artist profiles

0191

Paul Wright

At the age of 11 Paul Wright was one of five children from around the world accepted by Yehudi

Menuhin to study at his specialist music school in England. He went on to study at the Guildhall School in London and the Juilliard School in New York. He has given concerts in many of the world’s great concert venues including Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall in

London and Carnegie Hall in New York. In addition to his solo and chamber work he has been Concertmaster with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Bach Ensemble, Adelaide Chamber Orchestra, Juniper Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Arcangelo and Ensemble Battistin. In January 2009 he was soloist and director with the Australian Classical Era Orchestra. He is Director of String Studies at the University of Western Australia and a member of the faculty at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne.

DaviD Nuttall

David Nuttall is one of Australia’s most distinguished oboists, having been Associate Professor at the

School of Music, Australian National University, Associate Principal with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Canberra Wind Soloists. He is also a Churchill Fellow. Much of his professional life has been

dedicated to oboe pedagogy and several of his former students hold important positions in Australia and overseas. He has appeared as soloist with most of the Australian state orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and has recorded widely. He has been Principal Oboe with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra since November 2006.

tso partNers

regioNal tourreCital series10

SebaStian Lang-LeSSing Chief Conductor & Artistic Director

Best of Baroque

violiNPaul Wright DirectorElinor Levy Associate ConcertmasterLucy Carrig Jones Principal SecondDaniel Kossov Principal FirstMiranda CarsonYue-Hong ChaCherelle GadgeChristine Lawson

viola Rodney McDonald#

Luke Spicer

Cello Brett Rutherford#

Ivan James

Double bass Stuart Thomson*

harPsiChorDStewart Smith#

*principal player#guest principal

tasmaNiaN symPhoNy orChestraFederation Concert Hall1 Davey Street, HobartTasmania 7000 AustraliaGPO Box 1450, HobartTasmania 7001 AustraliaBox Office 1800 001 190boxoffice@tso.com.auAdministration (03) 6232 4444tso@tso.com.au

www.tso.com.au

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The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and through Arts Tasmania by the Minister for the Arts, and the Tasmanian Icon Program.

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0191_Recital2_BestOfBaroque.indd 1 25/10/10 3:44 PM

Best of Baroque

bookings > 1800 001 190 or tso.com.au

tso CaleNdar of CoNCerts

Thursday 11 November 8pm My Homeland

PriNCess theatre, lauNCestoN The warmth and elegance of Mozart’s Third Violin Concerto contrasts with the haunting melodies and energetic rhythms of music inspired by the vibrant folk traditions of Central and Eastern Europe.FeDeratioN CoNCert hall, hobart

Nicholas milton conductorJun yi ma violin

SMETANA My Homeland – The MoldauMOZART Violin Concerto No 3DVORÁK The Noonday WitchWEINER Hungarian Folksong Suite

Thursday 25 November 7pm Bernd Glemser in Recital

FeDeratioN CoNCert hall, hobart Bernd Glemser's 2008 Hobart recital was described by one concert-goer as “one of the most marvellous concerts I have ever attended” – get ready for more fireworks from this astonishingly gifted performer.

bernd glemser piano

Program includes:BRAHMS Intermezzo Op 118/1 & 2MENDELSSOHN Songs Without Words (excerpts)CHOPIN Ballade No 1CHOPIN Nocturne Op 27/1 & 2CHOPIN Mazurka Op 17/4 and Op 24/4CHOPIN Scherzo No 4

saTurday 27 November 8pm Bernd’s Back!

FeDeratioN CoNCert hall, hobart

sebastian lang-lessing conductorbernd glemser piano

BRAHMS Piano Concerto No 1SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No 5

Bernd Glemser makes a triumphant return to Tasmania following his sensational appearances in 2008 – don’t miss this opportunity to hear one of the great pianists of our time perform Brahms’ sizzling First Piano Concerto.

FriDay 29 oCtober 7PmPortland Memorial Hall, St Helens

moNDay 1 November 7PmFederation Concert Hall, Hobart

Paul Wright directorDavid Nuttall oboestrings of the tso

CorelliConcerto grosso op 6 No 12

AdagioAllegroAdagioVivaceAllegro

11 mins

marCellooboe Concerto in D minor

Andante e spiccatoAdagioPresto

11 mins

J s baChorchestral suite No 3 bWv1068

Air5 mins

vivalDiConcerto for strings rv115

AllegroLargoAllegro4 mins

iNterval20 mins

J s baChConcerto for oboe and violin bWv1060

AllegroAdagioAllegro13 mins

telemaNNDon Quixote suite tWv55:g10

OuvertureAwakening of Don QuixoteHis Attack on the WindmillsSighs of Love for Princess DulcineaSancho Panza SwindledRosinante GallopingThe Gallop of Sancho Panza’s MuleDon Quixote at Rest17 mins

This concert will end at approximately 9pm.

Sponsored by

Although he did not write a huge body of music, Arcangelo Corelli

(1653-1713) was one of the most influential composers of his time. Famous as a violinist, his sonatas and concertos for strings did much to establish fundamentals of the Italian Baroque. The Concerto grosso op 6 No 12 is typical of Corelli’s music. The supremely elegant opening Adagio with its carefully controlled interweaving of violin parts gives way to a series of contrasting movements. The first Allegro highlights the solo violin while the succeeding Adagio (which is in the contrasting key of D minor) makes no distinction between solo and tutti players. The final two movements (which are in the home key of F major) are based upon dance models, the sarabande and gigue respectively.

Unlike Corelli, Alessandro Marcello (1669-1747) was little known during his lifetime and even less so after his death. Indeed, the oboe Concerto in D minor was long attributed to his more famous brother, Benedetto. Published in Amsterdam ca 1716, the Oboe Concerto in D Minor came to the attention of J S Bach, who arranged it for keyboard (BWV974). A solo concerto rather than a concerto grosso (the latter makes use of more than one solo instrument), the Oboe Concerto in D Minor displays all the hallmarks of the

Italian style including extensive use of sequences. The Air from the orchestral suite No 3 bWv1068 by J S Bach (1685-1750) is essentially a ‘song without words’ with the solo violin fulfilling the role of singer. To that end, it calls for legato playing and emphasises sustained notes and sinuous phrasing. This particular example is arguably the most famous instrumental air of the Baroque.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) needs no introduction. Composer of The Four Seasons, Vivaldi wrote a vast number of concertos and did more than any other composer to popularise the Italian style outside Italy. The Concerto for strings rv115 is a concerto a quattro; that is to say, a concerto in which there are no soloists. Most probably written for the girls of the Ospedale della Pietà – the orphanage in Venice where Vivaldi was music tutor – the Concerto for Strings RV115 follows the standard three-movement fast-slow-fast pattern. In the bright key of C major, the opening Allegro mixes and matches a number of small gestures – a rising scale figure, a syncopated idea and semiquaver figuration. The very brief Largo slides around the key of A minor while the concluding Allegro with its binary structure is a sinfonia movement in all but name.

German composer J S Bach came to know the Italian style by studying, arranging and copying by hand the music of his Italian contemporaries. The Concerto for oboe and violin bWv1060 shows how fully he understood the legacy of Vivaldi and others. The concerto opens with a ritornello – an easily recognised thematic complex which forms the basic building block of the movement. Statements of the ritornello (often abridged or transposed) are interspersed by episodes, passages where the solo oboe and violin come to the fore. The Adagio, a beautiful conversation between the two solo

instruments, introduces a lyrical element while the concluding Allegro marries characteristics of the bourrée with ritornello form and throws in bravura solo playing for good measure.

While J S Bach was busying himself in central Germany, Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was dashing off an astonishing quantity of music in northern Germany. As the title makes clear, the Don Quixote suite (ouverture burlesque de Quichotte) takes its inspiration from Miguel de Cervantes’ celebrated novel. Cervantes’ eponymous (anti)hero is an elderly gentleman whose mind has become warped from reading too many tales of chivalrous adventure and who imagines himself to be a knight errant. But while the composer is German and the novel Spanish, the Don Quixote Suite is decidedly French in style. French Baroque music is markedly different from Italian. Commencing with an overture in the French style (where stately dotted rhythms at the outset give way to a faster imitative section), the Don Quixote Suite dresses up standard dance movements (minuet, gavotte, passepied and so on) in picturesque clothing. Telemann seeks to evoke some of the most celebrated episodes from Cervantes’ novel including the famous ‘tilting at windmills’ escapade (where the deranged Don Quixote believes that windmills are giants and charges them on his nag Rosinante). The other characters, whether real or figments of Quixote’s overheated imagination, are his trusty squire Sancho Panza and Dulcinea, a common country girl whom Quixote believes to be his noble lady. After countless misadventures the scales finally fall from Don Quixote’s eyes and he dies in peace. Telemann makes it easy for listeners to navigate their way through the story by providing each movement with a title.

Robert Gibson TSO © 2010

saTurday 13 November 2.30pm

0191_Recital2_BestOfBaroque.indd 2 25/10/10 3:44 PM