Download - Berio Folk Songs Texts

Royal Concertgebouw OrchestraMariss Jansons conductorElina Garanca mezzo-soprano*

Saturday 10 February 2007, 7.30pm page 3

Schubert Symphony No. 3 in D major 26’

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Bruckner Symphony No. 3 in D minor 65’

Sunday 11 February 2007, 3.00pm page 6

Berlioz Overture: Le carnaval romain 8’

Debussy La mer 23’

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Berio Folk Songs* 23’

Ravel La valse 12’

These concerts are being recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Barbican Hall

The Barbican Centre is provided by the City of London Corporation as part of itscontribution to the cultural life of Londonand the nation.

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The Great Performers 2007-2008 season is now on sale. For full details visit www.barbican.org.uk/greatperformers0708where you can listen to soundclips and watch the Barbican’s Head of Music Robert van Leer introduce the new season.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Symphony No. 3 in D majorAdagio maestoso – Allegro con brioAllegrettoMenuetto: VivacePresto vivace

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If Schubert’s ‘heavenly lengths’, a description coined byRobert Schumann, represent the mature side of his genius,what are we to say about that brilliant teenage feat ofcompression, the Third Symphony? Clearly it is not amasterpiece in the same sense as the ‘Great’ C majorSymphony, but it is driven by the same sort of irresistibleenergy as would propel the later symphony to its close.

Yet Symphony No. 3 is brilliant in its own right. Its verydirectness, from the ominously hammered-out sonoritiesof the slow introduction to the swerving tarantella-likefinale, guarantees its success. In a live performance, thethrust of its first movement and finale can be like agalvanic force, unimpeded by the sweetness of the slowmovement or by the bouncingly jovial minuet.

The work could be described as a domestic symphony,though not in the same sense as Richard Strauss’sSinfonia domestica. It is not about the home life of theSchuberts, though in one way it comes close to that bybeing written for a Viennese neighbourhood orchestra,which had steadily grown from a family string quartet –with young Schubert himself as viola player – intosomething considerably larger, comprising about 20strings, plus woodwind, brass and drums.

By the time he was 18, Schubert was already a prolificcomposer. Of the 1,000 or so pieces he had produced bythe end of his short life, more than half were writtenbefore he was 21. But though his first symphonies werebased on Viennese tradition as he knew it – with Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven among his models – their flavourwas already recognisably Schubertian, so much so thatthe main theme of the first movement of the Third

Symphony is almost identical to that of the first movementof the ‘Great’ C major.

Yet, supreme melodist though he was, Schubert knew thatsymphonic themes did not have to be melodic – this one,in the first movement, is confined to rhythm and harmony,and is in no way obviously ‘tuneful’. But the slowmovement, with its gently ambling opening theme onstrings and woodwind and its even more engagingsuccessor on clarinet, is all melody. The minuet, fastenough to be a Beethoven scherzo, is characterised by its leaping offbeat accents and its songlike central triosection, with prominent woodwind. The racy finale, likethe first movement, sticks almost entirely to a singleextended melody – an obsessively hurtling dance of asort Schubert would employ later in the finale of his‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet and also that of his G major Quartet, D887.

Shortly before his early death, Schubert decided that heneeded a lesson in counterpoint from Simon Sechter, theViennese pedagogue who reputedly composed a fuguea day and later became Bruckner’s teacher. The lesson,for all its suggestion of Viennese continuity, hardlyseemed necessary. Schubert was by then in full commandof his genius. His grasp of symphonic structure, asdemonstrated by his last completed symphony, his laststring quartet, his last piano sonata and his great C majorstring quintet, was already, at a time when Bruckner wasstill a three-year-old child, on what we now recognise tohave been a Brucknerian scale.

Conrad Wilson © 2007Interval

Schubert

Anton Bruckner (1824-96)

Symphony No. 3 in D minor, ‘Wagner’ (1889 version)1. Mehr langsam, Misterioso [Rather slow, Mysterious]2. Adagio: Bewegt [with movement], quasi Andante3. Scherzo: Ziemlich schnell [Quite fast] – Trio – Scherzo 4. Finale: Allegro

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Bruckner

Few composers have been as bizarrely obsessive asAnton Bruckner. There are stories of him compulsivelycounting all kinds of unlikely objects: chimney-pots, hisdaily prayers, the sequins on his sister’s dress. It wouldincrease at times of crisis: during his terrible nervousbreakdown of 1866-7 Bruckner was found in a fielddesperately trying to count the leaves on a tree. Everybar in his manuscripts is numbered. Bruckner’sextraordinary preoccupation with musical architecture(his symphonies have been described as ‘cathedrals insound’) may partly stem from this very obsessiveness. Butit has also been held responsible for what is oftendescribed as his ‘revision mania’ – his tendency to reviseand revise works again and again. None of Bruckner’snine numbered symphonies was subjected to more re-workings than the Third. From the surviving material itwould be possible to reconstruct as many as ninedifferent versions of the score – a nightmare for scholars,conductors and listeners alike.

In the case of the Third Symphony, there may have beenadded reasons why Bruckner was unable to leave thescore alone. The symphony’s first performance, inDecember 1877, was a traumatic experience for thisnervous, under-confident man. It was only with difficultythat Bruckner’s champion, the conductor JohannHerbeck, had managed to persuade the ViennaPhilharmonic to play the work at all. But then, in October1877, Herbeck died suddenly – he was only 46 – andBruckner had to step into the breach. The orchestra wasuncooperative, and the symphony’s effusive dedicationto Bruckner’s idol Wagner raised the hackles of theconservative Viennese press before most of them had

heard a note of the work. During the performance, thehall gradually emptied until, at the end, only a handful ofsupporters were left (one of them was the 17-year-oldGustav Mahler). As these friends tried to comfort him,Bruckner is said to have shouted, ‘Oh, leave me alone,they don’t want anything of mine.’

Almost certainly the experience dented Bruckner’sconfidence still further; and yet he never fully lost faith inhis vocation. A devout Catholic, Bruckner believed histalent was God-given, and that it was his duty to use it –and to use it in a very particular way. As he once told afriend: ‘People say I should compose differently. I could,but I mustn’t.’ In fact, the architectural plan he laid out inthe Third Symphony is basically the same as that ofalmost all his later symphonies. This has been heldagainst Bruckner – hence the old wisecrack, ‘Brucknerwrote the same symphony nine times’. But perhaps thatimage of ‘cathedrals in sound’ may be helpful here. Allmedieval cathedrals are based on the same ground-plan, with the same kinds of features turning up in moreor less the same places. But no one in their right mindwould dismiss Durham, York Minster and Chartres as thesame building erected in three different locations. Muchthe same could be said about Bruckner’s symphonies.

Like most of his other symphonies, No. 3 begins withwhat one writer has called a ‘nebula’: in this case acluster of misty string figurations, through which the maintheme emerges on a solo trumpet – a theme which madea powerful impression on Wagner when Bruckner tookhim the first version of the score in 1873. A longcrescendo builds from this, culminating in a massive

Saturday 10 February Notes

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unison theme for full orchestra. Bruckner is clearlythinking of the beginning of Beethoven’s NinthSymphony; but the effect is very different. In theBeethoven there is a growing sense of headlong, tragicmomentum. With Bruckner, however, no matter howagitated the music may seem, the underlying pace isusually slow. As the composer Robert Simpson put it,Bruckner’s music doesn’t simply require patience, itactually expresses it. Once this is grasped, the stop-startnature of the argument (especially in the first and lastmovements) becomes easier to understand – and enjoy.

The first movement – like the finale – has three mainthemes: the trumpet motif; a warmly-harmonised tune forstrings in Bruckner’s favourite ONE-two-three ONE-tworhythm; and a massive unison figure for full orchestrawith the three-plus-two rhythm reversed. The so-called‘development’ examines these themes at length. Then allof them return in full, before the ominous crescendo(return of the misty opening figures over a repeatedfalling bass figure) of the coda – an even more strikingecho of Beethoven’s Ninth.

Three themes dominate the Adagio too: a hushed, nobletune for strings; a long song-theme introduced by violas;and a slower, quietly dignified, sarabande-like figure(strings again). Bruckner told a friend that this third themewas composed in memory of his mother – a strong-minded, very musical woman, prone (like her son) toattacks of depression.

The Scherzo is the only movement in the symphony inwhich the pace really does seem fast. It is pervaded bythe characteristic rhythms and melodic shapes (especially

in the central Trio section) of the country dance music ofBruckner’s native Upper Austria – as a young man hehad often filled out his meagre teacher’s salary byplaying in village bands.

The Finale begins with a surging Allegro; but after twobig crescendo waves the tempo drops and the secondtheme combines a polka-like tune (strings) with a solemnwind chorale. Bruckner’s biographer August Göllerichremembered how the composer explained this strangemixture of styles to him as they walked through Vienna.Dance music was coming from a house opposite thebuilding in which the body of a famous architect waslying in state. ‘That’s life,’ said Bruckner. ‘That’s what Iwanted to show in my Third Symphony. The polkarepresents the fun and joy in the world, the chorale itssadness and pain.’ At the end it is joy which triumphs: ablazing brass fanfare, then the trumpet theme from theopening of the first movement returns in a radiant Dmajor. Bruckner’s cathedral is finally flooded in daylight.

Stephen Johnson © 2007

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Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

Overture: Le carnaval romain

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Berlioz despised Italy, deeming its composers (Bellini)mediocre, its choristers (those of St. Peter’s) dismal, and itsmusicality almost non-existent. Winning the Prix de Rome– with a year at the city’s elegant Villa Medici as hisreward – seemed to him no actual reason to go there. Yethis music tells a different story. Though he wrote little ofconsequence during his stay in the Eternal City, Italy filledhis thoughts for the rest of his life.

Harold in Italy, inspired by his solitary wanderings in theAbruzzi, preoccupied him for two years after his return toFrance in 1832. His opera Benvenuto Cellini, whichfollowed in 1836, obsessed him, even though its librettohad been refused by the Paris Opéra-Comique. In 1839came the dramatic symphony, Romeo and Juliet, and in1844 the Corsaire Overture, harking back to his perilouscrossing from Marseilles to Leghorn (Livorno) on his wayto Rome. In 1858 he completed The Trojans, the biggestof all his works, ending with the dying Dido envisagingthe rise of the Roman Empire.

Such a chain of masterpieces did not occur by chance.Italy mattered to Berlioz, however much he claimed tohate it. And his feelings for Rome – and for the16th-century Italian sculptor, goldsmith and autobiographerwho was his lifelong hero – flood unstoppably throughBenvenuto Cellini, emerging at white heat in the concertoverture Roman Carnival which he adapted from thelarger work. Though much of the music was originally forsoloists and chorus, the mercurial brilliance of theorchestral writing, the fluttering interplay of woodwindand strings, make this hard to believe. How could anychorus sing the high-speed quavers of the main allegro

section? Yet to hear the opera itself – a masterpiece stillshamefully neglected – is to realise the élan Berliozbrought to his score, and above all in the ‘RomanCarnival’ Scene about which Franz Liszt exclaimed, ‘Forthe first time in opera the crowd speaks with its greatroaring voice.’

Berlioz himself knew the scale of his achievement, sayingthat this music possessed a ‘variety of ideas, a vitality, zestand brilliance of musical colour such as I shall perhapsnever find again’. Today, this swerving, impulsive musichas lost none of its magnetism, but the composer’sdelicacy of touch, which was quite as important as hisgusto, remains equally miraculous.

The music follows Berlioz’s established overture format. A short, fleet introduction comes to rest in a slow romanticinterlude where an eloquent cor anglais intones a lovetheme from the opera. The main carnival music thenfollows, employing an audacious range of rhythmic,syncopated and fugal devices, with a ferocious switchfrom 6/8 to 2/4 time shortly before the music lunges intoits braying coda. The astounding final chords are whollyoriginal but the entire work shows that the author of thepioneering and just-completed Treatise on Orchestrationpractised to perfection what he preached.

Conrad Wilson © 2007

Berlioz

Sunday 11 February Notes

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

La mer trois esquisses symphoniquesDe l’aube à midi sur la merJeux de vaguesDialogue du vent et de la mer

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Debussy completed the orchestration of La mer atEastbourne in 1905. He had started the work two yearsearlier while on holiday at Bichain in Burgundy, which isabout as far from the sea as one can get in France. But, asthe composer explained, he had ‘an endless store ofmemories of the sea and, to my mind, they are worth morethan the reality, whose beauty weighs down thought tooheavily’. Besides, La mer is not just an exercise inobservation. Declared enemy of the symphony though thecomposer was, Debussy’s ‘three symphonic sketches’ areat least as symphonic as picturesque. At the same time,while the imagery is clearly inspired by the movement ofthe sea and the changing light, it is more often a case ofgeneralised atmosphere than specific detail.

Certainly, no one listening to the first movement, ‘FromDawn to Midday on the Sea’, could seriously claim, asErik Satie so wittily did, to have ‘a particular liking for thelittle bit at a quarter to eleven’. It is safe to assume onlythat the movement opens in darkness and ends under thebright sun of midday – and that those two eventscorrespond to the slow introduction, where several of themain thematic features begin to take shape, and theexpansive coda, where the most important of thememerges in full glory. The intervening structure is dividedinto two parts, one a little quicker than the other. The firstfloats in on rippling violins and violas and deeplyundulating cellos. They bring with them a variety ofthemes which are to be combined in a brief butextraordinary climax of conflicting rhythms. The secondsurges forward on a handsomely harmonised entry ofeight cellos and, after its central climax, recalls on cor

anglais and muted trumpet a theme first heard on thosesame instruments in the slow introduction. This theme, itturns out, when it appears transformed in chorale formon four horns in the coda, is the theme intended from thestart to carry the sunrise message of the wholemovement.

The central scherzo, ‘Games of Waves’, is so flexiblyconstructed that it seems to proceed on spontaneousimpulse, and so resourcefully scored that it seems toreflect every chance change of wind, current or light.Broadly, however, it is in three parts, the first of whichpresents an apparently infinite variety of thematic ideas –a dance on the cor anglais, a quicker flight of trills andtriplet figures on the violins, a kind of bolero with itsmelodic line carried by cor anglais again under arhythmic ostinato on flutes and clarinets. These aredeveloped in the middle section, where another newtheme makes its entry in the form of a trumpet call to urgethe movement towards its climax. Debussy’s melodicinvention is still not exhausted: in what might otherwise becalled a recapitulation, second violins and cellosintroduce a waltz that rises through the strings in ever-increasing animation before the wind drops and leavesthe sea comparatively becalmed.

There is little calm in the last movement, which opens withthe low rumble of an approaching storm on cellos andbasses and a gust of wind on woodwind. As well as itsdescriptive function, however, the ‘Dialogue of the Windand the Sea’ has a long-term structural duty to perform.Within a few bars it recalls two motifs from the beginningof the work, including the muted trumpet theme which

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was converted to the midday horn chorale at the end ofthe first movement.

The main theme of this third movement, which is shapedas a rondo, is the chromatic melody on woodwind thatseems to be running before a swift but capricious wind.The first episode recalls the trumpet theme, but at thebottom of the pitch range this time on bassoons andpizzicato cellos and basses, without relaxing the pressureuntil a distant echo of the chorale version of the same

theme is heard on four horns. The chorale appears oncemore towards the end of the movement where – intonedby the whole of the brass section in counterpoint with thewind-swept rondo theme on woodwind – it fulfils its long-destined function of tying the whole work, symphony andseascape, indivisibly together.

Gerald Larner © 2007

Interval

‘Here I am again with my old friend the Sea. It is still unfathomable and beautiful. It is one of the things in naturethat really put you in your place. The trouble is, no one has enough respect for the Sea … It shouldn’t be allowed,those bodies disfigured by everyday life soaking themselves in it: but, really, all those arms, those legs moving insuch ridiculous rhythms, it’s enough to make the fish weep. In the Sea there should be nothing but Sirens. But howcan we expect those admirable creatures to come back to waters frequented by such bad company?’

Debussy to Jacques Durand, Le Puys, near Dieppe, 8 August 1906


Luciano Berio (1925-2003)

Folk SongsBlack is the color (USA) • I wonder as I wander (USA) • Loosin yelav (Armenia) •Rossignolet du bois (France) • A la femminisca (Sicily) • La donna ideale (Italy) • Ballo (Italy) • Motettu de tristura (Sardinia) • Malurous qu’o uno fenno (Auvergne) •Lo fiolaire (Auvergne) • Azerbaijan love song (Azerbaijan)

Elina Garanca mezzo-soprano

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The origins of Luciano Berio’s Folk Songs – which werefirst performed by Cathy Berberian and an ensembledirected by Berio at Mills College in California in 1964 –go back to the composer’s student days in Milan. In hissecond year at the Conservatorio he wrote Tre canzonipopolari (Three folk songs), two of which, La donnaideale and Ballo, would be incorporated in the FolkSongs score commissioned by Mills College 16 yearslater. Romantic legend has it that the two songs werecomposed for Cathy Berberian when she was studyingsinging in Milan with Giorgina del Vigo. While thatcannot be true – she did not arrive in Italy until 1949, justa year before she and Berio were marrried but two yearsafter the songs were written – the versions used in theFolk Songs were certainly intended, like the nine othersmaking up the set, as a tribute to her ‘extraordinaryartistry’.

If the Berberian-Berio marriage was nearing its end bythe time of the first performance of the Folk Songs, theirartistic partnership was not – as major works for sopranolike Sequenza III, Visage and Recital I confirm. Nor was itthe end of the composer’s attachment to folk song. ‘Mylinks with folk music are often of an emotional character,’he once declared. ‘When I work with that music I amalways caught by the thrill of discovery.’ Cries of London,Coro and Voci: Folk Songs II were all part of a continuinginterest in ‘creating a unity between folk music and ourmusic’.

Like La donna ideale and Ballo, the first two of the FolkSongs are not actual folk songs. Black is the color and Iwonder as I wander were both written by the Kentuckyfolk singer and composer John Jacob Niles. There is a

traditional tune for Black is the color but, because hisfather thought it was ‘downright terrible’, Niles recalled,‘I wrote myself a new tune, ending it in a nice modalmanner.’ Introduced here by two violas instructed to play‘like wistful country dance fiddlers’ and accompanied bymainly lower strings, it acquires a new dimension ofpoignancy.

I wonder as I wander was developed by Niles out of themere three lines he was able to extract from a revivalistpreacher’s daughter, ‘a tousled, unwashed blond, andvery lovely’. The extended bird-song postlude for flute,oboe and clarinet in Berio’s version seems to have beensuggested by the passing reference to the ‘bird on thewing’.

Although Berberian was born in the United States, herfamily came from Armenia, which no doubt explains thepresence of the next song. Loosin yelav is simply butaffectionately accompanied by harp and pizzicatostrings until the increasingly elaborate participation of thewoodwind in a lively dance episode towards the end.

Far from stimulating more bird-song imitations,Rossignolet du bois attracts minimal instrumental activity,just a clarinet at first and then harp and crotales. A lafemminisca, on the other hand, is introduced andpunctuated by a clattering of metal sticks on coil springsand tam-tam which, unlike the curiously quiet colouringelsewhere, reflects the aggressive stance adopted by thesinger.

The two Berio songs are both brilliantly scored – La donnaideale with witty interjections from solo instruments, downto the double bass at the end; Ballo with a vigour equal to

Berio


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that of the high-energy vocal line. The eerie sound Berioendows on Motettu de tristura, with muted solo stringssliding in quarter-tone between double-stopped chords onthe bridge, does not exclude a piccolo echo of thenightingale and a hint of a habanera on the harp. Thetunes of Malurous qu’o uno fenno and Lo fiolaire arefamiliar from Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne. Berio’slean instrumental textures, however, and his double-stopped solo cello in Lo fiolaire recalling the violaintroduction to the work, have nothing in common with thelush orchestration of the Canteloube version.

The Azerbaijan love song was discovered by Cathy

Berberian on an old, scratched 78rpm disc of a townband from the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. Shetranscribed what she heard without understanding aword of it except, apparently, for a verse in Russiancomparing love to a stove. It defies translation but, givensuch primitive rhythmic drive and liberated vocalexpression, who needs to know what it is all about?

Originally scored for voice and seven instruments, theFolk Songs were arranged for large orchestra by thecomposer in 1973.


1. Black is the color Black is the colorOf my true love’s hair,His lips are something rosy fair,The sweetest smileAnd the kindest hands; I love the grass whereon he stands.

I love my love and well he knows,I love the grass where on he goes;If he no more on earth will be,’Twill surely be the end of me.

Black is the color, etc.

2. I wonder as I wanderI wonder as I wander out under the skyHow Jesus our Savior did come for to dieFor poor orn’ry people like you and like I,I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow stallWith wise men and farmers and shepherds and all,But high from the Heavens a star’s light did fallThe promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted of any wee thingA star in the sky or a bird on the wingOr all of God’s angels in Heav’n for to singHe surely could have had it ’cause he was the king.


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3. Loosin yelavLoosin yelav ensareetzSaree partzòr gadareetzShegleeg megleeg yeresovPòrvetz kedneen loosni dzov.

Jan a loosinJan ko loosinJan ko gòlor sheg yereseen

Xavarn arten tchòkatzavOo el kedneen tchògatzavLoosni loosov halatzvadzMoot amberi metch mònadz.

Jan a loosin, etc.

4. Rossignolet du bois Rossignolet du bois,Rossignolet sauvage,Apprends-moi ton langage,Apprends-moi-z à parler,Apprends-moi la manièreComment il faut aimer.

Comment il faut aimerJe m’en vais vous le dire,Faut chanter des aubadesDeux heures après minuit,Faut lui chanter: ‘La belle,C’est pour vous réjouir’.

On m’avait dit, la belle,Que vous avez des pommes,Des pommes de renettesQui sont dans vot’ jardin.Permettez-moi, la belle,Que j’y mette la main.

Non, je ne permettrai pasQue vous touchiez mes pommes,Prenez d’abord la luneEt le soleil en main,Puis vous aurez les pommesQui sont dans mon jardin.

The moon has risenThe moon has risen over the hill,over the top of the hill,its red rosy facecasting radiant light on the ground.

O dear moonwith your dear lightand your dear, round, rosy face!

Before, the darkness layspread upon the earth;moonlight has now chased itinto the dark clouds.

O dear moon, etc.

Little nightingaleLittle nightingale of the woods,little wild nightingale,teach me your secret language,teach me how to speak like you,show me the wayto love aright.

The way to love arightI can tell you straight away,you must sing serenadestwo hours after midnight,you must sing to her: ‘My pretty one.This is for your delight.’

They told me, my pretty one,that you have some apples,some rennet apples,growing in your garden.Allow me, my pretty one,to touch them.

No, I shall not allow youto touch my apples.First, hold the moonand the sun in your hands,then you may have the applesthat grow in my garden.

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5. A la femminisca E Signuruzzu miù faciti bon tempuHa iu l’amanti miù’mmezzu lu mariL’arvuli d’oru e li ntinni d’argentuLa Marunnuzza mi l’av’aiutari.Chi pozzanu arrivòri ‘nsarvamentuE comu arriva ‘na littraMa fari ci ha mittiri du duci paroliComu ti l’ha passatu mari, mari.

6. La donna ideale L’omo chi mojer vor piar,De quattro cosse de’e spiar.La primiera è com’el è naa,L’altra è se l’è ben accostumaa,L’altra è como el è forma,La quarta è de quanto el è dotaa.Se queste cosse ghe comprendiA lo nome di Dio la prendi.

7. Ballo La la la la la la ...Amor fa disviare li più saggiE chi più l’ama meno ha in sé misuraPiù folle è quello che più s’innamura.

La la la la la la...Amor non cura di fare suoi dannaggiCo li suoi raggi mette tal cafuraChe non può raffreddare per freddura.

8. Motettu de tristura Tristu passirillantiComenti massimbillas.Tristu passirillantiE puita mi consillasA prongi po s’amanti.

Tristu passirillantiCand’ happess interradaTristu passirillantiFaimi custa cantadaCand’ happess interrada.

May the Lord send fine weatherMay the Lord send fine weather,for my sweetheart is at sea;his mast is of gold, his sails of silver.May Our Lady give me her help,so that they get back safely.And if a letter arrives,may there be two sweet words written,telling me how it goes with you at sea.

The ideal womanWhen a man has a mind to take a wife,there are four things he should check:the first is her family,the second is her manners,the third is her figure,the fourth is her dowry.If she passes muster on these,then, in God’s name, let him marry her!

DanceLa la la la la ...Love makes even the wisest mad,and he who loves most has least judgement.The greater love is the greater fool.

La la la la la ...Love is careless of the harm he does.His darts cause such a feverthat not even coldness can cool it.

Song of sadnessSorrowful nightingalehow like me you are!Sorrowful nightingale,console me if you canas I weep for my lover.

Sorrowful nightingale,when I am buried,sorrowful nightingale,sing this songwhen I am buried.


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9. Malurous qu’o uno fenno Malurous qu’o uno fenno,Maluros qué n’o cat!Qué n’o cat n’en bou unoQué n’o uno n’en bou pas!Tradèra ladèrida rèro, etc.

Urouzo lo fennoQu’o l’omé qué li cau!Urouz inquéro maitoO quèlo qué n’o cat!Tradèra ladèrida rèro, etc.

10. Lo fiolaire Ton qu’èrè pitchounèloGordavè loui moutous,Lirou lirou lirou ...Lirou la diri tou tou la lara.

Obio n’o counoulhètoÉ n’ai près un postrou.Lirou lirou, etc.

Per fa lo biroudètoMè domond’ un poutou.Lirou lirou, etc.

E ièu soui pas ingrato:En lièt d’un nin fau dous!Lirou lirou, etc.

11. Azerbaijan love song[Transcription defies translation.]

Texts: Universal Edition (London) Ltd.

Wretched is heWretched is he who has a wife,wretched is he who has not!He who hasn’t got one wants one,he who has not, doesn’t!Tralala tralala, etc.

Happy the womanwho has the man she wants!Happier still is shewho has no man at all!Tralala tralala, etc.

The spinnerWhen I was a little girlI tended the sheep.Lirou lirou lirou ...Lirou la diri tou tou la lara.

I had a little staffand I called a shepherd to me.Lirou lirou, etc.

For looking after my sheephe asked me for a kiss.Lirou lirou, etc.

And I, not one to be mean,Gave him two instead of one.Lirou lirou, etc.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

La valse poème choréographique

After thinking about La valse for as long as 13 years,Ravel finally got to grips with it towards the end of 1919.The stimulus to complete the long-cherished project hadcome from Sergei Diaghilev who, against his betterjudgement perhaps, had commissioned the score for theBallets Russes. When the composer first played it to him,however, at a private audition in Paris in April 1920, it turned out to be something rather different from what he was expecting.

Francis Poulenc, who was present on that unhappyoccasion, recalled what happened. ‘I knew Diaghilev verywell at that time. I saw his false teeth twitch, I saw his monocletwitch and I saw that he didn’t like it. When Ravel hadfinished, Diaghilev said to him something which I thoughtwas very true. He said, “Ravel, it’s a masterpiece, but it isn’t aballet. It’s a portrait of a ballet, a painting of a ballet.”’

Ravel’s ‘choreographic poem’ is indeed a masterpieceand it is true that it is not so much a waltz as a painting ofa waltz – except that it is two paintings, an impressionistand an expressionist, side by side in the same frame. It is,as the composer said, ‘a kind of apotheosis of the waltz’but one inescapably linked in his mind with the image of‘a fantastic and fateful whirlpool’.

The problem was that, after a war in which he had servedat Verdun against the combined might of Germany andAustria, Ravel’s feelings about the Viennese waltz hadinevitably changed. When he first conceived the work in1906 he had thought of calling it Wien (Vienna) and, as hesaid at the time, it was to be ‘a grand waltz, a sort ofhomage to the memory of the great Strauss – not Richard,

the other, Johann. You know how much I love thoserhythms.’ Years later he still loved the rhythms but he wasalso painfully aware of what Viennese waltz-time culturehad in the meantime become.

The impressionist first half of La valse corresponds quitehappily with the scenario Ravel published in the score: Clouds whirl about. Occasionally they part to allow aglimpse of waltzing couples. As they graduallyevaporate, one can discern a gigantic hall filled by acrowd of dancers in motion. The glow of the chandeliersbreaks out ‘fortissimo’. An Imperial Court about 1855.

After gradually gathering itself out of quiet andrhythmically indistinct rumblings in the bass and a fewsuggestive scraps of melody, a waltz-time momentumlaunches a sequence of seven dances. Each waltz has itsown melody, its own distinctive style and its ownharmonies but, though some are longer than others,none of them is more than briefly developed.

Half-way through at the height of a brilliant episode ofvirtuoso figuration on trumpets and woodwind, the lightis extinguished and the dark rumblings are heard again.The waltz is re-assembled out of the same material but inno orderly sequence and with increasing vehemence.The explosive and heavily percussive climax which finallytears apart a once civilised scene – the last two barsshattering the waltz rhythm itself – is a direct expressionof the trauma experienced by the composer in thepreceding few years.



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Ravel

About the performers

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Mariss Jansons conductorMariss Jansons became the sixth chief conductor of theRoyal Concertgebouw Orchestra in September 2004,following a series of guest appearances in Amsterdamsince 1988. He was chief conductor of the OsloPhilharmonic Orchestra from 1979 to 2000, and, untilrecently, music director of the Pittsburgh SymphonyOrchestra (1987-2004). In 2003 he became principalconductor of the Symphonieorchester des BayerischenRundfunks in Munich, a post which he combines with hisposition as chief conductor at the Royal ConcertgebouwOrchestra. One of the most admired and respectedconductors in the world, Mariss Jansons has beenawarded many distinguished international honours forhis achievements.

Born in Riga, Latvia, the son of the renowned conductorArvid Jansons and his opera-singer wife, Mariss Jansonsmoved to the city then known as Leningrad at the age of13. He studied under Hans Swarowsky in Vienna andHerbert von Karajan in Salzburg, winning theInternational Herbert von Karajan Competition in Berlin.From 1971until 1999 he was associate principalconductor of the St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad)Philharmonic, leading it on several major tours.

He is a regular guest at the most important music centresin Europe, America and Japan and is frequently invitedto the Lucerne, Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals and theBBC Proms. He has appeared with leading orchestrasworldwide, including the London PhilharmonicOrchestra, of which he was principal guest conductor(1992-97), and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in its

globally televised New Year’s Day Concert at thebeginning of 2006.

Many of his recordings, with a wide range of orchestras,have won international awards, and his first discs with theRoyal Concertgebouw Orchestra on its own label RCOLive have met with enthusiastic critical acclaim.

Elina Garanca mezzo-sopranoThe mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca has establishedherself in performances with leading opera companiesand symphony orchestras around the world. Born into amusical family in Riga, she studied there, in Vienna and inthe United States. She was a finalist in the 2001 BBCCardiff Singer of the World Competition and last year, aswell as celebrating her 30th birthday and marrying, shebecame an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist.

She began the 2006/07 season with a return to theOpéra de Paris as Sesto/La clemenza di Tito beforereturning to her home city of Vienna for performances asDorabella/Così fan tutte and Octavian/DerRosenkavalier with the Vienna Staatsoper. She makes herdebut performances with the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin,as Mozart’s Sesto, gives her recital debut at the ViennaMusikverein, tours Germany with the Munich SymphonyOrchestra and concludes the season with her debut atthe Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Dorabella.

Elina Garanca has appeared frequently with the ViennaStaatsoper, gave her first performances as Sesto in theTheater an der Wien and appeared as Dorabella at the

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Vienna Festwochen. Following her debut at the SalzburgFestival as Annio/La clemenza di Tito, she returned to singDorabella. Other career highlights include her debut inthe title role of La cenerentola at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Dorabella in Patrice Chereau’s production of Cosìfan tutte at Aix-en-Provence (recorded on DVD), Adalgisa/Norma in concert in Baden-Baden and performances asNicklausse/Les contes d’Hoffmann in Japan. She hasappeared frequently with the Finnish National Operaand at the Savonlinna Festival, and sang Rosina/Ilbarbiere di Siviglia and Giovanna Seymour/Anna Bolenawith Latvian National Opera in Romania and Greece.

She is a frequent guest with leading European symphonyorchestras and has given recitals at the Helsinki and Turkufestivals. Following her signing with DG, she featured onits compilation The Mozart Album and her first solorecording for DG, Aria Cantilena, has just been released.

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Mariss Jansons chief conductor

Soon after its establishment in 1888, the ConcertgebouwOrchestra developed into one of the best orchestras inEurope, acclaimed by Richard Strauss in 1897. Theorchestra, which was granted Royal status in 1988, hasmade more than 1,000 recordings and is highly regardedthroughout the world. Its chief conductors have beenremarkably few in number: Willem Kes (1888-95), WillemMengelberg (1895-1945), Eduard van Beinum (1945-59),Bernard Haitink (1959-88, now conductor laureate) andRiccardo Chailly (1988-2004, now conductor emeritus).

Mariss Jansons took up his position as chief conductor inSeptember 2004; Nikolaus Harnoncourt is honoraryguest conductor.

The orchestra has worked with many guest conductorsincluding such composers as Strauss, Mahler, Debussy andStravinsky; other eminent artists such as Bartók,Rachmaninov and Prokofiev performed their own works assoloists. This crucial bond with contemporary composershas continued with associations between the orchestra andMaderna, Peter Schat, Berio, Nono, Henze, Adams andmany others.

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has gainedparticular international attention for its ‘velvet’ stringsand ‘golden’ brass and for the exceptional timbre of thewoodwinds. Its interpretations of the late-Romanticrepertoire, especially the works of Bruckner and Mahler,have been as successful on recordings as in live concertsand festivals. In his first two seasons as chief conductor,Jansons has conducted a broad range of repertoire,from Haydn and Mozart to a new work by Henze. Theorchestra’s focus on Shostakovich last year includedseveral new commissions, as well as Lady Macbeth ofMtsensk, Jansons’s first opera project in Amsterdam.

The orchestra has also developed its own RCO Live label,featuring Jansons on a number of discs: his account ofShostakovich’s Seventh Symphony was recentlynominated for a 2007 BBC Music Magazine Award.


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17

First ViolinVesko Eschkenazy*leaderLiviu Prunaru* leaderTjeerd TopMarijn MijndersUrsula SchochMarleen AsbergKeiko Iwata

TakahashiRobert WatermanJanke TammingaTomoko KuritaHenriëtte LuytjesBorika van den

BoorenTony RousChristian van

EggelenMaaike AartsNienke van RijnJunko NaitoRichard LazarBen Peled

Second Violin*Henk RubinghCaroline StrumphlerSusanne JaspersJosef MalkinAngela DavisAnna de Vey

Mestdagh

Paul Peter SpieringArndt AuhagenKirsti GoedhartAnnebeth WebbPetra van de

VlasakkerHerre HalbertsmaMarc de GrootCleora Waterman-

KeelerMonica GrosmanMirte de KokEke van Spiegel

ViolaKen HakiiMichael GielerGert Jan LeuverinkPeter SokoleRoland KrämerGuus JeukendrupJeroen QuintPieter RoosenschoonJeroen WoudstraEva SmitEric van der WelFerdinand HügelEdith van MoergastelYoko KanamaruVincent Peters

CelloGodfried Hoogeveen*Gregor Horsch*Johan van IerselWim StraesserFred PotChris van BalenFred EdelenEdith NeumanYke ViersenArthur OomensDaniël EsserSophie AdamChristian Hacker

Double BassThomas BraendstrupJan WolfsMariëtta FeltkampRuud BastiaanseGuibert VrijensRob DirksenCarol HarteFrits Schutter

FluteEmily Beynon*Kersten McCall*Herman van

KogelenbergPiccoloVincent Cortvrint

OboeAlexei Ogrintchouk*Jan Spronk*Nicoline AltJan KouwenhovenCor AnglaisRuth Visser

ClarinetJacques Meertens*Arno Piters*Hein WiedijkBass ClarinetDavide Lattuada

BassoonRonald Karten*Gustavo Núñez*Helma van den BrinkJos de LangeContrabassoonGuus Dral

HornJacob Slagter*Jasper de Waal*Fons VerspaandonkJaap van der VlietPeter SteinmannSharon St. OngePaulien Weierink-

Goossen

TrumpetFrits Damrow*Peter Masseurs*Hans AltingBert LangenkampTheo Wolters

TromboneIvan Meylemans*Jörgen van Rijen*Nico SchippersBart ClaessensBass TromboneRaymond Munnecom

TubaPerry Hoogendijk

TimpaniMarinus Komst*Nick Woud*

PercussionHerman RiekenGustavo GimenoJan Pustjens

HarpPetra van der HeideGerda Ockers

* denotes principal

Chief Conductor Mariss JansonsConductor Emeritus Riccardo ChaillyConductor Laureate Bernard HaitinkHonorary Guest Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Jan Willem Loot Executive DirectorJoel Ethan Fried Artistic ManagerSjoerd van den Berg Director, Public AffairsHans Ferwerda Manager, Planning/ProductionElse Broekman Tour ManagerMarieke Dennissen Assistant Tour Manager

Harriët van Uden Personnel ManagerCarlo de Wild Personnel ManagerDouwe Zuidema LibrarianJan Ummels Stage ManagerFrans van der Starre Stage Hand Johan van Maaren Stage Hand

18

Barbican CommitteeChairmanJohn Barker OBE

Deputy ChairmanBarbara Newman CBE

Mary Lou CarringtonStuart FraserChristine Cohen OBE

Jeremy MayhewMaureen KellettJoyce Nash OBE

John Owen-WardJohn RobinsPatrick Roney CBE

Lesley King-Lewis

Barbican DirectorateManaging DirectorSir John Tusa

Artistic DirectorGraham Sheffield

Commercial and Venue Services DirectorMark Taylor

Product and Building Services DirectorMichael Hoch

Finance DirectorSandeep Dwesar

HR DirectorDiane Lennan

Executive Assistant to Sir John TusaLeah Nicholls

Barbican Music DepartmentHead of MusicRobert van Leer

Concert Hall ManagerVicky Atkinson

Music ProgrammersGijs ElsenBryn Ormrod

Programming ConsultantAngela Dixon

Programming AssistantsAndrea JungGersende Giorgio

Concerts Planning ManagerFrances Bryant

Music AdministratorThomas Hardy

Concerts AssistantCatherine Langston

Head of Marketing Chris Denton

Music Marketing ManagerJacqueline Barsoux

Marketing ExecutivesNaomi EnglerBethan Sheppard

Performing Arts MarketingAssistantSarah Hemingway

Media Relations ManagerNicky Thomas

Acting Senior Production ManagerEddie Shelter

Production ManagersKaty ArnanderJessica Buchanan-BarrowAlison Cooper

Event ManagersKate PackhamKirsten SiddleFiona Todd

Production AssistantCorinna Woolmer

Technical ManagerEamonn Byrne

Deputy Technical ManagerIngo Reinhardt

Technical SupervisorsMark BloxsidgeSteve Mace

TechniciansMaurice AdamsonJasja van AndelJason KewMartin Shaw

Stage ManagerElizabeth Burgess

Deputy Stage ManagerJulie-Anne Bolton

Stage SupervisorsChristopher AldertonPaul Harcourt

Stage AssistantsAdemola AkisanyaMichael CaseyAndy ClarkeTrevor DavisonHeloise Donnelly-JacksonHannah Wye

Technical & Stage CoordinatorColette Chilton

Programme edited by Edge-Wise, artwork by Jane Denton; printed by Vitesse London; advertising by Cabbell (tel. 020 8971 8450)

Please make sure that all digital watch alarms and mobile phones are switched off during theperformance. In accordance with the requirements of the licensing authority, sitting or standing in any gangway is not permitted. No smoking, eating or drinking is allowed in the auditorium. No cameras, tape recorders or any other recording equipment may be taken into the hall.

Barbican CentreSilk StreetLondon EC2Y 8DS

Administration 020 7638 4141 Box Office 020 7638 8891www.barbican.org.uk

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