2013 - 2014 Season

Concert 116 November 2013

Musical Director: Mark Fitz-Gerald Leader: Tessa WelfordSoloist: Ruth Kerr (Soprano)

www.farnboroughsymphony.org.uk

FARNBOROUGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Musical Director: Mark Fitz-GeraldLeader: Tessa WelfordSoloist: Ruth Kerr (Soprano)

Saturday 16 November 2013, 7.45pm

VERDI Overture ‘Nabucco’

Aida aria ‘Ritorna Vincitor’

Otello - Ballet

WAGNER Tristan und Isolde - Prelude and Liebestod

* INTERVAL *

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 12 in D Minor‘The Year of 1917’ Op. 112

The bar will be open after the performance

The Chairman writes…

Welcome to the opening concert of our 92nd season, which we are confident promises to whet the appetite of audience members of all persuasions. For lovers of dramatic 20th Century music, this evening we will be encountering the remarkable 12th Symphony of Shostakovich, a programmatic work of large proportions which I hope Tom Burton’s notes will help you to appreciate to the full. 2013 is the 200th anniversary of the births of both Verdi and Wagner and I hope that those of you whose musical taste tends towards the more traditional will revel in Verdi’s captivating melodies which open proceedings this evening. Ruth Kerr, our soprano soloist, is singing with us for the first time but I know we are in for a treat. A colleague heard her performing the title role in Kentish Opera’s performance of Aida and assured me that we had made an excellent choice of soloist!

Later in the season we will return to Farnham Maltings to perform another live orchestral accompaniment to a silent film. Our performance of The General two years ago was so popular and gave rise to such positive feedback that we felt compelled to do it again. This time the film is the work of the master of the genre, Charlie Chaplin, and we can’t wait to perform his captivating score. We will also welcome back Melina Mandozzi who is no stranger to the FSO having performed with us in 2007 and 2009, but it is a huge pleasure to have her back to play Sibelius’ virtuosic Violin Concerto.

Our final concert of the season promises to be a spectacular occasion with Holst’s The Planets as its centre-piece. The FSO will be inviting in many guest players to meet the challenges of the expansive orchestration so don’t miss hearing the largest FSO for many years! If I have tempted you with the musical excitement of this season, why not become a season ticket holder which gives you entry to all four concerts for the price of three. You can even upgrade this evening’s ticket for a season ticket if you have been inspired! Furthermore, if there are musical gems you’d like the FSO perform in the future, perhaps you’d like to email your suggestions to feedback@farnboroughsymphony.org.uk.

Having enthused at length about the works we are performing this season, it would be wrong to close without thanking the Sponsors and Patrons, without whom none of this would be possible. It is only through the generous support of these organisations and individuals that we can perform such ambitious works and use professional venues. We are deeply indebted to them for the part they play in keeping live orchestral performance alive in this area. So, as you settle down to the opening bars of Nabucco, I hope you will enjoy the orchestra’s performance tonight and that we will have the pleasure of your company throughout the season.

Peter BirkettChairman, FSO

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)Overture ‘Nabucco’Aida Aria ‘Ritorna Vincitor’Otello - Ballet

Overture ‘Nabucco’Following a long apprenticeship in the provincial towns of Italy, Giuseppe Verdi first experienced operatic success 10 1839 with the production of Oberto at La Scala, Milan. A commission for three more operas followed. However, tragedy struck; having already lost his two children, he was forced to endure the illness and death of his beloved wife, Margherita in July 1840. Despite the composer’s emotional devastation, La Scala demanded that the commission of a comic opera for the autumn season be fulfilled. Not surprisingly, the ensuing work was not a success and was withdrawn after one performance; Verdi vowed to never compose music again.

Despite his vow, Verdi felt compelled to set to music the dramatic conflict of the Hebrew slaves and their Babylonian captors. Nabucco retells the biblical story of the slavery and eventual exile of the Jews under King Nebuchadnezzar. In spite of the

dark story, the score is full of memorable melodies. In fact, one of Verdi’s most popular is the Act III chorus “Va pensiero”, in which the Hebrew slaves sing wistfully of their lost homeland. Over the course of the 19th century, the tune came to be a popular anthem of the Italian Risorgimento, the political movement that pushed out foreign powers and unified the Italian peninsula as a single kingdom.

The overture, written at the last moment, is a dramatic assortment of themes taken from the opera, primarily choruses and motifs trumpeting military exercises to come. Verdi’s stroke of genius, however, is the opening chorale on the lower brass, vividly symbolising the steadfastness of the Hebrews in the face of Babylonian persecution.

Aida Aria ‘Ritorna Vincitor’Composed at the time of the opening of the Suez Canal, Aida tells the story of the eponymous daughter of an Ethiopian king who is captured and enslaved to the Pharaoh’s daughter, Amneris. The Egyptian army general, Radames, loves Aida but is loved by Amneris, and having returned triumphant from battle against the advancing Ethiopians is rewarded with the unwelcome hand of Amneris in marriage. Radames spurns Amneris and secretly agrees to escape with Aida but is caught and condemned to death for his betrayal; his punishment is to be buried alive. Unbeknownst to him, Aida has hidden herself in the vault and they die in each other’s arms.

The aria ‘Ritorna Vincito’ (Return a Conqueror) closes the first scene of Act I after Radames has been chosen as the general to fight the Ethiopians. Alone in the hall, Aida sings of being torn between her love for her father, her country, and Radames.

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Otello - BalletAfter the completion of Aida in December 1871, Verdi decided it was time for him to end his successful career as a composer of opera (much as Rossini had done after the completion of William Tell) though he was easily the most popular, and possibly wealthiest, composer in Italy at the time. His publisher, Giulio Ricordi, frustrated at this obvious waste of talent (not to mention profits), hatched a plot to coax the great composer out of retirement. Knowing the key to success lay in the quality of the libretto, Ricordi repeatedly pitched ideas to Verdi, only for them to be rejected. Finally, Ricordi came up with the idea of a collaboration with the librettist Arrigo Boito and, in the knowledge that Verdi was a keen admirer of Shakespeare, proposed a new opera based on Othello; it was enough to gain Verdi’s favour.

The gestation of the opera was slow and meandering; a full 8 years elapsed before the premiere in 1887. Attempts to conceal the fact that the nation’s favourite composer had come out of retirement to write a new opera failed, and gossip about it abounded and the most illustrious conductors, singers and opera house managers clamoured for an opportunity to play a part in its production. Unsurprisingly the premiere was a resounding success, the public’s enthusiasm for Verdi indicated by the 20 curtain calls at its conclusion.

Ballet music was often composed as the accompaniment to Romantic operas of the day. In keeping with the unhurried writing of the opera itself, Verdi did not deliver the ballet until 7 years after the premiere, and this represented his last operatic composition. Originally included as part of the third act, it is rarely performed as part of the opera.

Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883)Tristan und Isolde - Prelude and Liebestod

The summer of 1857 was difficult for Wagner; hopes for the production of his Ring cycle were all but gone, and negotiations with his publishers were getting nowhere. He had no regular income, and no new work had been staged since the premiere of Lohengrin in 1850. Obviously, the time had come for something more likely to be produced than the four-opera Ring cycle. This he thought he had found in Tristan und Isolde.

Wagner’s move to the Zurich estate of his friends Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck spurred him to begin work on Tristan. Mathilde had become an ardent Wagner devotee following a concert performance of the Tannhäuser Overture led by the composer in 1851. At Mathilde’s urging, Wagner and his wife Minna were provided lodging on the Wesendonck estate. Here Wagner and Mathilde Wesendonck were drawn intimately to one another. The nature of their relationship isn’t known; Minna assumed the worst especially after intercepting a letter from Wagner to Mathilde in early April 1858, but there is no question that its intensity is felt in the music

written during that time. Wagner separated from Minna and left the lodgings 17th August 1858 taking up residence during the winter of 1858-59 in the Palazzo Giustiniani in Venice, where he composed the second act of Tristan.

This music is among the most powerful and emotionally manipulative ever written. Tristan und Isolde is about love repressed and unacknowledged, then helplessly and haplessly expressed, and fulfilled, after emotional torment, only through death. The Prelude is the musical expression of that unacknowledged love and the opening phrases recur during Wagner’s music drama when the love between Tristan and Isolde comes closest to surfacing and, finally, when Tristan dies. The opening bars are amongst the most studied of all classical repertoire containing, as they do, the “Tristan” chord, where the longing expressed in the opening bar resolves to a further dissonant chord. This, combined with the intense chromaticism that Wagner employs, represents the beginning of the move away from conventional harmony towards atonality. These characteristics endow the Prelude with a constant sense of instability and lack of resolution, perfectly reflecting the intense longing and doomed passion of the two protagonists in the action that follows.

When Tristan is staged, the Prelude dies away, leading after a moment of silence before the unaccompanied sailor’s song that opens the first scene; in the concert hall, as this evening, it is followed by Isolde’s Liebestod, which closes the opera. If the Prelude represents earth-bound passion, the Liebestod (love-death) is spiritual transfiguration. Here, Isolde literally wills herself out of existence - Tristan, her “death devoted” lover, having died in her arms just moments earlier. As in the Prelude, the music begins softly and builds, almost in a single breath, to a thunderous climax.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975)Symphony No.12 in D Minor‘The Year of 1917’ Op. 112

Shostakovich’s turbulent relationship with the Soviet state appeared to have reached rapprochement in 1960 when he finally became a member of the Communist Party. Although the composer was faced with no choice, particularly as by this point his fame was such that he was ripe for exploitation for propaganda purposes, Western observers were appalled at such an apparent volte-face. At the height of the Cold War in 1962, his Twelfth Symphony was first performed in the West at the Edinburgh Festival where critics were disgusted at what appeared so blatantly a crude piece of Soviet triumphalism. Indeed, it had been commissioned to celebrate Lenin’s victory in the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917, that iconic moment that pervaded Soviet culture and myth.

It was only in the wake of Shostakovich’s death, the thaw under President Gorbachev, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and new understanding of the true nature of the disturbing realities of the Soviet experiment

that Shostakovich was redeemed and lauded as a composer of great integrity and courage. More so, it became clear that he had baffled both the West and his homeland with the extraordinary skill that enabled him to seemingly give the authorities what they demanded but, at the same time, lacing his work with deeper meanings that spoke of his true feelings. Recent research has found that the symphony is interspersed with a series of musical codes, including cross-references to his earlier works and adaptations of folk songs. The clearest illustration of this is his use of a three-note phrase to represent Stalin, the Oppressor by his cyrillic initials spelt in music as he oppressed people.

i. Revolutionary PetrogradThe first movement is set in the revolutionary period in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) prior to the Revolution. After a doom-laden opening subject started by the cellos and basses, the pace quickens into a development section characterised by two-note phrases. A more fluid second subject full of hope enters but is drowned in a thundering climax: Shostakovich has thus announced, “This is Lenin, and this the People”. The remainder of the movement contains various echoes of previous works - the Eleventh Symphony (recalling the failed 1905 Liberal uprising), the Warsaw March, originally a Polish Revolutionary song, and the theme of betrayal from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. At the movement’s end, the “Lenin” theme is utterly dominant in heavy brass.

ii. Razliv (Lenin’s Retreat)The second movement switches focus to Lenin’s retreat, north of St. Petersburg, where he planned the October uprising. The “Lenin” theme on solo horn is brooding, while gradually the “People” break into his consciousness, all the while the tone is sombre, full of hidden menace. Shostakovich includes a brief quotation

of his early work, Funeral March for the Victims of the Revolution, a hugely ironic comment on Lenin’s “genius”, laying the guilt for the victims squarely at Lenin’s door. His “inspiration” theme finally emerges on solo trombone.

iii. AuroraThe following short movement is divided into two sections. The first adapts the “inspiration” theme on timpani and pizzicato strings as the plan is put into action, but all the while the atmosphere is full of tension. In the second part, over bass drum and crawling strings, the “People” rise up through deep brass in glorious crescendo. The shuddering climax represents the bombing of the Winter Palace by the battleship Aurora, dominated by violent percussion.

iv. The Dawn of HumanityThe Finale is one of Shostakovich’s boldest compositions and with the benefit of hindsight now appears an outrageous risk. Massed horns render the admittedly obscure Funeral March for the Victims of the Revolution as the first subject. Later, the “People” theme emerges for the first time

in the Finale but is soon drowned out by a martial “Lenin” theme, propelling the two into a swirling confrontation. The resulting coda evokes an utterly hollow victory, as Stalin’s own 3 note initials try to dominate the ending. The composer defiantly ends the symphony with the initial letter of his own name, Dimitri.

Shortly after the completion of the Twelfth Symphony Shostakovich’s health began to decline. His third marriage, to the much younger Irina Antonovna Supinskaya is said to have been a happy one and having found domestic peace, he went on to write a further three symphonies. However, he was eventually diagnosed with polio and began to suffer heart attacks.

Shostakovich died of lung cancer on 9th August 1975 having lived an extraordinary life - certainly one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, he remains one of the most controversial.

Programme notes by Tom Burton

FSO Friends & Patrons SchemeFarnborough Symphony Orchestra is very grateful to its supporters, in particular the Friends and Patrons without whom concerts such as this one tonight couldn’t be considered.

A number of patron packages are available with varying benefits ranging from complimentary programmes and reserved seats to season tickets.

If you would like more information regarding how you could become an FSO Friend or Patron please contact our Patrons Secretary Ali Wrighton on 01252 404788 or visit www.farnboroughsymphony.org.uk/support-the-fso

Mark Fitz-Gerald Musical Director

Mark Fitz-Gerald has enjoyed Shostakovich’s music since his student days but his fascination intensified follow a performance of Symphony No.12 with the London Schools Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in 1971 in which he played 1st bassoon. The work was only 9 years’ old and the composer still active as a symphonist.

Following his graduation from the Royal College of Music in 1977 where he won all the major prizes for both orchestral and operatic conducting, Mark attended the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte in Italy which has provided opportunities to work with various European ensembles. He is fortunate to have guest conducted orchestras including the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bayerische Rundfunk Orchester, Komische Oper Berlin, and BBC Symphony Orchestra. Mark has become well known for specialising in the performance of opera and silent film music as well as the usual orchestral repertoire.

Mark has devoted much of the past 30 years to researching and reconstructing works by Shostakovich and this has been one of the most significant aspects of his career. He was one of the first conductors to perform Shostakovich‘s 12th Symphony in West Berlin where the programme also included Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The juxtaposition of this programme with the political climate of the time was not lost on the press and public and would have been appreciated by Shostakovich himself.

The Basel Sinfonietta invited Mark to conduct his first silent film New Babylon in early 1989, the original score was considered ‘lost’ at that time - it took over 20 years to solve the riddle. The fall of the Iron Curtain in November 1989 led to greater access to original scores and transcripts after some years, many of which were found languishing in Russian libraries. Recent reconstructions include film scores for Odna and New Babylon. His visit to the Polish composer and pupil, as well as biographer, of Shostakovich, Krzysztof Meyer for advice on the reconstruction of Odna led to a chance meeting with the late composer’s wife Irina Antonovna. Following the restoration of Odna, Mrs Shostakovich invited Mark to work on, and do more premiere recordings of, other works including Symphonic Movement (1945) and Podrugi (The Girlfriends); the recordings were released by Naxos in 2009 to critical acclaim.

Mark is currently putting in order 3 other slightly incomplete scores of incidental theatrical works for both recording and performance, hopefully in time for 2015, not only Irina Antonovna’s 80th birthday, but also the 40th anniversary of the composer’s death.

‘‘

‘‘One of the indispensable Shostakovich interpreters of our time

Naxos Recording of the Month Nov 2011

Ruth Kerr Soprano

Ruth Kerr studied music at Cambridge University, where she held choral and instrumental scholarships, and singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

She began her career as a chorister with many of the UK’s leading professional choirs including Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and has since gone on to perform many lead operatic roles throughout the UK and in Europe, including Mimi (La Boheme), Violetta (La traviata), Tosca, Gilda (Rigoletto), Aida, Madame Butterfly, Susanna (Marriage of Figaro) and Tatyana (Eugene Onegin). She also regularly performs Monserrrat Caballe’s role in the classic song “Barcelona” throughout Europe with the unparalleled tribute band “One Night of Queen” (giving her an intriguing insight into the world of Rock music!).

Ruth combines a busy performing career with teaching singing, conducting, piano accompanying and examining for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.

Recent and future plans include a solo role in the World Premier of Stockhausen’s Mittwoch for Birmingham Opera; the title role in Aida for Kentish Opera; Mimi in La Boheme for New London Opera Players; Britten’s War Requiem and Peter Grimes in London and China, and concerts with Watford Philharmonic and the Sevenoaks Philharmonic Choir.

THE ORCHESTRA

Violin 1Tessa WelfordDavid WhitePenny CantwellKim DyosRosemary HeasmanBeverley Hull David NashVivienne TaylorElspeth ToddSimon WaddingtonRuth WheelerAli Wrighton

Violin 2Julian MartinHelen BeeversTom BeckettPeter BirkettKaren BurgessJane HunterSuzanne KingNatalie LethbridgeAbbie Royston

ViolaPhilip Thorne Douglas Hannah Carole JenkinsPaul NewboldRobert Tuson

CelloRobin ChaveLiz PreeceClive JacksonMarko Lopez de VicunaSarah OliverRobert Ravenhill

Double BassDavid BarnesBill AndrewsJane HealeyMalcolm HealeyPhil Johnson

HarpJanice Beven

Flute / Piccolo*Vivian BarberElaine Herbert*Barbara Sykes*

Oboe / Cor Anglais*Barry CollissonSally TombsKaty Warren*

Clarinet / Bass Clarinet*Shannon WagstaffKaren Petett*Louise Yeadon

Basson / Contrabasson*Paula BurtonMarion ThomasAndrew NorrisLindsay Dubery*

HornAlison Wyld Sarah NobleRoger Doulton Brian Taylor

Trumpet Roy FalshawChris WrightonTony Adie Trombone / Bass Trombone Mark CardyRob Croft Remus Sawyerr

Tuba & Cimbasso Chris Cosens

PercussionEdward ScullRalph WyldOliver PooleyJames LarterMike RareshideMolly Lopresti

For more information and online booking visit:

www.farnboroughsymphony.org.ukor contact our ticket secretary on 07582 345898

2013 - 2014 SeasonMusic Director: Mark Fitz-GeraldLeader: Tessa Welford

18 January 20147.45pm

Camberley Theatre

MendelssohnOverture ‘The Hebrides’ Op.26

SibeliusViolin Concerto Op.47

DvořákSymphony No. 5 Op. 76

Soloist:Melina Mandozzi (Violin)

22 March 20143pm & 7.45pm

Farnham Maltings

The CircusCharlie Chaplin (1928)

The Circus won Charles Chaplin his first Academy Award - it was still not yet called an “Oscar”.

Come and see the genius of this genre at work in this unmissable live screening!

The Circus © Roy Export S.A.S Music for The Circus Copyright © Roy Export Company Establishment and Bourne Co.All rights reserved

14 June 20147.45pm

Princes Hall, Aldershot

ChabrierEspaña

StraussTill Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche, Op.28

Holst‘The Planets’, Op. 32

Featuring Hart Voices and the Chantry Singers

PATRONSDr. & Mrs J DunhamMr & Mrs JBW EdwardsMr & Mrs D MackieMrs RJ PatmoreMr M PetersMr SW Preece (supporting Vivian Barber’s chair, Principal Flute)

Mr JH FalshawMrs HC Garner(supporting Philip Thorne’s chair, Principal Viola)

Mrs J Bryant(supporting Elspeth Todd’s chair, Violin 1) Mr L Chave(supporting Robin Chave’s chair, Principal Cello)

Mrs ML ChaveMr K MasonMr David Easter(supporting Beverley Hull’s chair, Violin 1) Mrs D Easter

HONORARY PATRONS Mr Mike FielderMr Simon Aartsen

SPONSORS

Official Sponsor of the FSO 2011-2014One of the largest independent regional firms of solicitors in Central Southern England. www.parissmith.co.uk

Official Sponsor of the FSO 2011-2013Europe’s leading private airport for business aviation. www.tagfarnborough.com

Sponsor of the 2012/13 SeasonOne of the world’s leading asset management and construction consultancies. www.curriebrown.com

Sponsor of the FSO websiteA small marketing consultancy based in Southampton. www.reactmarketing.co.uk

The orchestra gratefully acknowledges support from:

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Farnborough Symphony Orchestra is a registered charity number 293178

If you are interested in becoming a patron, please contact Ali Wrighton on 01252 404788.

www.farnboroughsymphony.org.uk