SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 5:00PMBRISBANE CITY HALL

2015 SEASON / METRO #4

CONCERTPROGRAMMENDELSSOHNOverture and Incidental Musicfrom'A Midsummer Night’s Dream'

Interval

WILLIAM WALTONSuite from 'Henry V'

STEPHEN WARBECKSuite from the motion picture'Shakespeare in Love'

TCHAIKOVSKYRomeo and Juliet "Fantasy"Overture

BRISBANEPHILHARMONICORCHESTRA

VIOLIN 1Cameron Hough*(Concertmaster)Yvette McKinnonEmma ErikssonNawres Al-FrehPeter NichollsDanielle LangstonKylie Hinde

VIOLIN 2Amy Phillips*Amanda LugtonLauren JonesAnna JenkinsRosie GibsonRyan SmithAilsa NicholsonSteph Williams

VIOLATim Butcher^Jenny WaandersKatrina GreenwoodAnna Jack

CELLOMathilde Vlieg^Edward BrackinChris ClurGabriel DumitruNicole KancachianCharmaine Lee

BASSSamuel Dickenson*Amelia GrimmerGlenn HollidayJack Clegg

PIANOLevi Hansen#

HARPJohn Connolly*

FLUTEJo Lagerlow**Jessica Sullivan**

PICCOLOCassie Slater^

OBOEGabrielle Knight*Kathleen Winter

COR ANGLAISAnton Rayner*

CLARINETDaniel Sullivan*Kendal Alderman BASSOONCarl Bryant*Sarah Johnson

HORNMelanie Taylor*Emma HoldenMarielle AllanJanelle Harding

TRUMPETChris Baldwin*Courtney Smith#

TROMBONEVilde Gaupholm#Chantelle Giles#

BASS TROMBONESean Mackenzie*

TUBAMichael Sterzinger*

PERCUSSIONKerry Vann*Jenny GribbinMichael Stegeman

*denotes principal**denotes co-principal^denotes acting principal#denotes guest performer

David Law is a passionate supporter of band and orchestral music inQueensland.

David studied Euphonium at the QueenslandUniversity of Technology and has beenplaying piano since the age of seven. He hasbeen President and Euphonium player withthe acclaimed Queensland Wind Orchestrasince its inception in 2004.

David has worked as Music Director,Conductor and Pianist with various musicaltheatre organisations throughout Brisbaneand has trained in Music Direction at themultiple-Tony Award©-winning GoodspeedMusical Theatre Institute in Connecticut,USA. He has conducted highly-praisedproductions of CATS, Into the Woods,Singin’ in the Rain, Bugsy Malone, ThePajama Game and My Fair Lady, and morerecently, has worked with Oscar TheatreCompany as Musical Director for theQueensland premieres of [title of show](Brisbane Powerhouse), Spring Awakeningand Next to Normal (QPAC).

In 2013, David was on the Music & Theatrefaculty at The Performance Workshop, atraining program for aspiring musical theatreperformers.

In addition to conducting the QueenslandWind Orchestra, 2015 is David’s seventh yearas the conductor of the Queensland YouthOrchestra Wind Ensemble. In addition toadjudicating at various national musiccompetitions and festivals, David’s regularconducting engagements also include theBrisbane Philharmonic Orchestra, Brisbane’sWestside Orchestra and various schoolhonour bands and workshops. He is currentlya pianist for the Brisbane cabaret groupBabushka, and the Head of PerformanceMusic at Redeemer Lutheran College wherehe directs a number of award-winning windbands, string orchestras and vocalensembles.

ConductorDAVID LAW

Tama is the director of Classic Productions Theatre Company inBrisbane, as well as Artistic Director of the Brisbane ShakespeareFestival.

His directing credits include Falstaff (OperGraz), The Love of the Nightingale (OperaAustralia); Amadeus (Classic Productions); AMidsummer Night’s Dream (GarnetProductions, Sydney); Henry V(Shakespeare on Oxford); A MidsummerNight’s Dream (Shakespeare on Oxford;Queensland Symphony Orchestra); MuchAdo About Nothing (Shakespeare onOxford); The Tempest (Classic Productions);A Christmas Carol (4MBS ChristmasFestival); The Night before Christmas (4MBSChristmas Festival); Prometheus Unbound(Classic Productions); Don Giovanni (4MBSMusic Festival); Tosca (4MBS MusicFestival); and Orpheus in the Underworld(Queensland Conservatorium).

He has worked with directors such as FrancoZeffirelli (I Pagliacci, Covent Garden), ElijahMoshinsky’s (Lohengrin, Covent Garden),and Ian Judge (Tannhäuser, Teatro Real,

Madrid; Der fliegende Holländer, MarkiinskyTheatre, St. Petersburg; The Mikado, D’OylyCarte, London).

His production of Amadeus last year wonBrisbane’s prestigious Matilda Award for BestProduction.

As an actor he has performed in Heartbeatand Eastenders, and played the roles ofRomeo and Lysander (British TouringShakespeare Co.), Ariel (The Tempest),Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s Dream),Mozart (Amadeus) – for which he received aMatilda Award nomination for Best Actor –Sgt. Troy (Far From the Madding Crowd),Henry V (Henry V), and Duke Ferdinand(Duchess of Malfi). Future actingengagements include Otto in Noël Coward’sDesign for Living, with the QueenslandTheatre Company.

ActorTAMA MATHESON

ABOUT THE ORCHESTRA

The Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO)is Brisbane’s leading community orchestra.The orchestra brings together up to 200musicians a year to play a variety of classicalorchestral music. Over 100 members of theincorporated association form the core of theorchestra. Other players perform as casualmusicians, but often join as full-timemembers after their first concert with BPO.The orchestra was founded on principles ofmusical excellence and development,communal participation, and organisationalprofessionalism.

Since its creation in 2000, the BPO hasbecome the community orchestra of choicefor over 500 musicians. It is eagerly soughtas a performance partner for touring choirs,festivals, and internationally acclaimedinstrumentalists and vocalists. The BPOperforms its own series of symphonyconcerts and participates in multiplecommunity and festival events throughoutthe year, attracting an audience of over2,500 people.

The orchestra’s main metropolitan concertseries includes four to five symphonyconcerts at Brisbane City Hall and the OldMuseum Concert Hall. Programs varybetween concerts featuring the great

classical, romantic, and 20th centurycomposers, light concerts including filmmusic, as well as concerts with programstargeted at a younger audience. Additionally,BPO performs one chamber music concert,featuring multiple smaller groups in a moreintimate setting.

The BPO maintains many communitypartnerships including with the QueenslandMusic Festival, 4MBS Festival of Classics,Brisbane City Council, and The BrisbaneAirport Corporation. These partnershipsprovide essential connections in artistic,educational, professional, and socialprograms and cater to the association’sincreased responsibility to culturally enhancelocalities and bring a diversity of peopletogether in a fast-paced, ever-impersonalglobal village. Unusually for a communityorchestra, entry to the BPO is by auditionand the ensemble is the only communityorchestra within the city that rotates guestconductors by invitation rather thanestablishing a permanent Music Director.Uniquely, this allows a variety of the finestlocal professional conductors to deliverdiverse and innovative programming toartistically stimulate members of theorchestra.

PROGRAM NOTES

Like Mozart, Mendelssohn was a childprodigy, performing assuredly on the pianoand violin and embarking on a prolific seriesof compositions - including several concerti,symphonies and an opera - by the time hewas 18. Two of these, the String Octet,written at only 16, and the Overture toMidsummer Night’s Dream, written when hewas just six months short of his 18thbirthday, are true masterpieces and sealedhis reputation as a serious composer.

The overture is one of the first examples of a‘concert overture’ - a work not (originally)intended to set the scene for a theatricalperformance, but instead a stand-alonepiece which evokes or describes a narrative.

It is a delightful and charming mixture ofClassical and Romantic musical ideas. Itsoverall structure is the strict sonata form ofthe Classical era, but the sound effects andextra-musical inspiration are firmlyRomantic: the opening wind chordstransport the music to fairy-land, thepattering delicate string writing at theopening of the overture depicts themischievous fairies gathering, the morerobust section following is a march for thefestivities of the mortal world at Athens andthe braying "hee haw" of the donkey-headedBottom can be heard several times in thework amidst hunting calls. The secondsubject is a sinuous and smooth melodyfeaturing the clarinet prominently.

Scored for the usual classical orchestra plusthe addition of ophicleide (an outdated bassbrass instrument that is now played on tuba),the overture was premiered in 1827 inMendelssohn’s first public concertperformance and was very popular.

In 1842, Mendelssohn was commissioned bythe King of Prussia to write incidental musicfor the play to complement his youthfuloverture, producing a suite of 13 pieces for aroyal performance at Potsdam.

As a composer, Mendelssohn’s style wasremarkably static throughout his life:characterised by lightness, delicacy and apicturesque Early-Romantic sound world,without embarking on the radical excursionsinto new forms of his near-contemporariesLiszt and Wagner. This means that a freshlistener hearing the incidental musicimmediately after the overture might notrealise that 16 years passed between thecomposition of the two works!

The 13 pieces of the incidental music includesome choral numbers and melodramasexpanding on Shakespeare’s text, as well assome purely instrumental music which isplayed in this concert.

The Scherzo is a sprightly and delicatemovement, characteristic of Mendelssohn’sstyle, which originally acted as an entr’actebetween the mortal world of Act I and theworld of the fairies in Act II.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Overture and Incidental Music to

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op

21/61 (1826/1842)

......................................................

conductor and composer Muir Mathesonprepared a five movement Suite,incorporating as its second and fourthmovements Walton’s own arrangement ‘TwoPieces for Strings from Henry V’.

The opening movement Overture: TheGlobe Playhouse brilliantly sets the stage forthe film - which initially is set as aperformance of the play in the historicaltheatre, and then coalesces to be the actionof the play itself. Beginning with a virtuosicflute solo and a series of flourishes, fanfaresfor brass and percussion call the audience toattention before a perky wind band(deliberately scored to sound slightlyraucous and ‘medieval’) plays a jaunty tunewith percussion accompaniment. The fullorchestra enters in a robust and festiveatmosphere, with Walton skilfully blendingsome deliberately-archaic musical languagewith the full modern orchestra.

The second movement is the solemn yetbeautiful passacaglia, The Death of Falstaff.Scored only for strings, it combines deepmelancholy with moments of bittersweetbeauty.

The exciting third movement is the longestand most difficult of the piece. EntitledCharge and Battle it is a dynamic movementfull of intense anticipation and energy as thearmies gather. The piece grows in intensityand speed until a series of almost visceralchords bring the action to a stop. In theaftermath, there is a sudden change ofmood with a gentle, almost pastoral feel,assisted by the flute and cor anglais solosusing melodic material of French traditionalsongs from the Auvergne.

The tender fourth movement, Touch HerSoft Lips, and Part depicts the love betweenKing Henry and Princess Katherine. Againscored only for strings, its gently-rockingrhythms and moments of rubato are delicateand beautiful.

Laurence Olivier’s acclaimed 1944adaptation of Henry V was both critically andcommercially successful, helped in part byWalton’s effective soundtrack. The film wasintended as a morale-booster for the war-weary British public, with the film deliberatelymaking a parallel between Shakespeare’shistorical “band of brothers” and the soldiers fighting in Normandy as part of the D-Dayinvasions.

Walton collaborated with Olivier on all of hisShakespeare adaptations, but his music forHenry V is arguably his best film score, andone of his most popular pieces. In 1963,

William Walton (1902-1983)

Five Pieces from ‘Henry V’

(1944/1963), arr. Muir Matheson

......................................................

The turbulent Intermezzo that follows links ActII and Act III of the play, with its insistent 6/8rhythm and dramatic dynamic changesproviding a sense of drama.

Act III and Act IV are linked by the warm andbeautiful Nocturne, with its prominent horn part,which evokes the night time in the forest withthe sleeping lovers - although not without somemoments of uneasiness with its unsettledcentral section.

The famous Wedding March is the introductionto Act V, setting the stage for the threeweddings to come.

In the Finale, Mendelssohn re-uses the musicalmaterial of the overture to depict the fairies‘tripping away’ from the mortal world andbestowing their blessings on the newlyweds,finishing with a final statement of the openingchords of the overture as day comes again.

PROGRAM NOTES (CONT.)

The suite comes to a triumphant close withthe fifth movement, Agincourt Song, whichsets off a joyful peal of string and woodwindnotes against an ‘archaic’-sounding brasschorale using a modal melody.

Oscar and BAFTA-winning English composerWarbeck has scored several prominentmovies, including Billy Elliot, Captain Corelli’sMandolin and, of course, Shakespeare inLove, for which he won the 1998 AcademyAward for Best Original Score.

His music for Shakespeare in Love capturesthe charm and emotion of the film, and blendsmusical themes from several sections of thefilm into a single movement. After a sereneintroduction with wind solos under ashimmering string accompaniment, the lushand romantic main theme enters over apulsing, almost-minimalist accompaniment,and then is restated several times, building inintensity and emotion and embellished withcountermelodies.

The following section is searching and tender,with harp and piano melodies under acrystalline high line in the violins. The thirdmain section of the suite is trance-like andatmospheric, with repeated minimalistpatterns in woodwind and harp, building inintensity. The final section features a return tothe warm emotion of the opening, with the fullorchestra building to a rhapsodic conclusionbefore a short harp solo provides a poignantcoda.

The Bard’s star-crossed lovers have inspiredmany composers over the years, withcomposers from Berlioz to Bernsteinproducing pieces inspired by Romeo andJuliet. Few, however, have been as enduringor as popular as Tchaikovsky’s ‘FantasyOverture’, and yet Tchaikovsky’s work hadits own difficult beginning.

The version played today, and most familiarto modern audiences, is the third revision ofthe piece, which originally dated to 1868.Tchaikovsky had written (and tried todedicate) an earlier symphonic work toBalakirev, who responded with (justified)criticism and suggested that Tchaikovsky tryhis hand at writing a concert overture afterRomeo and Juliet, using Balakirev’s ownKing Lear overture as a model.

Stephen Warbeck (1953-)

Suite from ‘Shakespeare in Love’

(1998)

......................................................

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-

1893)

Fantasy Overture: Romeo and

Juliet (1880)

......................................................

PROGRAM NOTES (CONT.)the ‘main’ theme (at least as far as thesonata form is concerned): the violent Bminor theme associated with the Montaguesand Capulets, with its jagged angry rhythmsand use of percussion to evoke the blowsand strikes of the fighting between the rivalhouses. This section is virtuosic for the entireorchestra, with rushing torrents of notes andsudden accents adding to the drama.

The violence of the first subject dies awayand the mood and key shifts - to D flat major(a very ‘foreign’ key) and the lush, lovetheme, which is the second subject of sonataform and is scored for cor anglais doublingviola (representing Romeo) and flute(representing Juliet) with a muted string andhorn accompaniment. This first statement ofthe theme is perhaps the most magical in theentire overture, and is in serene contrast tothe violence of the music that has gonebefore.

Despite the beauty of the love interlude, thedramatic tension of both the play and sonataform must go on, and the developmentsection wrenches the music back intoagitated mood, with the Friar Laurence and‘battle’ themes woven together until the fullbattle theme returns in the recapitulation.

Tchaikovsky had a natural gift for melody,and the famous ‘love theme’ from theoverture is one of the earliest themes hesketched for the work - it is now so famous itis almost a stock melody! However, asTchaikovsky himself was all too aware, hehad difficulty in assembling his melodies in alogical structure, and Balakirev’s suggestionwas a useful one in providing a strongstructural framework for Tchaikovsky toembellish with his lush melodies.

The resulting overture - in modified sonataform with introduction and coda - whilebreaking some of the ‘rules’ of sonata form,is incredibly dramatically effective, andmanages to capture the dramatic narrative ofShakespeare’s play with the contrastbetween the violent first theme - depictingthe enmity and street battles of theMontagues and Capulets - and the second‘love theme’ explored within the structure ofsonata form.

The opening theme of the overture is asolemn wind chorale, associated with thecharacter of Friar Laurence, with lowerstrings providing an ominous underpinning,acting as a prologue to the tragedy to come,and grows more and more agitated andunsettled, leading into a series of B minorchords alternating between the strings andwinds, which grow in intensity and usher in

battle theme emerges from the cataclysm ofnotes as the piece moves to its dramaticconclusion and then everything comescrashing down in a deluge of notes and twocymbal strikes signify the suicides of Romeoand Juliet.

In the coda section, over a funeralthrumming of timpani, a minor key echo ofthe love theme acts as a funeral dirge for thelovers, but then the key finally resolves to Bmajor and a wind chorale depicts thePrince’s closing oration, resolving to use thelover’s deaths to mend the rift between thewarring families, and a series of harppassages lead up to the bittersweetapotheosis of the overture - the love themerecurring once more high in the orchestra’srange, but slowly, as if depicting the lovers’being together finally in death, and then witha forceful series of chords the overturecomes to a close.

Structurally, Tchaikovsky makes the unusual -but very effective - decision to spare the lovetheme from the development, in effectshielding the lovers from danger - for now.The love theme returns only in therecapitulation - but now in D major and with astring accompaniment that is musically relatedto the ‘battle’ theme, as if highlighting theobstacles to their love.

The change of instrumentation and key alsoproduces a change in character - no longerthe tender passion of first meeting, thissecond statement is more insistent, as ifdepicting the full intensity of their love, whichburns itself out too quickly.

Tchaikovsky’s unusual musical structure herebecomes most effective - the recapitulationbecomes a sort of second development wherethe love theme is slowly consumed anddestroyed by the battle theme - at first thethemes are deconstructed andblended together, with some quotes from theFriar Laurence theme, but eventually only the

PROGRAM NOTES (CONT.)

Program notes by Cameron Hough

Celebrating 15 years of the

Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra

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Executive CommitteePresident: Yvette McKinnonVice-President: Amy PhillipsSecretary: Amanda LugtonTreasurer: John ConnollyCommittee Member: Gabriel DumitruCommittee Member: Daniel Sullivan

OfficersAuditions Co-ordinator: Amy PhillipsCatering: Peter Nicholls, Steph WilliamsStage Manager: Edward BrackinMarketing: Jo Lagerlow, Keith Gambling

If you would like to volunteer, contact:info@bpo.org.au

AUDITIONSAUDITIONS ARE ON!Do you play an orchestral instrument, orknow someone who does? We are holdingauditions for almost every instrument overthe next two months and still have lots ofamazing music ahead of us in 2015.

Visit our website to download auditionexcerpts and fill out the online form to signup! www.bpo.org.au

Current vacancies include:

Violin (1st & 2nd) (tutti)Viola (Principal and tutti)Double Bass (tutti)Oboe (tutti)Bassoon (tutti)Trumpet (tutti)French Horn (tutti)Trombone (Principal and tutti)Percussion (tutti)

In MemoryHoward Ainsworth AM

Former ABC Radio broadcaster Howard Ainsworth AM passed away on 6 September 2015.

He joined ABC Radio in 1963 serving the station for 27 years before later becoming the broadcast manager for4MBS. He was also awarded an Order Of Australia in 2011.

Howard was tireless in his devoted work with 4MBS, which involved training and overseeing the activities of allannouncers. He was one of the best known voices on classical radio in Queensland.

Howard was a long-time supporter of the BPO our thoughts are with his partner Kerry and family.

19 October 1931 - 6 September 2015

WHAT'S NEXT?

Ascension

Let BPO take you on a transcendent journey for our final concert of 2015 featuringthe winner of our concerto competition who will perform Vaughan Williams’masterpiece, The Lark Ascending.

Conductor: Chen YangSoloist: To be announced: winner of BPO 2015 Concerto Competition

Program:Liszt > Les PréludesVaughan Williams > The Lark AscendingSamuel Dickenson > A Little PrayerSibelius > Finlandia Op.26Sibelius > Swan of Tuonela Op.22 No.2Sibelius > Karelia Suite Op.11

Sponsors and Partners

Website www.bpo.org.auEmail info@bpo.org.auPost PO Box 792 Paddington QLD 4006

Copyright Brisbane Philharmonic Association Inc. All details correct at time of printing. BPO reserves the right to change details as necessary.

Principal Season Sponsors for 2015 season Season Supporter

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Concert #5 - Sunday 29 November 3pm, Old Museum Building