Subscription Concert C Series

Subscription Concert No.982 C Series

This concert is over. Date: Sat. 23. September 2023 14:00 (13:00)

Venue: Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Venue Info Seat

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Artists

Lawrence RENES, Conductor
Tabea ZIMMERMANN, Viola

Profile

Lawrence RENES (Conductor)

Dutch-Maltese conductor Lawrence Renes is highly regarded in both the operatic and symphonic spheres, praised for his impeccable ability to balance orchestra and singers and for delivering performances of passion, nuance and style.
Renes opens the 2019/20 season with a return to San Francisco Opera for Billy Budd, in Michael Grandage's acclaimed production. He goes on to London to conduct a programme of Strauss and Prokofiev for his third visit to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with the rest of the season including debuts with Orchestre National de Lyon and the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and returns to the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (on tour in South America) Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (following a spectacular Verdi Requiem last season), Residentie Orkest, Tampere Philharmonic and Malta Philharmonic.
Last season, Renes performed frequently in Asia, including visits to Japan with Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra. He then went on to premiere George Benjamin’s Written on Skin in China with Beijing Music Festival and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra; and made his debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, in an electric programme of Sibelius, Brahms and Richard Mills. Other engagements in recent seasons include opera productions in Brussels, Seattle, Lisbon and Santa Fe; and symphonic appearances with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Oslo Philharmonic, OSESP in Sao Paulo, Helsinki Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony.
Formerly Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera, his repertoire there ranged from Mozart through to the 21st Century. An energetic champion of contemporary repertoire, he is particularly associated with the music of John Adams (having conducted productions of Nixon in China at San Francisco Opera and Doctor Atomic at both English National Opera and De Nederlandse Opera — the DVD of the latter was named as one of the Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year for 2008 in The New Yorker – and orchestral works with London and Hong Kong philharmonic orchestras, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra) but also with George Benjamin, Mark Anthony Turnage, Guillaume Connesson and Robin de Raaff.

Tabea ZIMMERMANN (Viola)

Born in Lahr, Germany, Tabea Zimmermann began learning to play the viola at the age of three.
She studied with Ulrich Koch at the Musikhochschule Freiburg and subsequently with Sandor Végh at the Mozarteum Salzburg. Following her studies, she won the first prizes at the 1982 Geneva International Competition, the 1983 Maurice Vieux Competition in Paris, and the 1984 Budapest International Competition.

Zimmermann has regularly works with the most distinguished orchestras worldwide such as the Orchestre de Paris, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition to her residency with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, highlights of the 2022/2023 season include a tour with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Kirill Petrenko to Salzburg, Lucerne and the BBC Proms.

Zimmermann’s artistic work has been recognized with numerous awards, including Frankfurter Musikpreis, the Paul-Hindemith-Prize, and the International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.

She is a professor at Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin.

photo:©Marco Borggreve

Program

Sally Beamish: Viola Concerto No.2, The Seafarer (2001) [Japan premiere]

Program Notes
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No.2 in E minor op.27

Program Notes

Sally Beamish: Viola Concerto No.2, The Seafarer (2001) [Japan premiere]

Ⅰ Andante irrequieto
Ⅱ Andante malevole
Ⅲ Andante riflessivo

　I first came across the 9th century Anglo-Saxon poem The Seafarer, when artist Jila Peacock sent me a new translation by Charles Harrison Wallace, whose Scottish and Swedish ancestry has led to a very Nordic take on the poem, using words which resonate in both Scandinavian/North Scottish languages, and reflecting a Nordic view of lifeʼs journey, using the metaphor of a sea voyage that comes to rest in ‘Heavenʼs havenʼ. I was struck by its vivid imagery and wrote a short piece for solo violin inspired by the text.
　In 2000 I was asked by the ‘Summer on the Peninsulaʼ Festival to make a setting of the poem for narrator and piano trio with Jilaʼs Seafarer prints projected as part of the work, and in so doing I began to hear more orchestral textures and to want to explore the material further. The Viola Concerto is the third part in my ‘Seafarerʼ Trilogy and is in three movements.

The first suggests wave shapes, seabirds, and ideas of conflict and exploration.

All I ever heard along the ice-way
was sounding sea, the gannet's shanty
whooper and curlew calls and mewling gull
were all my gaming, mead and mirth
At tempest-tested granite crags
the ice-winged tern would taunt
spray-feathered ospreys overhead
would soar and scream

The second is based on a two-note motif first heard on the bassoon –

And heralding his summer hoard of pain
the gowk (cuckoo) repeats his plaintive geck
foreboding bitterness of breast

Soft-bedded bloods cannot conceive
what some men suffer as abroad
they travel tracks of exile

Reckless of that, my thought is thrown
beyond my heart's cage now. My mind is cast
upon the sea swell, over the whale's world

The music is mocking and ironic in character, with a fragile and transient middle section − the half-heard cries of banshee-like spirits.

The last movement is essentially a set of cadenzas exploring material from the first two movements, set against a gentle string refrain and resolving into a simple hymn-like passage which ends the concerto.

Come, consider where we have a home, how
we can travel to it, how our travail here
will lead us to the living well-head
and heaven haven of our Lord's love

　The concerto is dedicated to Tabea Zimmermann, in memory of the conductor David Shallon, who was to have conducted the first performance, and who died tragically in 2000. It was jointly commissioned by the Swedish and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, and first performed by Tabea Zimmermann with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, at the City halls, Glasgow, conducted by Joseph Swensen, in January 2002.
(Sally Beamish)

Sally Beamish was born in London. She studied viola at RNCM with Patrick Ireland and in Detmold with Bruno Giuranna. In her early career, Beamish performed regularly with Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and London Sinfonietta and was principal viola in London Mozart Players and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. In 1990, she moved from London to Scotland to develop her career as a composer. Her music embraces many influences - particularly jazz and Scottish traditional music. She has recently moved to Brighton and is married to writer Peter Thomson. She still performs regularly as violist, pianist and narrator.
　Beamish is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from University of Glasgow. She is a fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh and an international fellow of Royal Swedish musical academy. In 2018, she was awarded Inspiration Award at British Composer Awards and in 2020 was awarded an OBE in the Queenʼs Birthday Honours.
　Her first ballet, The Tempest was premiered in 2016, and her second ballet, The Little Mermaid was premiered in 2017. Beamish is currently working on her third ballet, A Christmas Carol, to be premiered by Finnish National Ballet in December 2023. Her recent works includes Distans - a concerto for violin and clarinet, Hover for oboes, horns and string orchestra, Partita for string quartet, Trance for Piano Trio, and A Knock on the Door for choral.

Rachmaninoff: Symphony No.2 in E minor op.27

Ⅰ Largo - Allegro moderato
Ⅱ Allegro molto
Ⅲ Adagio
Ⅳ Allegro vivace

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Born on the estate of Oneg, near Semyonovo, April 1, 1873; died in Beverly Hills, March 28, 1943

　Few symphonies written in the twentieth century achieved the fame and popularity of Rachmaninoffʼs Second, composed in Dresden where the composer had gone in 1906 to escape the demands of public life in Moscow. The hour-long work was fully sketched by New Yearʼs Day of 1907. Revisions and orchestration took place over a longer period, both back home in Russia and during a return visit to Dresden. Rachmaninoff agreed to conduct the first performance, which took place on January 26, 1908 in St. Petersburg. He also led the Moscow premiere a week later, and an early American performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra in November, 1909. In each case the audience responded enthusiastically, and the symphony has enjoyed an unbroken run of popularity to this day. The score is dedicated to the composer Sergei Taneyev. Rachmaninoff himself authorized certain cuts in performance, and the expansive nature of the work has led many conductors to do their own editing, resulting in performances that may last anywhere from 38 minutes to over an hour. In May 2014 the manuscript score was auctioned by Sothebyʼs for £1,202,500.
　Most of the melodic material of the symphony derives from a single motif, heard in the opening bars in the somber colors of low cellos and basses. In a multifarious variety of guises and transformations, this “motto” haunts the entire symphony in both obvious and subtle ways, thus infusing it with coherence and compelling impetus. After its initial statement, the motto passes to other instruments, eventually giving birth to a sinuous violin phrase that grows to an impressive climax as it weaves its way through lushly orchestrated textures and luxuriant counterpoint. The main Allegro moderato section of the movement is ushered in with a shivering, rising figure in the strings. Violins then spin out a long, winding, aspiring theme based on the motto. The delicate, gentle second theme, divided between woodwinds and responding strings, also derives from the motto.
　The second movement, a scherzo, is built on the motif of the Dies irae, the medieval Gregorian chant for the dead. Four horns in unison proclaim a boldly exuberant version of the Dies irae, which itself has its seeds in the symphonyʼs motto. Two contrasting ideas of note are the warmly flowing lyrical theme for the violins and a brilliant fugato section that demands the utmost in virtuosity from the strings.
　The Adagio movement is one of the lyric highlights of all Rachmaninoff. No fewer than three gorgeous melodies are heard, beginning with one of the most popular ever written. Following immediately on this theme of great repose and tranquility comes one of the glories of the solo clarinet repertory – an extended theme full of ardent longing. American pianist Arthur Loesser wrote in 1939 that this music “gives off a vapor of drugged sweetness, of fatalistic melancholy.”
　The enormously energetic finale too is a broadly expansive movement, beginning with a boisterously robust idea that might easily conjure up the spirit of a kermesse (Russian carnival). This is followed by a dark, grim, march-like episode in the seldom-used key of G-sharp minor, then by another of the composerʼs most famous themes – a magnificent, soaring affair that sweeps onward over an expanse of more than one hundred measures. Quiet reminiscences of the first and third movements lead to the development section. One of the symphonyʼs most thrilling passages occurs in this section, where the tintinnabulating effect of St. Petersburgʼs great bells is recreated in orchestral terms − a slow accretion of descending scales at different speeds, registers and rhythms that culminates in a dense and spectacular swirl of notes. The recapitulation follows, and Rachmaninoffʼs longest, grandest, most expansive symphonic work ends in a veritable blaze of sound.

　Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.
　

【Soloist Encore】（9/23up）
1．Vieuxtemps：Capriccio op.55
2．Hindemith：Sonata for Solo Viola, op.25, No. 1
　　IV. Rasendes Zeitmass - Wild - Tonschönheit ist Nebensache
　（Tabea ZIMMERMANN, Viola）

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