Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Genoveva: Overture, Op.81 “Believe me: peace will return. Love and faith will triumph!”. Stirring words: the beautiful and courageous heroine of Schumann’s Genoveva (1849) endures loneliness, imprisonment and the advances of the distinctly creepy Golo before truth, virtue and love finally conquer all. Schumann’s only opera is a tale of courage, treachery and romance, set in the middle ages. But its words, and its spirit, belong to a more modern era, and Genoveva’s great proclamation could have served as a motto for the citizens of Birmingham who – in the aftermath of the “war to end war” – decided to put the city’s faith in music, and founded the UK’s first ever civic orchestra in September 1920.

Schumann, like his great friend Mendelssohn, was a real favourite with Birmingham audiences in the early days of the City of Birmingham Orchestra (the “Symphony” bit came later, in 1948), and the overture to Genoveva was the first of his orchestral works to be performed by the orchestra (under the baton of the CBO’s founding conductor, Appleby Matthews) in March 1924. From a sombre opening, through passionate action to a jubilant finish, its overture conjures up the world Schumann wanted to create. The strings create an atmosphere of melancholy, and then drama. The woodwinds evoke the tenderness and strength of Genoveva herself. And listen out for the horns: mellow and heroic, the sound of deep forests, distant mountains, and long-forgotten chivalry.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Serenade for Strings, Op.20

Allegro piacevoleLarghettoAllegretto – come prima Edward Elgar was a Midlander to the tips of his moustache. Born and bred in Worcestershire, he learned his craft as a violinist in the Three Choirs and Birmingham Triennial Festivals, and became the first professor of music at the University of Birmingham. He even supported Wolverhampton Wanderers. And as early as 1905, he had called upon the City of Birmingham to launch its own orchestra. “Something must be done in Birmingham to make the orchestral concerts a permanent institution”, he declared. Fifteen years later, his vision became reality, and when the City of Birmingham Orchestra gave its first symphonic concert – at Birmingham Town Hall on 10 November 1920 – they invited Elgar to conduct. Even before that, Elgar’s Serenade for Strings had featured in the orchestra’s very first concert, at the Theatre Royal, New Street, on 5 September 1920.

By then, Elgar was world famous as Britain’s greatest living composer, but he had started out as an unknown violin teacher, cycling from lesson to lesson through rural Worcestershire. On 7 May 1888, in Worcester, he conducted an amateur orchestra in his Three Pieces: Spring Song, Elegy and Finale. The score has vanished, but in the summer of 1893 he published a work for strings in three movements with a first movement that breathes the freshness of spring, and a Larghetto that has all the qualities of an elegy – almost certainly the piece we know today as the Serenade. It sounds as spontaneous and as natural as if it had flowed straight from his pen, and to the end of his life, Elgar would insist that the three short movements of the Serenade were his favourite of all his works: “I like ’em, the first thing I ever did”.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

Cello Concerto No.1 in A minor, Op.33

Allegro non troppo – Menuet: Allegretto con moto – Allegro non troppo Camille Saint-Saëns visited Birmingham in August 1879. He had been invited by the organisers of the Triennial Musical Festival – the city’s great three-yearly choral celebration, which was replaced by the City of Birmingham Orchestra after World War One – and he was in no doubt that this was one of Europe’s great musical cities. His French friends had warned him that the British were not a musical nation. “If people like this are not musicians, they do exactly what they would do if they were the best musicians in the world”, he retorted, after hearing the chorus and orchestra in Birmingham.

Saint-Saëns had written his First Cello Concerto seven years previously, as a gift for the Belgian cellist Auguste Tolbecque, and he doesn’t stand on ceremony. After a single brusque chord, the cello leaps straight in with a passionate melody that swirls from the top of the cello’s range, to the bottom, in a single flourish. The mood is first urgent and darkly romantic; then delicate, as cello and orchestra dance a graceful minuet. The action resumes: sometimes tender, sometimes stormy, though the orchestra always gives the cello room to do what it does best – to sing. The CBSO first played this concerto in 1922, but it was a special favourite of the orchestra’s great French Principal Conductor Louis Frémaux, who conducted the CBSO from 1969 to 1978 and made the CBSO sound (according to Simon Rattle) like “the best French orchestra in the world”.

CBSO’S 100 TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONSaturday 5 September, 7pm

Sir Simon Rattle – Conductor

Sheku Kanneh-Mason – Cello

Roopa Panesar – Sitar

Adrian Lester – Presenter

Schumann Genoveva: Overture 8’

Elgar Serenade for Strings 12’

Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No.1 in A minor 19’

Kendall The Spark Catchers 10’

Rahman Slumdog Millionaire: Suite 8’

Stravinsky The Firebird (1919 Suite) 21’

On 5 September 1920, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra gave its very first concert. It was a gamble: in unprecedented times, a city recovering from war and pandemic had put its faith in the power of live music to enrich the lives of all its citizens. 100 years later (to the very hour), the CBSO celebrates its 100th birthday with a spectacular online celebration.

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Hannah Kendall (b.1984)

The Spark Catchers “I’m a millennial composer” says Hannah Kendall – a perfect match for a centennial orchestra. From the very first note of its very first concert, the CBSO has always championed the music of living composers, and Kendall – who grew up in Wembley, and whose grandfather was a jazz musician – creates sounds that are rooted unmistakably in 21st century Britain. She wrote The Spark Catchers in 2017 for the BBC Proms, and it takes its titles from Lemn Sissay’s poem about the agility, skill and political courage of 19th century matchgirls – a story that would have found many echoes in the factories of Victorian Birmingham, the “workshop of the world”. In her own words:

Lemn Sissay’s incredibly evocative poem, The Spark Catchers, is the inspiration behind this work. I was drawn to its wonderful dynamism, vibrancy, and drive.

Specific words and phrases from the text have established the structure of the work. The opening ‘Sparks and Strikes’ section immediately creates vigour and liveliness, leading into ‘The Molten Madness’, which maintains the initial energy, while also producing a darker and brooding atmosphere. This gradually transitions to the lighter, clearer and crystalline ‘Beneath the Stars / In the Silver Sheen’ section, which is distinguished by its gleaming delicacy through long interweaving lines, high pitches, and thin textures. The opening zest comes back again through a dance-like section, which culminates in ‘The Matchgirls March’ with its forceful and punchy chords. The Spark Catchers finally concludes with a sparkling flourish.

For more on The Spark Catchers, see here.

A. R. Rahman (b.1967)

Slumdog Millionaire: Suite When the filmmaker Danny Boyle conceived his Bollywood-inspired Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, there was only one possible composer. A. R. Rahman is the man they call “the Mozart of Madras”: film composer extraordinaire, multi-million-selling songwriter and the closest thing Indian music has to royalty. His score, like the film, combined old-school Bollywood romance with a gritty urban edge. “We wanted it edgy, upfront” says Rahman. “Danny wanted it loud”. The result was a Best Score Oscar and a completely new audience for Rahman’s fabulous sound.

None of this came as any surprise in Birmingham – where South Asian culture has been part of the fabric of the city for generations, and where, in 2004, the CBSO became the first western symphony orchestra to invite Rahman to conduct his own music. Birmingham went Rahman-crazy: Symphony Hall sold out for two nights in a row, and fans danced in the aisles as Rahman and the CBSO pioneered a new way of performing this hugely popular music. Bollywood-themed concerts have now been a regular part of the CBSO’s programme for nearly two decades. And with the Midlands producing some of the most dynamic new stars in South Asian music, both classical and pop, the orchestra has never been short of world-class collaborators – such as tonight’s guest, Roopa Panesar.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

The Firebird (1919 Suite)

Introduction –Appearance of the Firebird –Dance of the Firebird –The Princesses’ Khorovod – Infernal Dance of Kashchei and his Subjects –Lullaby –Finale The decade before the CBSO was founded was a time of revolution – and not just in politics. Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes had exploded onto the European stage, fusing contemporary dance with state-of-the-art design and avant-garde music to create a dazzling new theatrical experience. Diaghilev was always looking for fresh talent, and in 1909 he gave the 27-year-old Igor Stravinsky his big break – a new ballet inspired by old Russian folktales. Stravinsky responded with a score so colourful that in 1991, when Simon Rattle and the CBSO needed a piece with which to test out the acoustics of Birmingham’s brand-new Symphony Hall, there was only one possible choice. Stravinsky’s The Firebird became the very first piece to be played by the CBSO in its new home, and it always sounds stunning.

So follow us into the twilight world of the immortal demon-king Kashchei (Introduction). The magical Firebird enters in a shower of sparks (Dance of the Firebird), hotly pursued by Prince Ivan. The Prince catches the Firebird, which gives him one of its enchanted feathers – the only thing that can break Kashchei’s spells. As Ivan watches thirteen princesses dance a gentle Russian Khorovod (round dance), he falls in love. Suddenly Kashchei’s monsters swarm round in a furious Infernal Dance. In the nick of time, the Prince remembers the feather, and the Firebird puts the monsters to sleep with an eerie Lullaby. Prince Ivan finds and smashes the egg containing Kashchei’s immortal soul, and the demon’s spells are undone. A solo horn sings a quiet folk-song, and as sunlight spreads across the kingdom, the full orchestra celebrates in a majestic and jubilant Finale.

Programme notes © Richard Bratby, 2020

THE SOUND OF THE FUTURE OUR CAMPAIGN FOR MUSICAL LIFE IN THE WEST MIDLANDS

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