tempo instructions are lengthy, withsubtle qualifications and provisos:

Adagio non troppo – slow, not too muchAllegro non troppo – fast, not too much Allegro con spirito – …with spiritAllegro energico e passionato –

…energetic and impassioned Allegro giocoso – …playfullyAllegro grazioso (Quasi andantino) –

…gracefully (in the character of a gentlewalking pace)

Andante moderato – at a walking pace,moderately

Più allegro – fasterPoco meno presto – a little less ‘presto’

(as fast as possible) Presto ma non assai – not quite as fast as

possible; literally ‘as fast as possible butnot very’

This glossary is intended only as a quick and easyguide, not as a set of comprehensive and absolutedefinitions. Most of these terms have many subtleshades of meaning which cannot be included forreasons of space.


75 YEARS: HISTORICAL SNAPSHOT

The Australian Broadcasting Commission’s first studio

orchestra, dressed formally for an evening broadcast –

the ‘done thing’ in the early days of radio

Some saw in broadcasting a possibilityof raising public taste and awareness ofthe ‘best’, including music. And they longed for Sydney to have a permanent orchestrathat could represent that ‘best’. It was an accident, in many ways, that theseaspirations combined to make publicconcerts, as well as broadcast music, adominant activity of the ABC. So the storyof the Sydney Symphony begins…

David Garrett, a historian and former programmerfor Australia’s symphony orchestras, is studyingthe history of the ABC as a musical organisation.This is the first of a series of glimpses of theSydney Symphony’s history to appear in concertprograms through 2007.

Accident or inevitability?

Look at the picture of a forerunner oftoday’s Sydney Symphony, and contrast itwith what you see on the stage in front ofyou. Then use your aural imagination: could that small group of players havesounded anything like what we think ofas an ‘orchestra’? Probably not. But ananniversary stimulates the historicalimagination.

Celebrating 75 years of ‘the SydneySymphony Orchestra’ stresses continuity. It’s arbitrary, in a way. The name goes back further, to the group that rehearsedover a fish shop in George St, between 1908 and 1914. One of its organisers wasGeorge Plummer, and it was not until 1937 that the name ‘Sydney SymphonyOrchestra’ was bought from him, byCharles Moses, General Manager of theAustralian Broadcasting Commission. The ‘real’ history of the Sydney Symphonymight be said to begin when the ABCcommitted itself to providing Sydney witha permanent orchestra of a size adequatefor the symphonic repertoire.

That was later in the 1930s. So ourhistorical photo really belongs to the pre-history of Sydney’s symphony orchestra.Nevertheless, the establishment of theAustralian Broadcasting Commission, in1932, is a milestone. As Phillip Sametz writesin his 1992 history of the orchestra, Play On!,‘There is no story of the Sydney SymphonyOrchestra that is not a story of the ABC.’

When that photo was taken, the newmedium of radio had a voracious appetitefor ‘live’ music. Symphonic music? Some,but not much. In 1932 the new ABCenlarged the studio ensembles it had takenover in Sydney and Melbourne from 15 to24 players. Was this the beginning of acommitment to an ABC Sydney SymphonyOrchestra? Only hindsight gives a sense ofinevitability to the story.


MORE MUSIC

BRAHMS – THE FOUR SYMPHONIES

‘Amongst Brahms’ best interpreters,’ writes MaestroGelmetti, ‘we find Furtwängler, Bruno Walter andKarajan, but also other extraordinary conductors suchas Beecham, Toscanini, Bernstein; and my Maestro,Celibidache, whom everyone recognised as asuperlative Brahmsian interpreter.’

Wilhelm Furtwängler, Vienna PhilharmonicSymphony No.1, with the Haydn Variations

TESTAMENT 1142

Bruno Walter, Columbia Symphony OrchestraSymphonies No.2 and 3

SONY SMK64471

Herbert von Karajan, Berlin PhilharmonicSymphonies No.3 and 4

DG GALLERIA 437 645 OR DG 431 593

Complete symphonies: DG 42964442

Thomas Beecham, Royal Philharmonic OrchestraSymphony No.2 (live concert, 1956)

BBC LEGENDS 4099

Arturo Toscanini, NBC Symphony OrchestraSymphonies No.1 and 2

RCA VICTOR RED SEAL 62322

Sergiu Celibidache, SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Complete symphonies

DG 459 635-2

Sergiu Celibidache, Munich Philharmonic OrchestraA German Requiem and Symphony No.1

EMI CLASSICS 56843-2

Symphonies No.2 – 4

EMI CLASSICS 56846-2

SYDNEY SYMPHONY: LIVE RECORDINGS

FROM THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

Strauss and Schubert

R. Strauss Four Last Songs; Schubert Symphony No.8(Unfinished); J. Strauss II Blue Danube WaltzGianluigi Gelmetti (conductor), Ricarda Merbeth(soprano)

SSO1

Glazunov and Shostakovich

Glazunov The Seasons; Shostakovich Symphony No.9Alexander Lazarev (conductor)

SSO2

GIANLUIGI GELMETTI

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

Nino Rota Film Music

Monte Carlo Philharmonic EMI ENCORE 5 74987-2

Rossini Thieving Magpie

Live recording with the RAI Torino (3CDs)

SONY S3K 45 850

Rossini The Barber of Seville (DVD)

Teatro Real Madrid production

DECCA 074 3111 5 DH2

Rossini Overtures and highlights from

The Barber of Seville

Thomas Hampson, Susanne Mentzer; Stuttgart RadioSymphony Orchestra, Toscana Orchestra

EMI 74752-2

ABC CLASSIC FM 92.9

Mon 19 March 1pmBERLIOZ: HAROLD IN ITALY (2005)Richard Gill conductorRoger Benedict viola

Thu 22 March 8pmNORTHERN LIGHTS

Osmo Vänskä conductorJaakko Kuussisto violinMozart, Rautavaara, Sibelius

Broadcast Diary

In 2006 selected Sydney Symphony concerts were recorded for webcast by Telstra BigPond. These can be viewed at:http://sydneysymphony.bigpondmusic.com.

sydneysymphony.com

Webcast Diary

Visit the Sydney Symphony online for concertinformation, podcasts, and to read your program bookin advance of the concert.

Selected Discography


Gianluigi Gelmetti, Chief Conductor and Artistic Directorof the Sydney Symphony, studied with Sergiu Celibidache,Franco Ferrara and Hans Swarowsky. For ten years heconducted the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra; he has conducted many of the leading orchestras in theworld and appears regularly at international festivals.Since 2000 he has been Music Director of the Teatrodell’Opera di Roma.

Highlights of past seasons include engagements inFrance, Germany, Great Britain, America, Australia, Japan,Switzerland and Italy, where he conducted Mascagni’s Irisand Respighi’s La fiamma at the Teatro dell’Opera di Romaand William Tell at the Rossini Opera Festival. In 1999 hewas awarded the Rossini d’Oro Prize. Gianluigi Gelmettihas also worked regularly at the Royal Opera House,Covent Garden.

His interpretation of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaroearned him the title Best Conductor of the Year from the German magazine Opernwelt, and in 1997 he won theTokyo critics’ prize for the best performance of the year of Beethoven’s Symphony No.9. He has been honoured as Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in Franceand Grande Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana in Italy.

Gianluigi Gelmetti’s recording catalogue includesoperas by Salieri, Rossini, Puccini and Mozart, thecomplete orchestral music of Ravel, the late symphoniesof Mozart and works by many 20th-century composers,including Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Varèse and Rota.Among his latest recordings are William Tell, Iris, Lafiamma, Bruckner’s Symphony No.6 and Rossini’s Stabat mater.

Gianluigi Gelmetti is also a composer; his recentworks include In Paradisum Deducant Te Angeli, written tocommemorate the tenth anniversary of Franco Ferrara’sdeath, Algos, and Prasanta Atma, in memory of SergiuCelibidache.

Since summer 1997 he has been teaching at theAccademia Chigiana in Siena.

THE ARTISTS

KEI

TH S

AU

ND

ERS

Gianluigi Gelmetti

CHIEF CONDUCTOR AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

THE SYDNEY SYMPHONY


Founded in 1932, the Sydney Symphonyhas evolved into one of the world’s finestorchestras as Sydney has become one ofthe world’s great cities. Resident at theiconic Sydney Opera House where theSydney Symphony gives more than 100performances each year, the Orchestra alsoperforms concerts in a variety of venuesaround Sydney and regional New SouthWales. International tours to Europe, Asiaand the USA have earned the Orchestraworld-wide recognition for artisticexcellence.

Critical to the success of the SydneySymphony has been the leadership given by its former Chief Conductors including:Sir Eugene Goossens, Nikolai Malko,Dean Dixon, Willem van Otterloo, LouisFrémaux, Sir Charles Mackerras, Stuart

Challender and Edo de Waart. Alsocontributing to the outstanding success of the Orchestra have been collaborationswith legendary figures such as GeorgeSzell, Sir Thomas Beecham, OttoKlemperer and Igor Stravinsky.

Maestro Gianluigi Gelmetti, whoseappointment followed a ten yearrelationship with the Orchestra as GuestConductor, is now in his fourth year asChief Conductor and Artistic Director ofthe Sydney Symphony, a position he holdsin tandem with that of Music Director at the prestigious Rome Opera.

The Sydney Symphony is reaping therewards of Maestro Gelmetti’s directorshipthrough the quality of sound, intensityof playing and flexibility between styles. His particularly strong rapport withFrench and German repertoire iscomplemented by his innovativeprogramming in the Shock of the New concerts and performances ofcontemporary Australian music.

The Sydney Symphony’s award-winningEducation Program is central to theOrchestra’s commitment to the future of live symphonic music, developingaudiences and engaging the participationof young people. The Sydney Symphonymaintains an active commissioningprogram promoting the work of Australiancomposers and in 2005 Liza Lim wasappointed Composer-in-Residence forthree years.

In 2007, the Orchestra celebrates its 75th anniversary and the milestoneachievements during its distinguishedhistory.

JOH

N M

AR

MA

RA

S

PATRON Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AO, Governor of New South Wales


MUSICIANS

01First Violins

02 03 04 05 06 07

08 09 10 11 12

01Second Violins

02 03 04 05 06 07

08 09 10 11 12 13

First Violins

01 Kirsten WilliamsAssociate Concertmaster

02 Fiona ZieglerIan & Jennifer Burton Chair of Assistant Concertmaster

03 Julie Batty04 Gu Chen05 Amber Davis06 Rosalind Horton07 Jennifer Hoy08 Jennifer Johnson09 Georges Lentz10 Nicola Lewis11 Alexandra Mitchell

Moon Design Chair of Violin

12 Léone ZieglerSophie Cole

Second Violins

01 Marina MarsdenPrincipal

02 Susan DobbieAssociate Principal

03 Emma WestAssistant Principal

04 Pieter Bersée05 Maria Durek06 Emma Hayes07 Shuti Huang08 Stan Kornel09 Benjamin Li10 Nicole Masters11 Philippa Paige12 Biyana Rozenblit13 Maja Verunica

Guest Musicians

Emily QinFirst Violin #

Victoria JaconoFirst Violin †

Emily LongSecond Violin #

Thomas DethlefsSecond Violin #

Jennifer CurlViola #

Jacqueline CroninViola #

Joanna TobinViola †

Nicholas MetcalfCelloJanine RyanCello

JosephineConstantinoCello

Jonathan WebbCello

Sally MaerCello

Jennifer DrueryDouble Bass #

Lauren BrandonDouble Bass

Maxime BibeauDouble Bass*

Lamorna NightingaleFlute

James KortumFlute

Ngaire de KorteOboe

Huw JonesOboe

Jodie UptonClarinet †

Tamasin MellerBassoon

Anton SchroederHorn

Lisa Wynne-AllenHorn

# Contract musician† Fellowship holder* Courtesy of Australian

Chamber Orchestra

Gianluigi GelmettiChief Conductor andArtistic Director

Michael DauthChair of Concertmastersupported by the SydneySymphony Board and Council

Dene OldingChair of Concertmastersupported by the SydneySymphony Board and Council


07Cellos

08 09 10 11 01 07

01Violas

02 03 04 05 06

03 04 05 06 07 08 09

01Double Basses

02 03 04 05 06 07

08Harp

01Flutes

02 03Piccolo

MUSICIANS

Violas

01 Roger BenedictPrincipal

02 Anne Louise ComerfordAssociate Principal

03 Yvette GoodchildAssistant Principal

04 Robyn Brookfield05 Sandro Costantino06 Jane Hazelwood07 Graham Hennings08 Mary McVarish09 Justine Marsden10 Leonid Volovelsky11 Felicity Wyithe

Cellos

01 Catherine Hewgill Principal

02 Nathan Waks Principal

03 Kristy Conrau04 Fenella Gill05 Leah Lynn06 Timothy Nankervis07 Elizabeth Neville08 Adrian Wallis09 David Wickham

Double Basses

01 Kees BoersmaBrian and Rosemary White Chair of Principal Double Bass

02 Alex HeneryPrincipal

03 Andrew RacitiAssociate Principal

04 Neil BrawleyPrincipal Emeritus

05 David Campbell06 Steven Larson07 Richard Lynn08 David Murray

Harp

Louise JohnsonMulpha Australia Chair of Principal Harp

Flutes

01 Janet Webb Principal

02 Emma ShollMr Harcourt Gough Chair of Associate Principal Flute

03 Carolyn Harris

Piccolo

Rosamund PlummerPrincipal


Cor Anglais Clarinets Bass Clarinet

Oboes

01 Diana Doherty Andrew Kaldor and Renata Kaldor AO Chair of Principal Oboe

02 Shefali PryorAssociate Principal

Cor Anglais

Alexandre OgueyPrincipal

Clarinets

01 Lawrence Dobell Principal

02 Francesco CelataAssociate Principal

03 Christopher Tingay

Bass Clarinet

Craig WernickePrincipal

Bassoons

01 Matthew WilkiePrincipal

02 Roger BrookeAssociate Principal

03 Fiona McNamara

Contrabassoon

01 Noriko ShimadaPrincipal

Horns

01 Robert JohnsonPrincipal

02 Ben JacksPrincipal

03 Geoff O’ReillyPrincipal 3rd

04 Lee Bracegirdle05 Marnie Sebire

Trumpets

01 Daniel Mendelow Principal

02 Paul Goodchild Associate Principal

03 John Foster04 Anthony Heinrichs

Trombone

01 Ronald PrussingNSW Department of State and Regional Development Chair of Principal Trombone

02 Scott KinmontAssociate Principal

03 Nick ByrneRogen International Chair of Trombone

Bass Trombone

Christopher Harris Trust Foundation Chair of Principal Bass Trombone

Tuba

Steve RosséPrincipal

Timpani

01 Richard MillerPrincipal

02 Brian NixonAssistant Principal Timpani (contract)

Percussion

01 Rebecca LagosPrincipal

02 Colin Piper

Piano

Josephine AllanPrincipal (contract)

01Bassoons Contrabassoon Horns

02 03 01 02

01Oboes

02 01 02 03

03 04 05 01Trumpets

02 03 04

01Trombones

02 03Bass Trombone Tuba

01Timpani

02

01Percussion

02Piano

MUSICIANS

The Company is assisted by the NSW Government through Arts NSW

SALUTE


PRINCIPAL PARTNER

PLATINUM PARTNER MAJOR PARTNERS

GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

GOLD PARTNERS


The Sydney Symphony applauds the leadership role our Partners play and their commitment to excellence,innovation and creativity.

SILVER PARTNERS

REGIONAL TOUR PARTNERS

BRONZE PARTNERS MARKETING PARTNERS PATRONS

Mt Arthur CoalIllawarra Coal

Australia PostBeyond TechnologyBimbadgen Estate WinesGoldman Sachs JBWereJ. Boag & SonQ-Med (Sweden) Australia Pty Ltd.Vittoria Coffee

Avant CardBlue Arc GroupDigital EskimoLindsay Yates and Partners2MBS 102.5 –Sydney’s Fine Music Station

The Sydney Symphony gratefullyacknowledges the many musiclovers who contribute to theOrchestra by becoming SymphonyPatrons. Every donation plays animportant part in the success of theSydney Symphony’s wide rangingprograms.

A leadership program which linksAustralia’s top performers in theexecutive and musical worlds.For information about the Directors’Chairs program, please contactCorporate Relations on (02) 8215 4614.


01 02 03 04 05 06

07 08 09 10 11

DIRECTORS’ CHAIRS

01Alan Jones, Managing Director Mulpha Australia withMulpha Australia Chair ofPrincipal Harp, Louise Johnson

02Mr Harcourt Gough Chair ofAssociate Principal Flute, Emma Sholl

03Sandra and Paul Salteri Chair ofArtistic Director Education,Richard Gill OAM

04Jonathan Sweeney, Managing Director Trust withTrust Foundation Chair ofPrincipal Bass Trombone, Christopher Harris

05NSW Department of State and Regional Development Chair of Principal Trombone,Ronald Prussing

06Brian and Rosemary White Chair of Principal Double Bass,Kees Boersma

07Board and Council of theSydney Symphony supportsChairs of Concertmaster Michael Dauth and Dene Olding

08Gerald Tapper, Managing Director Rogen International withRogen International Chair of Trombone, Nick Byrne

09Stuart O’Brien, ManagingDirector Moon Design with Moon Design Chair of Violin,Alexandra Mitchell

10Ian and Jennifer Burton Chair of Assistant Concertmaster,Fiona Ziegler

11Andrew Kaldor and Renata Kaldor AO Chair ofPrincipal Oboe, Diana Doherty

Mr and Mrs David FeethamMr Richard & Mrs Diana FisherRev H & Mrs M Herbert ° *Ms Michelle Hilton-VernonMr and Mrs Paul HoltMr Eric C Howie °Mr & Mrs P Huthnance °Ms Judy JoyeMrs Jeannette King ° *Mrs J Lam-Po-Tang °Dr Barry LandaMrs Joan Langley °Ms Jan Lee Martin & Mr PeterLazar §

Mr David & Mrs Skye LeckieMargaret Lederman °Mr Ezzelino Leonardi §Erna & Gerry Levy AM *Mr and Mrs S C Lloyd °Mr Andrew & Mrs Amanda LoveMr Matthew McInnes §Mr Tony and Mrs Fran MeagherMr Andrew NobbsMoon DesignMrs R H O’ConorMs Patricia Payn §Mr Adrian & Mrs Dairneen Pilton

Mr and Mrs Michael PottsMrs B Raghavan °Mrs Caroline RalphsmithDr K D Reeve AM *Mr & Mrs A Rogers °Dr Jane & Mr Neville Rowden §Mrs Margaret SammutIn memory of H. St.P Scarlett ° *Blue Mountain Concert Society Inc °

Mr Ezekiel SolomonMr Andrew & Mrs Isolde TornyaMiss Amelia TrottMrs Merle Turkington °The Hon M. Turnbull MP and Mrs L. Hughes Turnbull

Mr & Mrs Franc VaccherRonald Walledge °Mr Brian & Mrs Rosemary WhiteMr Geoff Wood and Ms Melissa Waites

Miss Jenny WuMr Michael Skinner and Ms Sandra Yates AO

Anonymous (12)

PLAYING YOUR PART


Maestri

Brian Abel and the late Ben Gannon AO °

Geoff & Vicki Ainsworth *Mr Robert O Albert AO *‡Alan & Christine Bishop ° §Sandra and Neil Burns *Mr Ian & Mrs Jennifer Burton °The Clitheroe Foundation *Patricia M. Dixson *Penny Edwards ° *Mr J O Fairfax AO *Dr Bruno and Mrs RhondaGiuffre *

Mr Harcourt Gough §Mr David Greatorex AO & Mrs Deirdre Greatorex §

Mr Andrew Kaldor & Mrs Renata Kaldor AO §

H. Kallinikos Pty Ltd §Mr David Maloney §Mr B G O’Conor §The Paramor Family * Anonymous (1) *

Virtuosi

Mrs Antoinette Albert §Mr Robert & Mrs L Alison Carr §Mr John C Conde AO §Mr John Curtis §Irwin Imhof in Memory of Herta Imhof °‡

Mr Stephen Johns §Mr & Mrs Gilles T Kryger ° §Helen Lynch AM °Mr E J Merewether & Mrs T Merewether OAM *

Miss Rosemary Pryor *Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation *John Roarty in memory of June Roarty

Rodney Rosenblum AM & Sylvia Rosenblum §

Mrs Helen Selle §Dr James Smith §David Smithers AM and family §Michael & Mary Whelan Trust §Anonymous (2) §

Soli

Ms Jan Bowen *Mr Chum Darvall §Ian Dickson & Reg Holloway *Hilmer Family Trust §Mr Paul Hotz ° §Mr Rory JeffesPaul Lancaster & RaemaProwse ° §

Mrs Joan MacKenzie §Mr James & Mrs Elsie Moore °Ms Kathleen ParerMs Gabrielle TrainorMr R Wingate §Anonymous (2) §

Tutti

Mr C R Adamson ° §Mr Henry W Aram §Mr David Barnes °Mrs F M Buckle °Debby Cramer & Bill Caukill °Mr Bob & Mrs Julie Clampett §Mr & Mrs J B Fairfax AM §Mr Ian Fenwicke & Prof Neville Wills §

Mrs Dorit & Mr WilliamFranken ° §

Mr & Mrs J R W Furber §Mr Arshak & Ms SophieGalstaun §

In Memory of Hetty Gordon §Mrs Akiko Gregory §Miss Janette Hamilton °‡Mr A and Mrs L Heyko-Porebski °

Dr Paul Hutchins & Ms Margaret Moore °

Mrs Margaret JackMr John W Kaldor AM §Mr and Mrs E Katz §Mr Andrew Korda & Ms Susan Pearson §

Mr Justin Lam §Mr Gary Linnane §Ms Karen Loblay §Mr & Mrs R. Maple-Brown §Mrs Alexandra Martin & theLate Mr Lloyd Martin AM §

Justice Jane Mathews §Mrs Mora Maxwell ° §Judith McKernan °Mrs Barbara McNulty OBE °

Mr and Mrs John MorschelMr R A Oppen §Mr Robert Orrell §Dr Timothy Pascoe §Ms Robin Potter §Mr Nigel Price §Mr and Mrs Ernest Rapee §Mrs Patricia H Reid °Mr Brian Russell and Ms IrinaSingleman

Gordon & JacquelineSamuels ° §

Ms Juliana Schaeffer §Robyn Smiles §Derek & Patricia Smith §Catherine Stephen °Mr Fred & Mrs Dorothy Street §Mr Georges & Mrs MarlieseTeitler §

Mr Stephen ThatcherMr Ken Tribe AC & Mrs JoanTribe °

Mr John E Tuckey °Mrs Kathleen Tutton °Ms Mary Vallentine AO §Henry & Ruth Weinberg §Mr and Mrs Bruce WestJill Wran §Mrs R Yabsley °Anonymous (10) §

Supporters over $500

Mr Roger Allen & Ms MaggieGray

Mr Lachlan AstleJohn Augustus °Mr Warwick Bailey §Mr Marco Belgiorno-Zegna AM

Mr G D Bolton °Pat & Jenny Burnett °Hon. Justice J.C. & MrsCampbell *

Mr & Mrs Michel-Henri Carriol °Mrs B E Cary §Mr Leo Christie and Ms MarionBorgelt

Mr Peter CoatesMr B & Mrs M Coles §Mrs Catherine GaskinCornberg §

Stan & Mary Costigan *Mrs M A Coventry °Ms Rowena Danziger °Mr & Mrs Michael DarlingLisa & Miro Davis *Mrs Patricia Davis §Mrs Ashley Dawson-DamerMr Paul Espie °Mr Russell Farr

Patron Annual

Donations Levels

Maestri $10,000 and above Virtuosi $5000 to $9999 Soli $2500 to $4999 Tutti $1000 to $2499 Supporters $500 to $999

To discuss givingopportunities, please callCaroline Mark on (02) 8215 4619.

° Allegro Program supporter* Emerging Artist Fund supporter‡ Stuart Challender Fund supporter§ Orchestra Fund supporter

The Sydney Symphony gratefully acknowledges the music lovers who donate to the Orchestra each year. Every gift plays an important part in ensuring ourcontinued artistic excellence and helping to sustain important education andregional touring programs. Because we are now offering free programs andspace is limited we are unable to list donors who give between $100 and $499 –please visit sydneysymphony.com for a list of all our patrons.


Sydney Symphony Board

BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAIRMAN

David Maloney

Libby Christie John Conde AO

John CurtisStephen JohnsAndrew KaldorGoetz RichterDavid Smithers AM

Gabrielle Trainor

What’s on the cover?During the 2007 season Sydney Symphony program covers willfeature photos that celebrate the Orchestra’s history over thepast 75 years. The photographs on the covers will changeapproximately once a month, and if you subscribe to one of ourconcert series you will be able to collect a set over the course ofthe year. Foyer displays at our concerts will also featurephotographs from our recent and early history.

COVER PHOTOGRAPHS (clockwise from top left): Christopher Harris (Principal Bass Trombone); Michael Dauth (Concertmaster)and Goetz Richter (former Associate Concertmaster), 2002; Gianluigi Gelmetti(Chief Conductor and Artistic Director); patrons at a reception in 1965, probablyduring the Tokyo tour; Stuart Challender and the SSO at the United NationsGeneral Assembly building during the 1988 USA tour; Her Majesty QueenElizabeth II and Willem van Otterloo, 1973.


Sydney Symphony Staff

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Libby Christie

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

Deborah Byers

ARTISTIC OPERATIONS

DIRECTOR OF ARTISTIC OPERATIONS

Wolfgang Fink

Artistic Administration

ARTISTIC ADMINISTRATION MANAGER

Raff Wilson

ARTIST LIAISON

Ilmar Leetberg

PERSONAL ASSISTANT TO THE

CHIEF CONDUCTOR

Lisa Davies-Galli

Education Programs

EDUCATION MANAGER

Margaret Moore

EDUCATION CO-ORDINATOR

Bernie Heard

Library

LIBRARIAN

Anna Cernik

LIBRARY ASSISTANT

Victoria Grant

LIBRARY ASSISTANT

Mary-Ann Mead

DEVELOPMENT

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

Rory Jeffes

CORPORATE RELATIONS MANAGER

Leann Meiers

CORPORATE RELATIONS EXECUTIVE

Alan Watt

CORPORATE RELATIONS EXECUTIVE

Julia Owens

PATRONS AND EVENTS MANAGER

Caroline Mark

MARKETING AND

CUSTOMER RELATIONS

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND

CUSTOMER RELATIONS

Julian Boram

Publicity

PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER

Imogen Corlette

PUBLICIST

Yvonne Zammit

Customer Relationship

Management

MARKETING MANAGER – CRM

Aaron Curran

ONLINE & PUBLICATIONS MANAGER

Robert Murray

DATABASE ANALYST

Martin Keen

Marketing Communications

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

MANAGER

Georgia Rivers

MULTICULTURAL MARKETING

MANAGER

Xing Jin

ASSISTANT MARKETING MANAGER

Simon Crossley-Meates

CONCERT PROGRAM EDITOR

Yvonne Frindle

Corporate & Tourism

CORPORATE & TOURISM SALES

MANAGER

Georgina Gonczi

Box Office

BOX OFFICE MANAGER

Lynn McLaughlin

BOX OFFICE COORDINATOR

Anna Fraser

CUSTOMER SERVICE

REPRESENTATIVES

Wendy AugustineMatthew D’SilvaMichael Dowling

ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT

DIRECTOR OF ORCHESTRA

MANAGEMENT

Aernout Kerbert

ACTING DEPUTY ORCHESTRA

MANAGER

Greg Low

ORCHESTRAL ASSISTANT

Angela Chilcott

OPERATIONS MANAGER

John Glenn

TECHNICAL MANAGER

Derek Coutts

PRODUCTION CO-ORDINATOR

Tim Dayman

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Ian Spence

STAGE MANAGER

Marrianne Carter

COMMERCIAL PROGRAMS

DIRECTOR OF COMMERCIAL

PROGRAMMING

Baz Archer

BUSINESS SERVICES

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE

Teresa Cahill

FINANCE MANAGER

Anthony Rosenthal

OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR

Shelley Salmon

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

MANAGER

Tim Graham

PAYROLL AND ACCOUNTS

PAYABLE OFFICER

Caroline Hall

HUMAN RESOURCES

Helen Kidston

This publication is sold subject to the condition that itshall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold,hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’sconsent in writing. It is a further condition that thispublication shall not be circulated in any form of bindingor cover other than that in which it was published.

This is a / SHOWBILL publication.

Publisher

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1017 Pacific Highway, Pymble, NSW 2073 Telephone: (02) 9449 6433 Fax: (02) 9449 6053 E-mail: [email protected]: www.playbill.com.au

EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND ADVERTISEMENT DIRECTOR Brian Nebenzahl OAM, RFD

MANAGING DIRECTOR Michael Nebenzahl

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jocelyn Nebenzahl

DIRECTOR–PRODUCTION Chris Breeze

NEW ZEALAND MANAGER Ngaire Stent

Melbourne Office:

C/- Moore Stephens HF, 14th Floor, 607 Bourke Street,Melbourne VIC 3000; (61 3) 9614 4444, Fax (61 3) 9629 5716.

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C/- HBM Heiser Bayly Mortensen Lawyers, Level 4Toowong Tower, 9 Sherwood Road, Toowong QLD 4066; (61 7) 3371 1066, Fax (61 7) 3371 7803.

Adelaide Office:

Playbill Pty Limited, Adelaide Convention Centre, GPO Box 2669, North Terrace SA 5001; Mobile (61) 419 244 425, Fax (61 8) 8231 3681.

Perth Office:

C/- Ernst & Young, 11 Mounts Bay Road, Perth WA 6000; GPO Box M939 Perth WA 6843; (61 8) 9429 2222, Fax (61 8) 9429 2436.

Hobart Office:

C/- Page Seager, 162 Macquarie Street, Hobart TAS 7000;(61 3) 6235 5155, Fax (61 3) 6231 0352.

Darwin Office:

C/- Ernst & Young, 9-11 Cavanagh Street, Darwin NT 0800;(61 8) 8943 4200, Fax (61 8) 8943 4290.

OVERSEAS OPERATIONS

New Zealand Registered Office:

Playbill (N.Z.) Limited, Level 5, 94 Dixon Street, PO Box 11-755, Wellington, New Zealand; (64 4) 385 8893,Fax (64 4) 385 8899.

Auckland Office:

Mt. Smart Stadium, Beasley Avenue, Penrose, Auckland; (64 9) 571 1607, Fax (64 9) 571 1608, Mobile 6421 741 148, Email: [email protected]

London Office:

Playbill UK Limited, C/- Everett Baldwin Barclay Consultancy Services, 35 Paul Street, London EC2A 4UQ;(44) 207 628 0857, Fax (44) 207 628 7253.

Hong Kong Office:

Playbill (HK) Limited, C/- Fanny Lai, Rm 804, 8/F Eastern Commercial Centre, 397 Hennessey Road, Wanchai HK 168001 WCH 38; (852) 2891 6799; Fax (852) 2891 1618.

Malaysia Office:

Playbill (Malaysia) Sdn Bhn, C/- Peter I.M. Chieng & Co.,No.2-E (1st Floor) Jalan SS 22/25, Damansara Jaya, 47400Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan; (60 3) 7728 5889; Fax (60 3) 7729 5998.

Singapore Office:

Playbill (HK) Limited, C/- HLB Loke Lum Consultants Pte Ltd, 110 Middle Road #05-00 Chiat Hong Building,Singapore 188968; (65) 6332 0088; Fax (65) 6333 9690.

South Africa:

Playbill South Africa Pty Ltd, C/- HLB Barnett Chown Inc.,Bradford House, 12 Bradford Road, Bedfordview, SA 2007;(27) 11856 5300, Fax (27) 11856 5333.

All enquiries for advertising space in this publicationshould be directed to the above company and address. Entire concept copyright. Reproduction withoutpermission in whole or in part of any material containedherein is prohibited. Title ‘Playbill’ is the registered title of Playbill Proprietary Limited. Title ‘Showbill’ is theregistered title of Showbill Proprietary Limited. Additional copies of this publication are available by postfrom the publisher; please write for details.

14710 – 1/280207 – 03 S7/9

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE TRUST

Mr Kim Williams AM (Chair)Mr John BallardMr Wesley EnochMs Renata Kaldor AO

Ms Jacqueline Kott Mr Robert Leece AM

Ms Sue Nattrass AO

Mr Leo Schofield AM

Ms Barbara WardMr Evan Williams AM

EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT

CHIEF EXECUTIVENorman Gillespie

DIRECTOR, FACILITIESPaul Akhurst

DIRECTOR, FINANCE & SYSTEMSDavid Antaw

DIRECTOR, MARKETING & DEVELOPMENTNaomi Grabel

DIRECTOR, PERFORMING ARTSRachel Healy

DIRECTOR, PEOPLE & CULTUREJoe Horacek

DIRECTOR, INFORMATION SYSTEMSClaire Swaffield

DIRECTOR, TOURISM & VISITOR OPERATIONSMaria Sykes

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

Bennelong PointGPO Box 4274Sydney NSW 2001

Administration (02) 9250 7111Box Office (02) 9250 7777Facsimile (02) 9250 7666Website sydneyoperahouse.com

SYMPHONY SERVICES

AUSTRALIA LIMITED

Suite 3, Level 2, 561 Harris StreetUltimo NSW 2007GPO Box 9994, Sydney NSW 2001

Telephone (02) 8333 1651Facsimile (02) 8333 1678

www.symphony.net.au

Level 9, 35 Pitt StreetSydney NSW 2000GPO Box 4972, Sydney NSW 2001Telephone (02) 8215 4644Facsimile (02) 8215 4646

Customer Services:GPO Box 4338, Sydney NSW 2001Telephone (02) 8215 4600Facsimile (02) 8215 4660

www.sydneysymphony.com

All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the editor, publisher or any distributor of the programs. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of statements in this publication, we cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, or for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors. Every effort has been made to secure permission for copyright material prior to printing. Please address all correspondence to the Concert Program Editor, Sydney Symphony, GPO Box 4972, Sydney NSW 2001. Fax (02) 8215 4660. Email [email protected]

SYDNEYOPERA HOUSE

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