JOURNEY THROUGH MUSIC

Friday 26 May, 7.30pm

Arvo Pärt Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (7 mins)

Henri Dutilleux Tout un monde lointain … (27 mins)

Interval: 20 mins

Hector Berlioz Symphonie fantastique (50 mins)

BBC PhilharmonicJuanjo Mena conductorLeonard Elschenbroich cello

ARE YOU READY TO BEGIN YOUR MUSICAL JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY?

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Our Journey Through Music scheme at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall is an affordable and enjoyable introduction to the world of concert-going and classical music. For young people and children from the age of 8, our special scheme is aimed at making our concerts easily accessible for families and anybody who wants to discover orchestral music or to explore it further.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ORCHESTRA

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WHAT IS AN ORCHESTRA?An orchestra is a group of instrumental players who perform together, usually led by a conductor.

The modern symphony orchestra usually has somewhere between 60 and 90 players: around 30 violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos, eight double basses; two or three each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, a harp and an assortment of percussion instruments. You can find out more about the instruments, and where they sit, on the next two pages after this.

THE CONDUCTORThe person in charge is usually the conductor, who stands at the front and directs the orchestra from a podium, keeping time either by waving a short stick, called a baton, or sometimes just with his or her hands. One of the earliest conductors, the Italian-born Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–87), kept his orchestra together by banging a big stick on the floor, but one day he accidentally stabbed his foot and soon afterwards died of gangrene. It’s not as dangerous these days!

Part of the conductor’s job is to show the beat (or pulse) of the music so that all the musicians play together in time. He or she also signals when individual musicians or groups have to start or stop playing. All the time conductors are listening to the overall sound-balance, and altering it, to make sure that the important instruments don’t get drowned out by less important ones. Otherwise, like lots of people talking loudly at the same time, the result would be chaos!

But there’s more to it than this. The conductor can also help to reveal the changing moods of the music. If they can create a strong musical image for the listener, the effect can make us feel all sorts of emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, pride and everything in between. The music might energise you, or it might make you feel you’ve fallen into a dream.

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THE ORCHESTRA ON STAGEMost orchestras have a similar seating plan, with the strings at the front, the woodwind behind them and the brass and percussion further back still.

WOODWINDThe woodwind section sits behind the strings, often in two rows. There are four different instruments, usually in pairs, but in bigger orchestras there can be up to three or four players of each instrument. The metal flutes produce a high, bright, silvery sound. The piccolo is like a small flute and plays very high up. Oboes are black wooden instruments with a detachable reed, which gives them a distinctive sharp-edged sound. Before a concert starts, the whole orchestra tunes up to the note ‘A’ sounded by the Principal Oboe. A bigger, lower version of the oboe is the cor anglais, or ‘English horn’. Clarinets have a more hollow, woody sound. The lowest-sounding member of its family is the bass clarinet. The lowest woodwind instrument is the bassoon, which is long and heavy and has to be supported by a sling round the player’s neck. The contra-bassoon is so long that it’s bent double. Occasionally a piece will need extra instruments, such as the saxophone, which is more usually found in a jazz band.

BRASSLike the strings and woodwind, the brass family has four groups. There are French horns (usually four), instruments once associated with hunting, while the trumpets came from military bands, and often have fanfare-like parts. Trombones are played with a movable slide but, in spite of their size, they can play amazingly fast notes; and finally the enormous tuba makes the deepest notes of all.

PERCUSSIONThe percussion section sits at the back of the orchestra and centres around the timpani, or kettledrums – between two and four copper drums. They have pedals, which alter their pitch (or notes). The bass drum is hit with just one stick; while the metal cymbals are clashed together, often when the music gets very loud. The side-drum is a small military drum that can play very quietly or very loudly indeed. Sometimes composers ask for a variety of other percussion instruments, such as the xylophone, the marimba or even whistles, whips and sirens.

STRINGSString players sit at the front in a semi-circle, usually with the violins on the left and the cellos on the right. Each of the string sections (and also the woodwind, brass and percussion sections) has a principal, who leads the section. The strings divide into four sections: violins, violas, cellos and double basses. The violins are subdivided into first violins and second violins, with the Firsts generally having a slightly more difficult and brilliant part. Violas are bigger than violins, with a deeper, mellower sound. The cellos have a rounded, bass sound. The huge double basses (which are played standing up, or perched on a high stool) add depth to the string sound. The harp is played with fingers instead of a bow, and it has a series of complicated pedals that change its pitch (or notes).

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TONIGHT'S MUSIC

Arvo Pärt (born 1935)Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten (1977)

Arvo Pärt comes from the Baltic nation of Estonia, and he’s often described as a ‘Holy Minimalist’. Even though you don’t have to be religious to enjoy it, many people feel that Pärt’s music has a wonderfully thoughtful, even spiritual feeling. His music often begins by sounding very simple – with just a few notes, as if he’d used the very minimum needed. But that’s only the start. As you’re about to hear, Pärt weaves those notes into something incredibly rich and beautiful.

Just after he finished writing this piece in 1977, he heard the sad news that the British composer Benjamin Britten had died. Pärt was a great fan of Britten’s music – so he called it Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, which translates as ‘Song [or Chant] in memory of Benjamin Britten’.

What to listen for• The strings: Pärt likes to keep things simple so he doesn’t

use woodwind or brass in this piece, just strings and a bell. Listen to how plainly it begins, and then how the strings start to ‘sing’, to overlap and cascade.

• The bell: does it remind you of anything in particular: a mood, or a place? Out of all the possible instruments, why do you think Pärt chose to add just this one?

What else could I listen to?Arvo Pärt’s Fratres often appears in films and TV documentaries – it’s deceptively simple, and it couldn’t be by any other composer.

Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013)Tout un monde lointain … (1967–70)

1 Enigme (Enigma) – 2 Regard (Gaze) – 3 Houles (Surges) – 4 Miroirs (Mirrors) – 5 Hymne (Hymn)

Leonard Elschenbroich cello

Many classical composers lived a long time ago. But quite a few of us actually met Henri Dutilleux (pronounced ‘Doo-tee-yer’), who died only four years ago at the age of 97. He was a kind, lively old man, full of good humour and not terribly tall, who wore old-fashioned glasses and spoke English with a very thick French accent and a very deep voice. You might have mistaken him for your great-grandad, but his music was full of imagination and magical sounds.

He finished this piece in 1970 and it’s what musicians call a concerto – a piece in which a single (‘solo’) player, in this case a cellist, performs alone with the support of the orchestra. But Dutilleux didn’t call it that. He liked to gather ideas from poetry and paintings, and see what sounds they suggested to him. In this piece, he took ideas from the mysterious French poetry

TONIGHT'S MUSIC

of Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) – and each section (or movement) of the piece has a single word from one of his poems, to get your imagination going. There’s lots to discover – after all, the title means ‘A whole distant world …’

What to listen for1 Enigme (Enigma) • A puzzle – and a mystery! The very first sound is

mysterious – like something rustling, or a wave slowly breaking on the sea. It’s actually two of the percussion instruments (at the back of the orchestra – see if you can spot them). Then our cello soloist Leonard joins in, and shows what he can do: low grumbling sounds, bursts of energy, and little flurries of pizzicato – when he plucks the strings of his cello. Gradually, the orchestra joins in too, until the cello seems to shiver, and the music moves on into:

2 Regard (Gaze) • The cello sings sadly, and the string instruments seem

to sigh. Dutilleux got the idea from a weird love poem by Baudelaire: ‘the poison that flows from your eyes, from your green eyes’. With a big sound from the brass instruments, it moves on into:

3 Houles (Surges) • The cello scurries about again; but other instruments

surge with it – the clarinet and the oboe (woodwind instruments, in the middle of the orchestra), and later the bright-sounding flute. The music gets stormier (listen for the clattering wooden xylophone). Baudelaire’s poem talked of a black ‘sea of ebony’. It goes quiet again and then …

4 Miroirs (Mirrors) • The marimba (in the percussion section) and the harp

pick out a rhythm like a quietly ticking clock and the cello sings, with the violins making gleaming sounds around it. Gradually the music gathers strength and launches into:

5 Hymne (Hymn) • It may be called ‘Hymn’ but it’s not a church sort of hymn.

Listen out for bold, surprising sounds from the brass instruments and the percussion, while the cello scampers and darts between them. How will it end? Dutilleux gives

us another clue from his favourite poet: ‘Guard your dreams! Wise men don’t have dreams as beautiful as fools do!’

What else could I listen to?Dutilleux wrote a concerto for violin and orchestra, too – the beautiful L’arbre des songes (‘The Tree of Dreams’).

Interval: 20 minutes (time for an ice-cream!)

TONIGHT'S MUSIC

Hector Berlioz (1803–69)Symphonie fantastique (1830)

1 Dreams, Passions2 A Ball3 Scene in the Country4 March to the Scaffold5 Dream of a Sabbath Night

The French composer Hector Berlioz was music’s ultimate rebel. He had messy red hair, a passionate temper and he loved music so much that he dropped out of medical school to be a composer – even though he could only play the flute and the guitar! Other composers were amazed. He hadn’t had many music lessons, so everything he wrote sounded wrong – but somehow, right! And incredibly exciting. He loved all the sounds that a full orchestra could make. And he was mad about the new books and art that were coming out in France in the 1820s – stories of horror, passion and wild adventures.

And then … he fell in love! Well, sort of: he hadn’t actually met the beautiful actress Harriet Smithson but he’d seen her acting in a Paris theatre and, in early 1830, he decided to write a symphony describing his feelings for her. Everyone was astonished. A symphony is a piece for orchestra in several separate movements, telling a story in which tunes (or ‘themes’) are the characters. It’s one of the biggest challenges for any classical composer. Berlioz didn’t care; he simply wrote music that was as passionate and as unpredictable as he felt.

And he called it Symphonie fantastique (‘Fantastic Symphony’). ‘Fantastic’ can mean full of fantasy and imagination, as well as really good. This symphony is both of those things. Berlioz described it as ‘an episode in the life of an artist’ – a sort of dream – and in every movement he included a theme that was supposed to be Harriet. The ‘artist’, of course, was Berlioz himself! And the story? Well, if you’re sitting comfortably …

What to listen for1 Dreams, Passions• It begins quietly. Berlioz said that his hero thinks of ‘the

longing he used to experience before he discovered his Beloved’, and the music seems to wander around. ‘Then he remembers the passionate love which she suddenly inspired in him’. With a sudden crash, the violins and flute play a long tune that Berlioz used to describe Harriet. The cellos and basses thump like a beating heart. Things are about to get passionate!

2 A Ball• Berlioz imagines seeing his beloved at a fabulous party.

The orchestra plays an elegant waltz – the hottest new dance craze in Paris in 1830 – and two harps make the music glitter like diamonds. He sees her dancing and then he glimpses her across the room (her tune is played quietly by the clarinet). Then the dance whirls on.

3 Scene in the Country • Our hero flees to the countryside – but everything

reminds him of Harriet! He hears a shepherd boy (depicted by the cor anglais – a smoky sounding woodwind instrument) calling to his friend (a distant-sounding oboe). He tries to relax – but at the end we hear distant thunder, played by two sets of timpani.

4 March to the Scaffold • And now he’s completely lost it: ‘He dreams that he

has murdered his beloved in a fit of jealousy’. In France, in those days, that meant one thing: the guillotine! He imagines being taken through yelling crowds (the brass instruments almost seem to jeer) to have his head cut off. The last thing he imagines before he gets the chop is – you guessed it – Harriet’s theme. (You can literally hear his head bounce into the basket – pizzicato – right afterwards).

TONIGHT'S MUSIC

5 Dream of a Sabbath Night • Listen to the strings chattering and rumbling and the

weird sighs from the woodwinds (that sliding sound is called a glissando): our hero is alone in a graveyard at night. Witches are gathering, and guess what: his beloved is one of them! From now on, things only get crazier. Listen for the chiming of midnight bells, and the strings playing col legno (with the wooden bit of their bows) – a rattling sound, like skeletons dancing.

And if all this doesn’t sound like your idea of a love letter – you’d be surprised: Harriet finally heard Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique in 1832. The following year, she married him.

What else could I listen to?There’s just so much exciting music by Berlioz – try his overtures Roman Carnival, Les francs-juges and Le corsaire.

Notes © Richard Bratby