ROYAL PHILHARMONICORCHESTRA

at the Cadogan Hall London

www.rpo.co.uk

SATURDAY APRIL 9TH 2011

ROBERTAS SERVENIKAS Conductor

DIANA BREKALO Piano • ANGELA WHELAN Solo Trumpet

Cadogan Hall, 5 Sloane Terrace, London SW1X 9DQBOOKING INFORMATION Box Office: 020 7730 4500

Online Booking: www.cadoganhall.com (booking fees apply)

BEETHOVENEgmont Overture Op.84

FRIBBINSConcerto for Piano & Orchestra (première)

SHOSTAKOVICHConcerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings Op.35

BEETHOVENSymphony No.8 in F Op.93

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT

Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Charles DutoitManaging Director Ian MaclayFinance Director Michelle JohnsonConcerts Director Elizabeth ForbesConcerts Manager Kate GreenHead of Press & Marketing Chris EvansEducation Manager Ruth CurrieOrchestra Managers Jane Aebi, Malcolm WilsonLibrarian Patrick WilliamsStage Manager Chris Ouzman

If you would like to join the Royal PhilharmonicOrchestra’s FREE mailing list or for further informationabout concerts and recordings, please take a look at ourwebsite: www.rpo.co.uk or call us on 020 7608 8800.

CKNOWLEDGED as one of the UK’s most prodigious orchestras, the RoyalPhilharmonic Orchestra (RPO) enjoys an international reputation for bringing audiences worldwide first-class performances and the highest possible standards

of music-making across a diverse range of musical repertoire. This was the vision of theOrchestra’s flamboyant founder Sir Thomas Beecham, whose legacy is maintained todayas the Orchestra thrives under the exceptional direction of its new Artistic Director andPrincipal Conductor, Maestro Charles Dutoit.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is London-based and performs a prestigious series ofconcerts each year at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, featuring artists of thehighest calibre. The Orchestra’s London home is at Cadogan Hall, just off Sloane Square,where concert-goers enjoy an intimate atmosphere in an idyllic location. Complementingthe concert series at Cadogan Hall, the Orchestra regularly performs in the magnificentRoyal Albert Hall, presenting works of great magnitude designed to suit the immensity ofthis historic and grand venue.

Within the UK, the Orchestra is committed to offering an extensive regional touringprogramme, including established residencies in Croydon, Northampton, Lowestoft,Reading and Crawley. As an international orchestra, the RPO has toured more than thirtycountries in the last five years. Recent tours have included performances in Egypt, Russia,Spain, Italy, Germany, the USA, China and the Far East.

The Orchestra is also recognised for its artistic work through a vibrant and innovativecommunity and education programme, titled RPO resound. Specially trained members ofthe Orchestra, alongside accomplished project leaders, provide comprehensiveworkshops where music is used as a powerful and inspirational force.

Frequently found in the recording studio, the Orchestra records extensively for film andtelevision as well as for all the major commercial record companies. The Orchestra alsoowns its own record label and is proud to be the first UK orchestra to stream its entireseries of concerts live from Cadogan Hall.

Calvin Bruce of Paul Davis and Partners

M U S I C H AV E NL o n d o n

www.musichaven.co.uk

Promoted by Music

Haven London under the

auspices of the United

Kingdom Embassy of the

Republic of Croatia and

with the support of

Middlesex University.

Cadogan Hall Etiquette and Information

ETIQUETTE

Smoking:All areas of Cadogan Hall are non-smokingareas.

Food & Beverages:You are kindly requested not to bring food andother refreshments into Cadogan Hall.

Cameras and Electronic Devices:Video equipment, cameras and tape recordersare not permitted. Please ensure all pagers andmobile phones are switched off before enteringthe auditorium.

Interval and timings:Intervals vary with each performance. Someperformances may not have an interval.Latecomers will not be admitted until a suitablebreak in the performance.

Consideration:We aim to deliver the highest standards ofservice. Therefore, we would ask you to treatour staff with courtesy and in a manner in whichyou would expect to be treated.

FOOD AND BEVERAGES

Culford RoomThe house wines, champagne and soft drinksare available from the bars in the Culford Roomat all concerts.

Oakley BarConcert goers may enjoy a wide selection ofchampagnes, spirits, red and white wines,beers and soft drinks from the Oakley RoomBar. There are also some light refreshmentsavailable.

Gallery BarCustomers seated in the Gallery can buyinterval drinks from the Gallery Bar at someconcerts.

ACCESSCadogan Hall has a range of services to assistdisabled customers including a provision forwheelchair users in the stalls. Companions ofdisabled customers are entitled to a free seatwhen assisting disabled customers at CadoganHall.

Please note that companion seats not sold48hrs prior to any given performance will bereleased for general sale.

Wheel Chair Users:If you use a wheelchair and wish to transfer to aseat, we regret we may not be able to provide amember of staff to help you physically.However, we will arrange for your wheelchair tobe taken away and stored. A lift is located tothe right once inside the box office receptionallowing access to a lowered box office counter.Foyer areas are on the same level as the boxoffice and the foyer bar (Caversham Room) isaccessed via a wide access lift. A member ofstaff will help you with your requirements. Stallsare accessed via a wide lift as are adaptedtoilet facilities. Please note that there is nowheelchair access to the Gallery seats.

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THE ORCHESTRA

FIRST VIOLINSDuncan RiddellTamas AndrasJudith TemplemanKaoru YamadaAndrew KleeKay ChappellAnthony ProtheroeErik Chapman

SECOND VIOLINSAndrew StoreyElen Hâf RichardsCharlotte AnsbergsJennifer ChristieSiân McInallyGuy BebbStephen Kear

VIOLASVicci WardmanHelen KammingaAndrew SippingsEsther HarlingKathy BalmainLaura Holt

CELLOSChantal WebsterRoberto SorrentinoWilliam HeggartShinko HanaokaRachel van der Tang

DOUBLE BASSESRoy BensonDavid BroughtonDavid Gordon

FLUTESEmer McDonoughHelen Keen

PICCOLOHelen Keen

OBOESTim WattsLeila Ward

CLARINETSMichael WhightTom Watmough

BASSOONSPaco CerpaFraser Gordon

FRENCH HORNSLaurence DaviesKathryn SaundersPhil WoodsAndrew Fletcher

TRUMPETSBrian ThomsonMike Allen

TIMPANIChris Thomas

www.rpo.co.uk

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Concerto for Piano &Orchestra (premiere)

PETER FRIBBINS (B.1969)

Commissioned by the United Kingdom Embassyof the Republic of Croatia

I Adagio Drammatico – Allegro VivoII Adagio – Andante – Tempo Primo – III Allegro Vivo – Andante – Adagio –Affettando – Fugato

In late 2009 I acquired a Bechstein grandpiano, owned for seventy years by aremarkable retired physician, musician andpainter, Dr John Horder CBE, who was keenfor the instrument to go to a fellowmusician. Shortly after, I met the talentedGerman-Croatian pianist, Diana Brekalo,and after hearing her perform a concerto inLondon, she asked if I might like to writeone myself. With the support of the CroatianEmbassy, I was able to start work with avery particular focus, including my love ofthe great piano concerto repertoire of thepast and the lyrical tone of a certain latenineteenth-century Bechstein. What I foundmyself composing was music ofconsiderable resoluteness and emotionalintensity, and the score is prefaced with thefollowing lines by Omar Khayyám (1048-1131), as translated by Edward FitzGerald:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,Lift not thy hands to It for help - for ItRolls impotently on as Thou or I.

The first movement is the most substantial,beginning with a Df pedal in low strings anda short lachrymose viola melody from which

PETER FRIBBINS was born in London, winning a compositionscholarship to the Royal Academy of Music before further studieswith the German composer Hans Werner Henze in London and Italy.His music is frequently performed throughout the UK, Europe andbeyond and is popular with audiences and many high-profilemusicians who enjoy playing his work. As the Czech musicologistand critic Milos Pokora wrote, following a recent performance by theRosamunde Piano Trio at Dvorak Hall in Prague: ‘As one of the group

of English composers primarily striving to develop the compositional line pursued byBritten and Tippett, he has the matchless gift of melodic invention and a sense ofdramatic agitation. Fribbins has a penchant for drawing inspiration from original themes ofa literary nature, yet his compositions create the impression of straightforwardcommunicativeness and are extremely popular and sought-after’. Reviewing ‘I Have theSerpent Brought, a recent Guild CD of his Chamber Music for Strings, Barnaby Rayfieldcommented: ‘Fribbins is a confident, young voice in composition… alternately wistful,savage, respectful of tradition, and yet also playful.’ As well as a composer, Peter Fribbinsis Director of Music at Middlesex University and Artistic Director of the celebrated andlong-established series of Sunday London Chamber Music Society Concerts, resident atthe new Kings Place concert hall.

Egmont Overture Op.84 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

One of Beethoven’s best known overtures,‘Egmont’ forms part of the music hecomposed for an 1810 production ofGoethe’s play of the same name at theHoftheater in Vienna. Goethe completed hisfamous romantic drama in 1788: thesixteenth-century Flemish warrior CountEgmont is pitted against the Spanishdespotic invader, the Duke of Alba. Egmontrefuses to flee and abandon his ideal ofliberty and is eventually martyred, his deathrepresenting a victory against oppression.E.T.A Hoffmann, reviewing the music inAllgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in 1813wrote: ‘It is indeed a gratifying aspect tosee two great masters unified in awonderful work and a happy fulfillment ofevery expectation of the shrewdconnoisseur’.

The Overture is scored for flute andpiccolo, pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoonsand trumpets, four horns, timpani drumsand strings. It opens with a slow andserious introduction marked ‘Sostenuto’,featuring powerful unison F minor chords.This soon builds to a dramatic and excitingAllegro, eventually culminating in the majorkey, with triumphant fanfares in the brass,flourishes in the piccolo, and affirmativechords in wind and strings.

Conductor ROBERTAS SERVENIKASstudied at the St. PetersburgConservatoire and since 1993 hasconducted the Lithuanian NationalSymphony Orchestra, the Lithuanian,Siauliai and Klaipòda ChamberOrchestras as well as leading theLithuanian Academy of Music SymphonyOrchestra. In 1997, Mstislav Rostropovichinvited him to conduct the Philharmonieder Nationen Orchestra during the EvianFestival in France and they conductedOrchestra Sinfonica di Milano GiuseppeVerdi in the same festival the followingseason. Servenikas toured Germany withthe Lithuanian National SymphonyOrchestra giving concerts in the AlteOper, Hamburg Musikhalle and ColognePhilharmonic halls with great success,and the world premiere of Gubaidulina’sSonnengesang, with Rostropovich onsolo cello. His performances haveincluded the Vilnius Festival, theConcertgebouw in Amsterdam, theForbach, Reims and Berlioz festivals inFrance, Perelada in Spain, and theReingau and Mecklenburg-Vorpommernfestivals in Germany, as well as tours ofSweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. Ofhis 2002 Berlin peformance, DerTagesspiegel remarked that ‘…Servenikasis a conductor of international class.’Servenikas has also conducted the Cairo,Frankfurt, St. Petersburg Philharmonicand Russian Symphony Orchestras andworked with many of the world’s greatsoloists including Gering, Rostropovich,Dindo, trumpeter Maurice Andre,trombonist Christian Lindberg, violinistsFedotov, Grubert, Graffin and Katilius, thepianists Rubackytò, Geniusas, Pletniov,Macujev, and many more.

DIANA BREKALO (solo piano) wasbrought up in Stuttgart, and is of Croatiandescent. Formative studies in Germanyrevealed her talents not only as animaginative and thoughtful solo pianist,but also as a notable accompanist andfine chamber musician, most recently asduo partner to Mezzo-Soprano MaeHeydorn and violist Eniko Magyar. By theage of twelve, Diana Brekalo had alreadywon four first prizes as a soloist and twoas a chamber musician in the German‘Jugend Musiziert’, and her precocious

musical development was continuedthrough generous grants, enabling her,eventually, to come to London with a fullscholarship to undertake further studiesat the Guildhall. The winner of numerousnational and international piano prizes,including Croatian Artist of the Year 2010,Diana Brekalo has performed in citiesthroughout Europe, the USA, the mainconcert halls in China and Japan, andgiven live performances on both TV andradio. She has performed in many citiesand halls in the UK, including theWigmore Hall, and as soloist withnumerous orchestras.

Diana Brekalo can next be heard in Londonon Friday June 10th 2011 at St John’sSmith Square, in a chamber music programmewith the Hungarian violist Eniko Magyar,performing music by Joachim and Schumann,sonatas by Brahms and Shostakovich andanother premiere of music by Peter Fribbins,the new ‘Two Fantasias for Viola & Piano’.

ANGELA WHELAN (solo trumpet)studied the trumpet at the Royal ScottishAcademy of Music and Drama in hernative Scotland and in 1995 became thefirst female brass player in twenty yearsto win the coveted gold medal for theShell/LSO Music Scholarship. In 1996,the year of her graduation, she followedthis by taking first prize in theInternational Brass Explosion TrumpetCompetition. As a soloist she has givenrecitals all around the world, fromLondon’s Wigmore Hall, to the SydneyOpera House, and has played concertoswith many of the UK’s leading orchestrassuch as the Philharmonia, LondonSymphony Orchestra, BBC ScottishSymphony Orchestra and Royal ScottishNational Orchestra. Angela now featuresregularly as trumpet soloist in RaymondGubbay’s festivals around the UK andsince 2008 has been Principal Trumpetwith the London Chamber Orchestra.

Concerto for Piano,Trumpet and Strings Op.35DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)

I AllegrettoII LentoIII Moderato – Allegro con brio

The first of Dmitri Shostakovich’s two pianoconcertos was composed between Marchand July 1933, immediately following thecompletion of the 24 Preludes for solopiano, Op.34. It was premiered in October1933 by the Leningrad PhilharmonicOrchestra, with the composer at the piano.The scoring of piano, solo trumpet andstrings in unusual and the work’s fourmovements (the third is more of a preludeto the Finale) feel more like a singleextended movement with sections, albeitwith many widely dramatic contrasts ofmood. The solo trumpet often takes therole of supplying ironic interjections to thepiano’s endeavours and there arenumerous witty quotes and parodies,including passages from his own music,Haydn, Beethoven, and the Austrian folk-song ‘Ach du lieber Augustin’. The slow

movement forms a more serious andexpressive interlude to the somewhatcinema-graphic nature of the drama, withsome beautiful counter melodies in the solotrumpet, which then goes on to take arather more equal role in the wonderfullyamusing and riotous last movement.

Symphony No.8 in F Op.93LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN(1770-1827)

I Allegro vivace e con brioII Allegretto scherzandoIII Tempo di MenuettoIV Allegro vivace

Sketches for Beethoven’s eighth symphonydate from 1811 and the work was finishedby early 1813. The premiere occurred in oneof Beethoven’s own concerts on February27th 1814, and included the seventhsymphony too. Reception of the seventhsymphony seemed better than for theeighth, and when asked by his student CarlCzerny why this was so, an annoyedBeethoven is said to have replied, ‘becausethe Eighth is so much better’. The work isjoyous and exuberant, but not lightweight,partly because of the nature of the musicalmaterial and also because all fourmovements present moderate to fast tempi,and so the symphony has a consistentforward momentum that never slackens.

The dance-like first movement opens witha powerful arresting initial theme in theviolins, balanced by a more lyrical andItalianate second theme. It has often beensaid that the light-hearted secondmovement was inspired by the recentinvention of the metronome by JohannMaelzel. It is also somewhat like the famousmovement in the ‘Clock Symphony’ byBeethoven’s former teacher, Joseph Haydn.The third movement is unusual in that itpresents another dance in addition to thescherzo second movement, this time aminuet, already somewhat anachronistic bythis time in the nineteenth century. Thisminuet is a more ‘earthy’ example thanmany of the elegant Viennese examples andhas a glorious trio section for solo hornsand clarinet. The Finale is the mostsubstantial of the four movements, and is ina very quick tempo. Soon after the quietscurrying string opening, Beethoven wittilypresents the audience with the sudden loud‘wrong’ note of a unison Cs: this becomes afeature of this extended sonata-rondomovement, which casts a powerful andtriumphant ending to the whole symphony.

the whole movement is derived. Thisdevelops into a slow fugal introduction untilthe music manages to break free in aforceful allegro version of the theme. Theslow middle movement opens with aplangent oboe melody, then taken up bythe piano. An expressive and morecontrapuntal Andante section prefaces areturn to the opening melody, but this timeincorporating ingredients of the middlesection, particularly a pithy and quietlyinsistent trumpet fanfare. The Finale followsthe slow movement without a break andopens with strident piano gestures. Thematerial eventually takes a more lyrical andfluid guise marked Andante, before aghost-like remembrance of the motto-theme of the first movement wistfully leadsus back to a more unstable version of theopening material, culminating in aseemingly unstoppable fugue. A climaxprecedes an almost mocking stringpizzicato version of the main theme,overlaid with the motto theme in flute andhorn, before the music cascades to aninevitable and powerful conclusion.

The next London premiere of a work by PeterFribbins will be ‘The Zong Affair’ on May15th, with the Turner Ensemble in the LondonChamber Music Series at the new Kings Placeconcert hall.

INTERVAL (20 minutes)

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