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The Orchestra has toured to Ireland and Berlin, has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM and has been part of a project for Granada Television. The Orchestra made its London debut as part of an Indian music festival in London’s Kings Place, building on its partnership with top Indian classical violinist Kala Ramnath. One of the Orchestra’s tracks on the Gorillaz’ album Plastic Beach was nominated for a Grammy award. The Orchestra has hosted the Association of British Orchestras’ national conference. Its project work includes a contribution to BBC Radio 3’s Music Nation week-end, producing local content for the Olympic Torch Evening Celebration event in June 2012 in Derby, work as part of the SO Festival in Skegness and events linked to broadcasts as part of BBC Big Screen relays.

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Sinfonia Viva in association with Derby LIVE, Derby Cathedral

and Orchestras Live present

Debut in Derby

Derby Cathedral

Saturday 10th January 2015, 7.30pm

Purcell arr. Britten Chacony in G minor, Z730

Ward Resounding Vaults

Britten Les Illuminations, Op.18

Beethoven Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60

Principal Conductor : Duncan WardPrincipal Guest Conductor : Nicholas KokLeader/Artistic Advisor : Benedict Holland

Choral Advisor : David Lawrence

Programm

e notes copyright Mike W

heeler 2015

Unauthorised use is prohibited

Chacony in G minor, Z730 Henry Purcell (1659-1695) arranged for string orchestra by Benjamin Britten Of all Purcell’s instrumental pieces, the Chacony is one of the best-known. It forms part of a manuscript collection in Purcell’s own handwriting, headed The work’s of Hen; Purcell Anno Dom. 1680. This includes a number of other fantasias, and may, perhaps, have been intended to form the basis of a published collection similar to his Ten Sonata’s in Four Parts (1680), which also contains a single-movement chaconne. The scholar and performer Peter Holman has put forward the theory that it may have originated either as music for a dance at Charles 2nd’s court or as part of an otherwise lost theatre score. He goes on to suggest that it may have been scored originally for a single violin, two violas and bass, as opposed to the two violins and single viola used in the more modern style of Purcell’s Italian contemporaries. The title ‘Chacony’ (the anglicised form of ‘Chaconne’) indicates that it is a set of continuous variations over a repeated theme in the bass. This is a form which Purcell frequently used, not least in Dido’s “When I am laid in earth”, from the opera Dido and Aeneas. Like much of Purcell’s instrumental chamber music, it draws on the great English fantasia tradition going back to Byrd and Gibbons, and whose last great exponent, John Jenkins (1592-1678), Purcell may well have known personally. At the same time its sturdy rhythms and the twists and turns of its harmonies are as up-to-date as anything Purcell wrote. Britten was a devoted admirer of Purcell’s music throughout his professional life and, among other things, made a number of realisations for piano of the instrumental parts in several of Purcell’s songs (and used the chaconne and related forms in many of his own works). He first made his version of the Chacony, for string quartet or string orchestra, in 1948, and revised it in 1963. Resounding Vaults Duncan Ward (1989- ) The idea for this piece grew from the proposed premiere concert venue of Derby Cathedral - a majestic, resonant space with great potential for the antiphonal placement of instrumental groups. Ever since playing Gabrieli as a young horn player I have been enchanted by the musical possibilities such a setting can create: in Gabrieli's case, brass choirs calling to each other from the opposing balconies of St Mark's, Venice. I therefore leapt at the chance to compose a work showcasing the wind, brass and percussion forces required for Beethoven's Fourth Symphony to counterbalance the strings-only concert opener of Purcell's heavenly Chacony in G minor. In 'Resounding Vaults', bell-like circling harmonic sonorities are juxtaposed with wilder contrapuntal fantasy for duos and trios within the ensemble. Distant choral-like windows in the texture pave way for soaring melody echoing around the space. Les Illuminations, Op.18 Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) 1. Fanfare; 2. Villes; 3a. Phrase; 3b. Antique; 4. Royauté; 5. Marine; 6. Interlude; 7. Being beauteous; 8. Parade; 9. Départ. “I alone hold the key to this wild parade!” proclaims the solo voice three times during the course of Les IIlluminations. The wild parade in question is a bewildering kaleidoscope of images, nightmare visions of modern life jostling ecstatic love-poetry, taken from a collection of poems and prose-poems with the same title by the French writer Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). They were written in his teens in the mid-1870s and published in 1886, and ‘illuminations’, according to Rimbaud’s lover at the time, the poet Paul Verlaine, was meant to suggest a series of coloured photographic plates, or perhaps what we would think of today as a slide-show.

Cathedral images throughout this booklet © Graham Whitmore

Britten was introduced to Rimbaud’s work by his frequent collaborator in the late 1930s and early 40s, WH Auden. He set two of the poems, ‘Being Beauteous’ and ‘Marine’, in March 1939 for the Swiss soprano Sophie Wyss. After he and the tenor Peter Pears began their three-year stay in America he added the rest, and the work was completed in October. The first performance was given by Wyss with the Boyd Neel Orchestra conducted by Boyd Neel in the Aeolian Hall, London, on 30 January 1940. In a number of respects, Les Illuminations represents an important stage in Britten’s self-discovery as both a person and a composer. His discovery of Purcell’s music had been an important factor in developing his approach to setting English texts, and which had already borne fruit in a number of works. Now he felt the need to step back from English for a while in order to find new ways of responding to poetic imagery. Rimbaud’s French gave him what he needed in this respect; as he later put it, “I felt bolder with another language.” That boldness informs his writing for the string orchestra as much as his word-setting. The vivid sound-images that result – such as the trumpet-like figures in the opening, the glistening harmonics (the high-pitched whistling tone produced by just touching the string lightly at certain points instead of pressing it down) that support the voice in ‘Phrase’, and the guitar-like strumming for violas and cellos in ‘Antique’ – all suggest a composer working at an imaginative white heat to match Rimbaud’s own. After ‘Fanfare’ has raised the curtain, the edgy restlessness of ‘Villes’ (Towns) reflects Rimbaud’s own repelled fascination with the endlessly churning activity of city life, to which the quiet, weightless ecstasy of ‘Phrase’ is the perfect response. ‘Antique’ (Antiquity) is the first of the work’s two sensuous hymns to physical beauty, the title suggesting a comparison with a classical Greek or Roman sculpture. Following the playful exuberance of ‘Royauté’ (Royalty) and the brightly-lit, choppy seascape of ‘Marine’, ‘Interlude’ marks the calm, expressive mid- point, as poet and composer quietly remind us who is in command of this parade of images. ‘Being Beauteous’ – the English title was Rimbaud’s own – is dedicated to Peter Pears, and its almost breathless sense of wonder balances that of ‘Antique’. Suddenly we are confronted with the unsavoury characters that inhabit ‘Parade’, a seedy urban landscape to match ‘Villes’, and again Rimbaud and Britten assert their ownership of the key that unlocks the meaning of the phantasmagorical dream-world we have experienced. In ‘Départ’ that key turns to close the door on what we have seen and heard. The sights and sounds have been experience to the full, and we can take our leave, with the pulsing repeated notes of ‘Being Beauteous’ echoing behind the voice as we do so.

Les Illuminations I. Fanfare I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

II. Towns These are towns! It is for the inhabitants of towns that these dream Alleghanies and Lebanons have been raised. Castles of crystal and wood [which] move on rails and invisible pulleys. Old craters, encircled with colossal statues and palms of copper, roar melodiously in their fires. […] Corteges of Queen Mabs in robes red and opaline, climb the ravines. Up there, their hoofs in the cascades and the briars, the stags give Diana suck. Bacchantes of the suburbs weep, and the moon burns and howls. Venus enters the caves of the blacksmiths and hermits.

Groups of bell-towers sing aloud the ideas of the people. From castles built of bones proceeds unknown music. […] The paradise of the thunders bursts and falls. Savages dance unceasingly the Festival of the Night. […] What kindly arms, what good hour, will restore to me those regions from which come my slumbers and the least of my movements?

IIIa. Phrase […] I have hung ropes from bell-tower to bell-tower; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance. […]

IIIb. Antique Oh, gracious son of Pan! Thine eyes – those precious globes – glance slowly; thy brow is crowned with little flowers and berries. Thy hollow cheeks are spotted with brown lees; thy tusks shine. Thy breast resembles a cithara; tinkling sounds run through thy blond arms. Thy heart beats in that womb where sleeps Hermaphrodite. Walk at night, softly moving this thigh, this other thigh, and this left leg.

Les Illuminations I. Fanfare J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage.

II. Villes Ce sont des villes! C’est un peuple pour qui se sont montés ces Alleghanys et ces Libans de rêve! Des chalets de cristal et de bois [qui] se meuvent sur des rails et des poulies invisibles. Les vieux cratères ceints de colosses et de palmiers de cuivre rugissent mélodieusement dans les feux. […] Des cortèges de Mabs en robes rousses, opalines montent des ravines. Là-haut, les pieds dans la cascade et les ronces, les cerfs tettent Diane. Les Bacchantes des banlieues sanglotent et la lune brûle et hurle. Vénus entre dans les cavernes des forgerons et des ermites.

Des groupes de beffrois chantent les idées des peuples. Des châteaux bâtis en os sort la musique inconnue. […] Le paradis des orages s’effondre. Les sauvages dansent sans cesse la fête de la nuit. […]

Quels bons bras, quelle belle heure me rendront cette région d’où viennent mes sommeils et mes moindres mouvements?

IIIa. Phrase […] J’ai tendu des cordes de clocher à clocher; des guirlandes de fenêtre à fenêtre; des chaînes d’or d’étoile à étoile, et je danse. […]

IIIb. Antique Gracieux fils de Pan! Autour de ton front couronné de fleurettes et de baies tes yeux, des boules précieuses, remeunt. Tachées de lies brunes, tes joues se creusent. Tes crocs luisent. Ta poitrine ressemble à une cithare, des tintements circulent dans tes bras blonds. Ton cœur bat dans ce ventre où dort le double sexe. Promène-toi, la nuit, en mouvant doucement cette cuisse, cette seconde cuisse et cette jambe de gauche.

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THANK YOU Special thanks go to our supporters Arts Council England Derby City Council Derbyshire County Council Lincolnshire County Council Orchestras Live Rolls-Royce plc

Trusts and Foundations Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation The Bergne-Coupland Charity Children in Need D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust Foyle Foundation Freemasons of Derby Grassroots Fund Garfield Weston Heritage Lottery Fund Jessie Spencer Trust JR Halkes Settlement Lincolnshire Armed Forces Community Covenant Royal Philharmonic Society and PRS for Music Foundation Santander Southern Derbyshire Learning Fund The Ernest Book Trust The John Ellerman Foundation The National Forest Company The Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation The Thomas Farr Charity The Wallbrook Fund The Waynflete Charitable Trust Tom Carey Fund

Business Supporter Principal Conductor position – Handelsbanken Nottingham City Gate Branch

Maestro Members Brian King, Peter Steer, Robin Wood

IV. RoyautéUn beau matin, chez un peuple fort doux, un homme et une femme superbes criaient sur la place publique: “Mes amis, je veux qu’elle soit reine!” “Je veux être reine!” Elle riait et tremblait. Il parlait aux amis de révélation, d’épreuve terminée. Ils se pâmaient l’un contre l’autre.

En effet ils furent rois toute une matinée où les tentures carminées se relevèrent sur les maisons, et toute l’après-midi, où ils s’avancèrent du côté des jardins de palmes.

V. Marine Les chars d’argent et de cuivre – Les proues d’acier et d’argent – Battent l’écume, –

Soulèvent les souches des ronces – Les courants de la lande, Et les ornières immenses du reflux, Filent circulairement vers l’est, Vers les piliers de la forêt, – Vers les fûts de la jetée, Dont l’angle est heurté par des tourbillon de lumière.

VI. Interlude J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage.

VII. Being Beauteous Devant une neige un Être de Beauté de haute taille. Des sifflements de mort et des cercles de musique sourde font monter, s’élargir et trembler comme un spectre ce corps adoré; des blessuresécarlates et noires éclatent dans les chaires superbes. Les couleurs propres de la vie se foncent, dansent, et se dégagent autour de la Vision, sur le chantier. Et les frissons s’élèvent et grondent, et la saveur forcenée de ces effets se chargeant avec les sifflements mortels et les rauques musiques que le monde, loin derrière nous, lance sur notre mère de beauté, – elle recule, ele

IV. RoyaltyOn a beautiful morning, in a country inhabited by a mild and gentle people, a man and woman of proud presence stood in the public square and cried aloud: ‘My friends, it is my wish that she should be queen!’ ‘I should like to be queen!’ She laughed and trembled. To his friends he spoke of a revelation, of a test concluded. Swooningly they leaned one against the other.

And during one whole morning, whilst the crimson hangings were displayed on the houses, and during the whole afternoon, while they advanced towards the palm gardens, they were indeed kings.

V. Marine Chariots of silver and of copper – Prows of steel and of silver – Beat the foam, –

Lift the stems of the brambles – The streams of the barren parts And the immense tracks of the ebb Flow circularly towards the east, Towards the pillars of the forest, –Towards the piles of the jetty, Against whose angles are hurled whirlpools of light.

VI. Interlude I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

VII. Being Beauteous Against a background of snow is a beautiful Being of majestic stature. Death is all round her, and whistling, dying breaths, and circles of hollow music, cause this adored body to rise, to swell, and to tremble like a spectre. Scarlet and black wounds break out on the superb flesh. Colours which belong to life deepen, dance, and separate themselves around the vision, upon the path. Shudders rise and mutter; and the mad savour of all these things, heavy with dying groans and raucous music, is hurled at our Mother of Beauty by the world far behind us. She recoils, she

se dresse. Oh! nos os sont revêtus d’un nouveau corps amoureux.

Ô la face cendrée, l’écusson de crin, les bras de cristal! Le canon sur lequel je dois m’abattre à travers la mêlée des arbres et de l’air léger!

VIII. Parade Des drôles très solides. Plusieurs ont exploité vos mondes. Sans besoins, et peu pressés de mettre en œuvre leurs brillantes facultés et leur expérience de vos consciences. Quels hommes mûrs! Des yeux hébétés à la façon de la nuit d’été, rouges et noirs, tricolorés, d’acier piqué d’étoiles d’or; des facies déformés, plombés, blêmis, incendiés; des enrouements folâtres! La démarche cruelle des oripeaux! – Il y a quelques jeunes […]

Ô le plus violent Paradis de la grimace enragée! […] Chinois, Hottentots, bohémiens, niais, hyènes, Molochs, vieilles démences, démons sinistres, ils mêlent les tours populaires, maternels, avec les poses et les tendresses bestiales. Ils interpréteraient des pièces nouvelles et des chansons “bonnes filles”. Maîtres jongleurs, ils transforment le lieu et les Personnes et usent de la comédie magnétique […]

J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage.

IX. Départ Assez vu. La vision s’est rencontrée à tous les air. Assez eu. Rumeurs de villes, le soir, et au soleil, et toujours. Assez connu. Les arrêts de la vie. – Ô Rumeurs et Visions! Départ dans l’affection et le bruit neufs!

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891)

stands erect. Oh rapture! Our bones are covered anew with a body of love.

Ah! The pale ashen face, the mane-like hair, the arms of crystal! And there is the cannon upon which I must cast myself through the noise of trees and light winds.

VIII. Parade These are very sturdy rogues. Many of them have made use of you and your like. Without wants, they are in no hurry to put into action their brilliant faculties and their experience of your consciences. What mature men! Here are sottish eyes out of a midsummer night’s dream – red, black, tricoloured; eyes of steel spotted with golden stars; deformed faces, leaden-hued, livid, enflamed; wanton hoarsenesses! They have the ungainly bearing of rag dolls! – There are youths among them […]

It is a violent Paradise of mad grimaces! […] Chinese, Hottentots, gypsies, simpletons, hyænas, Molochs, old insanities, sinister demons, they alternate popular or maternal tricks with bestial poses and caresses. They can interpret modern plays or songs of a simple naivety at will. Master jugglers, they transform places and people, and make use of magnetic comedy […]

I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

IX. Departure Sufficiently seen. The vision has been met in all guises. Sufficiently heard. Rumours of the town at night, in the sunlight, at all times. Sufficiently known. Life’s decrees. – Oh Rumours! Oh Visions! Departure in the midst of love and new rumours!

© Copyright 1940 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

Programm

e notes copyright Mike W

heeler 2015

Unauthorised use is prohibited

The Orchestra ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Interval Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) 1. Adagio – allegro vivace; 2. Adagio; 3. Menuetto. Allegro vivace; 4. Allegro ma non troppo. Schumann once described Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, standing as it does between the heroic Third and heaven-storming Fifth, as “a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants”, which just goes to show that even the most astute critic can sometimes be misled by appearances. Beethoven wrote it in 1806, a remarkably productive year in which he also composed the Violin Concerto, the Fourth Piano Concerto, and the three Op 59 string quartets. It was commissioned by a Silesian aristocrat, Count Franz von Oppersdorf, and was given its first performance, together with the Fourth Piano Concerto and Coriolan Overture, at a private concert in March 1807. The Fourth Symphony is on a noticeably smaller scale than the Third (‘Eroica’), and it is scored for a smaller orchestra, including only one flute as opposed to the more usual (for this period) two. But the impression that Beethoven is pulling back from the Eroica’s huge advance in scale and style is misleading. At least one feature of the work suggests that, on the contrary, he is continuing to explore new ground. The slow introduction to the first movement is all mystery and hushed expectation. After seeming to grope its way in the dark, the music suddenly erupts in a startling fortissimo heralding the main allegro vivace part of the movement and telling us we’re in the right key at last. The effect is like a sudden burst of sunlight, although Beethoven still leaves us guessing as to precisely where the allegro actually starts. The magical power of this transition is something he would go on to develop, not just in later symphonies but also as early as the recapitulation – the climactic moment when music arrives back at its starting-point – in this one. The music reaches a very remote key indeed – B major – as the music seems to hold its breath, with the strings playing very softly. Then a timpani roll on B flat begins to pull the music back to the home key – a bald, technical description for one of the most quietly and breathtakingly thrilling moments in all Beethoven. The slow movement is based on the contrast between the long, slowly unfolding main theme and its insistently rhythmic accompanying figure. The timpani, again, have two brief moments in the spotlight, when they have that insistent rhythm all to themselves. Equally telling are the moments when it drops out, notably for two appearances of a lyrical new theme for solo clarinet. Beethoven called the third movement a minuet but it is nothing of the kind. There is not the slightest hint of eighteenth-century elegance about this boundingly athletic scherzo, which gets a lot of its energy from the rhythmic contradiction between notes grouped in pairs and the three-in-a-bar background. After the contrasting trio section Beethoven runs the entire sequence a second time (another innovation) and the opening music starts to make a third appearance, but this is cut short by an emphatic gesture from the horns. Although the finale is marked “not too fast” it races away at breakneck speed, generating a sense of unstoppable momentum (spare a thought for the first bassoonist, faced with a short but hair-raising solo about four minutes in). The music does, in fact, hesitate briefly just before the end, with Beethoven slowing the opening theme down to half-speed, but this is simply to draw breath before the energetic final bars. All programme notes © Mike Wheeler, 2015 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Principal Conductor Duncan Ward Violin 1 Ben Holland Nic Fallowfield Thea Spiers Clare Bhabra Ken Mitchell Caroline Bromley Rebecca Allfree Chris Windass Violin 2 Philip Gallaway Sian McInally Hazel Parkes Belinda Hammond Melissa Court Simran Singh Viola Tetsuumi Nagata Isobel Adams Jackie Anthony Lucy Nolan Cello Deirdre Bencsik Peggy Nolan Freddie Collarbone Lucy Wilding Bass David Ayre Sian Holland

Soloist Rebecca Bottone (Soprano) Flute Rachel Holt Oboe Emily Pailthorpe Maddy Aldis-Evans Clarinet Helen Bishop Matthew Dunn Bassoon Adam Mackenzie Rachel Simms Horn David Tollington Jose Lluna Trumpet Tracey Redfern Gordon Truman Timpani Jeremy Cornes

Duncan Ward Principal Conductor

As well as taking up the position of Principal Conductor with Sinfonia Viva, the 2014/15 season will mark Duncan Ward’s debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Symphony Orchestra of India. He also returns to Baden-Baden Easter Festival (Traviata), Britten Sinfonia, Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele, and MIAGI – a specialist youth music organisation in South Africa. Recent highlights include conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker in their Britten100 concert with Ian Bostridge, International Contemporary Ensemble in the Acht Brucken Festival, Cologne and conducting a special arrangement of “Kleine” Manon Lescaut at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival. He has also made successful debuts with the Bamberg and Lucerne Symphony orchestras, Northern Sinfonia, Royal Scottish National, Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele with Igor Levit, Southbank Sinfonia, Ulster Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales as well as

conducting the Chinese premiere of Peter Grimes in Beijing with a stellar international cast. Duncan won the 2005 BBC Young Composer of the Year and is now published by Peters Edition. Recent composing highlights include a work for the LSO as part of their Panufnik Scheme and “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” performed by members of the National Youth Orchestra at the Southbank’s “Imagine” Festival in 2014. His works have also been performed by groups such as the Endymion Ensemble, BBC Singers and The Sixteen. He was appointed Composer for Coutts Bank's Family Business Awards in 2008. He is passionate about working with young people and local communities. Following a month working in India in 2006, Duncan subsequently co-founded the WAM Foundation which sends young UK musicians each year to teach Western classical music in schools across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Kerala. The charity attracted the attention of the great late Ravi Shankar, who invited Duncan to study with him in California in 2010. In Summer 2012, he conducted at the Royal Opera House as part of the London 2012 Festival with members of Streetwise Opera and in 2013 was Music Director of their critically acclaimed production “The Answer to Everything”. Duncan Ward was educated in Kent, attended Junior Trinity and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra. He went on to Manchester to study jointly degrees at the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music and has since worked with some of the top international orchestras. Photo credit: Rachel Shakespeare

Rebecca Bottone Soprano

Born in Bedfordshire, Rebecca Bottone completed her studies at the Royal Academy of Music. Concert engagements include Charmeuse Thais at the Châtelet, Paris conducted by Eschenbach; Adès’ Five Eliot Landscape for Radio France; Handel Arias with the Kings Consort at the Wigmore Hall and the St John Passion with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi at the Teatro degli Archimboldi. She has sung Adelaide di Borgogna with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which was recorded for Opera Rara; Beethoven’s C Minor Mass and Christ on the Mount of Olives with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Cleone in Rossini's Ermione at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Haydn’s Creation with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under Paul McCreesh; Mozart concert arias and Britten’s Les illuminations for the Manchester Camerata; Handel arias and Imeneo with the Academy of

Ancient Music at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls; a concert performance of Sweeney Todd with the Bayerische Rundfunk, Munich; Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang for the RAI, Turin; Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience at the BBC Proms; Conti’s L’issipile for La nuova musica and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Revelation and Fall at the BBC Proms. Her operatic career to date has seen her working with conductors that include Sir Colin Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Richard Hickox and Marc Minkowski. She has sung the Maid in Ades’ Powder Her Face at the Linbury Studio; the First Innocent in the world premiere of Birtwistle's Minotaur for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Cricket and Parrott in the world premiere of Jonathan Dove's Pinocchio for Opera North and for Minnesota Opera; Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail for the Aix-en-Provence Festival and Scottish Opera; Despina Cosi Fan Tutte, Melia Apollo and Hyacinthus, Elisa Il Re Pastore, Sabina Adriano in Siria, Sifare Mitridate Re di Ponto, and Servilia Gluck’s La clemenza di Tito for Classical Opera; Amanda in Ligeti’s Grand Macabre for English National Opera; First Niece in Peter Grimes for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Anne A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and The Sound of Music for the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris; Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Garsington Opera and Mabel Pirates of Penzance for Scottish Opera. Forthcoming engagements include concerts with the Hallé and Britten’s Les illuminations with Duncan Ward; La Cenerentola for Scottish Opera; and her debut for Welsh National Opera as Michael Darling in Richard Ayres’ Peter Pan and Yniold Pelléas et Mélisande.

Duncan Ward Principal Conductor

As well as taking up the position of Principal Conductor with Sinfonia Viva, the 2014/15 season will mark Duncan Ward’s debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Symphony Orchestra of India. He also returns to Baden-Baden Easter Festival (Traviata), Britten Sinfonia, Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele, and MIAGI – a specialist youth music organisation in South Africa. Recent highlights include conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker in their Britten100 concert with Ian Bostridge, International Contemporary Ensemble in the Acht Brucken Festival, Cologne and conducting a special arrangement of “Kleine” Manon Lescaut at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival. He has also made successful debuts with the Bamberg and Lucerne Symphony orchestras, Northern Sinfonia, Royal Scottish National, Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele with Igor Levit, Southbank Sinfonia, Ulster Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales as well as

conducting the Chinese premiere of Peter Grimes in Beijing with a stellar international cast. Duncan won the 2005 BBC Young Composer of the Year and is now published by Peters Edition. Recent composing highlights include a work for the LSO as part of their Panufnik Scheme and “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” performed by members of the National Youth Orchestra at the Southbank’s “Imagine” Festival in 2014. His works have also been performed by groups such as the Endymion Ensemble, BBC Singers and The Sixteen. He was appointed Composer for Coutts Bank's Family Business Awards in 2008. He is passionate about working with young people and local communities. Following a month working in India in 2006, Duncan subsequently co-founded the WAM Foundation which sends young UK musicians each year to teach Western classical music in schools across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Kerala. The charity attracted the attention of the great late Ravi Shankar, who invited Duncan to study with him in California in 2010. In Summer 2012, he conducted at the Royal Opera House as part of the London 2012 Festival with members of Streetwise Opera and in 2013 was Music Director of their critically acclaimed production “The Answer to Everything”. Duncan Ward was educated in Kent, attended Junior Trinity and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra. He went on to Manchester to study jointly degrees at the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music and has since worked with some of the top international orchestras. Photo credit: Rachel Shakespeare

Rebecca Bottone Soprano

Born in Bedfordshire, Rebecca Bottone completed her studies at the Royal Academy of Music. Concert engagements include Charmeuse Thais at the Châtelet, Paris conducted by Eschenbach; Adès’ Five Eliot Landscape for Radio France; Handel Arias with the Kings Consort at the Wigmore Hall and the St John Passion with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi at the Teatro degli Archimboldi. She has sung Adelaide di Borgogna with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which was recorded for Opera Rara; Beethoven’s C Minor Mass and Christ on the Mount of Olives with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Cleone in Rossini's Ermione at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Haydn’s Creation with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under Paul McCreesh; Mozart concert arias and Britten’s Les illuminations for the Manchester Camerata; Handel arias and Imeneo with the Academy of

Ancient Music at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls; a concert performance of Sweeney Todd with the Bayerische Rundfunk, Munich; Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang for the RAI, Turin; Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience at the BBC Proms; Conti’s L’issipile for La nuova musica and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Revelation and Fall at the BBC Proms. Her operatic career to date has seen her working with conductors that include Sir Colin Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Richard Hickox and Marc Minkowski. She has sung the Maid in Ades’ Powder Her Face at the Linbury Studio; the First Innocent in the world premiere of Birtwistle's Minotaur for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Cricket and Parrott in the world premiere of Jonathan Dove's Pinocchio for Opera North and for Minnesota Opera; Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail for the Aix-en-Provence Festival and Scottish Opera; Despina Cosi Fan Tutte, Melia Apollo and Hyacinthus, Elisa Il Re Pastore, Sabina Adriano in Siria, Sifare Mitridate Re di Ponto, and Servilia Gluck’s La clemenza di Tito for Classical Opera; Amanda in Ligeti’s Grand Macabre for English National Opera; First Niece in Peter Grimes for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Anne A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and The Sound of Music for the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris; Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Garsington Opera and Mabel Pirates of Penzance for Scottish Opera. Forthcoming engagements include concerts with the Hallé and Britten’s Les illuminations with Duncan Ward; La Cenerentola for Scottish Opera; and her debut for Welsh National Opera as Michael Darling in Richard Ayres’ Peter Pan and Yniold Pelléas et Mélisande.

Programm

e notes copyright Mike W

heeler 2015

Unauthorised use is prohibited

The Orchestra ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Interval Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) 1. Adagio – allegro vivace; 2. Adagio; 3. Menuetto. Allegro vivace; 4. Allegro ma non troppo. Schumann once described Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, standing as it does between the heroic Third and heaven-storming Fifth, as “a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants”, which just goes to show that even the most astute critic can sometimes be misled by appearances. Beethoven wrote it in 1806, a remarkably productive year in which he also composed the Violin Concerto, the Fourth Piano Concerto, and the three Op 59 string quartets. It was commissioned by a Silesian aristocrat, Count Franz von Oppersdorf, and was given its first performance, together with the Fourth Piano Concerto and Coriolan Overture, at a private concert in March 1807. The Fourth Symphony is on a noticeably smaller scale than the Third (‘Eroica’), and it is scored for a smaller orchestra, including only one flute as opposed to the more usual (for this period) two. But the impression that Beethoven is pulling back from the Eroica’s huge advance in scale and style is misleading. At least one feature of the work suggests that, on the contrary, he is continuing to explore new ground. The slow introduction to the first movement is all mystery and hushed expectation. After seeming to grope its way in the dark, the music suddenly erupts in a startling fortissimo heralding the main allegro vivace part of the movement and telling us we’re in the right key at last. The effect is like a sudden burst of sunlight, although Beethoven still leaves us guessing as to precisely where the allegro actually starts. The magical power of this transition is something he would go on to develop, not just in later symphonies but also as early as the recapitulation – the climactic moment when music arrives back at its starting-point – in this one. The music reaches a very remote key indeed – B major – as the music seems to hold its breath, with the strings playing very softly. Then a timpani roll on B flat begins to pull the music back to the home key – a bald, technical description for one of the most quietly and breathtakingly thrilling moments in all Beethoven. The slow movement is based on the contrast between the long, slowly unfolding main theme and its insistently rhythmic accompanying figure. The timpani, again, have two brief moments in the spotlight, when they have that insistent rhythm all to themselves. Equally telling are the moments when it drops out, notably for two appearances of a lyrical new theme for solo clarinet. Beethoven called the third movement a minuet but it is nothing of the kind. There is not the slightest hint of eighteenth-century elegance about this boundingly athletic scherzo, which gets a lot of its energy from the rhythmic contradiction between notes grouped in pairs and the three-in-a-bar background. After the contrasting trio section Beethoven runs the entire sequence a second time (another innovation) and the opening music starts to make a third appearance, but this is cut short by an emphatic gesture from the horns. Although the finale is marked “not too fast” it races away at breakneck speed, generating a sense of unstoppable momentum (spare a thought for the first bassoonist, faced with a short but hair-raising solo about four minutes in). The music does, in fact, hesitate briefly just before the end, with Beethoven slowing the opening theme down to half-speed, but this is simply to draw breath before the energetic final bars. All programme notes © Mike Wheeler, 2015 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Principal Conductor Duncan Ward Violin 1 Ben Holland Nic Fallowfield Thea Spiers Clare Bhabra Ken Mitchell Caroline Bromley Rebecca Allfree Chris Windass Violin 2 Philip Gallaway Sian McInally Hazel Parkes Belinda Hammond Melissa Court Simran Singh Viola Tetsuumi Nagata Isobel Adams Jackie Anthony Lucy Nolan Cello Deirdre Bencsik Peggy Nolan Freddie Collarbone Lucy Wilding Bass David Ayre Sian Holland

Soloist Rebecca Bottone (Soprano) Flute Rachel Holt Oboe Emily Pailthorpe Maddy Aldis-Evans Clarinet Helen Bishop Matthew Dunn Bassoon Adam Mackenzie Rachel Simms Horn David Tollington Jose Lluna Trumpet Tracey Redfern Gordon Truman Timpani Jeremy Cornes

se dresse. Oh! nos os sont revêtus d’un nouveau corps amoureux.

Ô la face cendrée, l’écusson de crin, les bras de cristal! Le canon sur lequel je dois m’abattre à travers la mêlée des arbres et de l’air léger!

VIII. Parade Des drôles très solides. Plusieurs ont exploité vos mondes. Sans besoins, et peu pressés de mettre en œuvre leurs brillantes facultés et leur expérience de vos consciences. Quels hommes mûrs! Des yeux hébétés à la façon de la nuit d’été, rouges et noirs, tricolorés, d’acier piqué d’étoiles d’or; des facies déformés, plombés, blêmis, incendiés; des enrouements folâtres! La démarche cruelle des oripeaux! – Il y a quelques jeunes […]

Ô le plus violent Paradis de la grimace enragée! […] Chinois, Hottentots, bohémiens, niais, hyènes, Molochs, vieilles démences, démons sinistres, ils mêlent les tours populaires, maternels, avec les poses et les tendresses bestiales. Ils interpréteraient des pièces nouvelles et des chansons “bonnes filles”. Maîtres jongleurs, ils transforment le lieu et les Personnes et usent de la comédie magnétique […]

J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage.

IX. Départ Assez vu. La vision s’est rencontrée à tous les air. Assez eu. Rumeurs de villes, le soir, et au soleil, et toujours. Assez connu. Les arrêts de la vie. – Ô Rumeurs et Visions! Départ dans l’affection et le bruit neufs!

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891)

stands erect. Oh rapture! Our bones are covered anew with a body of love.

Ah! The pale ashen face, the mane-like hair, the arms of crystal! And there is the cannon upon which I must cast myself through the noise of trees and light winds.

VIII. Parade These are very sturdy rogues. Many of them have made use of you and your like. Without wants, they are in no hurry to put into action their brilliant faculties and their experience of your consciences. What mature men! Here are sottish eyes out of a midsummer night’s dream – red, black, tricoloured; eyes of steel spotted with golden stars; deformed faces, leaden-hued, livid, enflamed; wanton hoarsenesses! They have the ungainly bearing of rag dolls! – There are youths among them […]

It is a violent Paradise of mad grimaces! […] Chinese, Hottentots, gypsies, simpletons, hyænas, Molochs, old insanities, sinister demons, they alternate popular or maternal tricks with bestial poses and caresses. They can interpret modern plays or songs of a simple naivety at will. Master jugglers, they transform places and people, and make use of magnetic comedy […]

I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

IX. Departure Sufficiently seen. The vision has been met in all guises. Sufficiently heard. Rumours of the town at night, in the sunlight, at all times. Sufficiently known. Life’s decrees. – Oh Rumours! Oh Visions! Departure in the midst of love and new rumours!

© Copyright 1940 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

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IV. RoyautéUn beau matin, chez un peuple fort doux, un homme et une femme superbes criaient sur la place publique: “Mes amis, je veux qu’elle soit reine!” “Je veux être reine!” Elle riait et tremblait. Il parlait aux amis de révélation, d’épreuve terminée. Ils se pâmaient l’un contre l’autre.

En effet ils furent rois toute une matinée où les tentures carminées se relevèrent sur les maisons, et toute l’après-midi, où ils s’avancèrent du côté des jardins de palmes.

V. Marine Les chars d’argent et de cuivre – Les proues d’acier et d’argent – Battent l’écume, –

Soulèvent les souches des ronces – Les courants de la lande, Et les ornières immenses du reflux, Filent circulairement vers l’est, Vers les piliers de la forêt, – Vers les fûts de la jetée, Dont l’angle est heurté par des tourbillon de lumière.

VI. Interlude J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage.

VII. Being Beauteous Devant une neige un Être de Beauté de haute taille. Des sifflements de mort et des cercles de musique sourde font monter, s’élargir et trembler comme un spectre ce corps adoré; des blessuresécarlates et noires éclatent dans les chaires superbes. Les couleurs propres de la vie se foncent, dansent, et se dégagent autour de la Vision, sur le chantier. Et les frissons s’élèvent et grondent, et la saveur forcenée de ces effets se chargeant avec les sifflements mortels et les rauques musiques que le monde, loin derrière nous, lance sur notre mère de beauté, – elle recule, ele

IV. RoyaltyOn a beautiful morning, in a country inhabited by a mild and gentle people, a man and woman of proud presence stood in the public square and cried aloud: ‘My friends, it is my wish that she should be queen!’ ‘I should like to be queen!’ She laughed and trembled. To his friends he spoke of a revelation, of a test concluded. Swooningly they leaned one against the other.

And during one whole morning, whilst the crimson hangings were displayed on the houses, and during the whole afternoon, while they advanced towards the palm gardens, they were indeed kings.

V. Marine Chariots of silver and of copper – Prows of steel and of silver – Beat the foam, –

Lift the stems of the brambles – The streams of the barren parts And the immense tracks of the ebb Flow circularly towards the east, Towards the pillars of the forest, –Towards the piles of the jetty, Against whose angles are hurled whirlpools of light.

VI. Interlude I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

VII. Being Beauteous Against a background of snow is a beautiful Being of majestic stature. Death is all round her, and whistling, dying breaths, and circles of hollow music, cause this adored body to rise, to swell, and to tremble like a spectre. Scarlet and black wounds break out on the superb flesh. Colours which belong to life deepen, dance, and separate themselves around the vision, upon the path. Shudders rise and mutter; and the mad savour of all these things, heavy with dying groans and raucous music, is hurled at our Mother of Beauty by the world far behind us. She recoils, she

Les Illuminations I. Fanfare I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

II. Towns These are towns! It is for the inhabitants of towns that these dream Alleghanies and Lebanons have been raised. Castles of crystal and wood [which] move on rails and invisible pulleys. Old craters, encircled with colossal statues and palms of copper, roar melodiously in their fires. […] Corteges of Queen Mabs in robes red and opaline, climb the ravines. Up there, their hoofs in the cascades and the briars, the stags give Diana suck. Bacchantes of the suburbs weep, and the moon burns and howls. Venus enters the caves of the blacksmiths and hermits.

Groups of bell-towers sing aloud the ideas of the people. From castles built of bones proceeds unknown music. […] The paradise of the thunders bursts and falls. Savages dance unceasingly the Festival of the Night. […] What kindly arms, what good hour, will restore to me those regions from which come my slumbers and the least of my movements?

IIIa. Phrase […] I have hung ropes from bell-tower to bell-tower; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance. […]

IIIb. Antique Oh, gracious son of Pan! Thine eyes – those precious globes – glance slowly; thy brow is crowned with little flowers and berries. Thy hollow cheeks are spotted with brown lees; thy tusks shine. Thy breast resembles a cithara; tinkling sounds run through thy blond arms. Thy heart beats in that womb where sleeps Hermaphrodite. Walk at night, softly moving this thigh, this other thigh, and this left leg.

Les Illuminations I. Fanfare J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage.

II. Villes Ce sont des villes! C’est un peuple pour qui se sont montés ces Alleghanys et ces Libans de rêve! Des chalets de cristal et de bois [qui] se meuvent sur des rails et des poulies invisibles. Les vieux cratères ceints de colosses et de palmiers de cuivre rugissent mélodieusement dans les feux. […] Des cortèges de Mabs en robes rousses, opalines montent des ravines. Là-haut, les pieds dans la cascade et les ronces, les cerfs tettent Diane. Les Bacchantes des banlieues sanglotent et la lune brûle et hurle. Vénus entre dans les cavernes des forgerons et des ermites.

Des groupes de beffrois chantent les idées des peuples. Des châteaux bâtis en os sort la musique inconnue. […] Le paradis des orages s’effondre. Les sauvages dansent sans cesse la fête de la nuit. […]

Quels bons bras, quelle belle heure me rendront cette région d’où viennent mes sommeils et mes moindres mouvements?

IIIa. Phrase […] J’ai tendu des cordes de clocher à clocher; des guirlandes de fenêtre à fenêtre; des chaînes d’or d’étoile à étoile, et je danse. […]

IIIb. Antique Gracieux fils de Pan! Autour de ton front couronné de fleurettes et de baies tes yeux, des boules précieuses, remeunt. Tachées de lies brunes, tes joues se creusent. Tes crocs luisent. Ta poitrine ressemble à une cithare, des tintements circulent dans tes bras blonds. Ton cœur bat dans ce ventre où dort le double sexe. Promène-toi, la nuit, en mouvant doucement cette cuisse, cette seconde cuisse et cette jambe de gauche.

Cathedral images throughout this booklet © Graham Whitmore

Britten was introduced to Rimbaud’s work by his frequent collaborator in the late 1930s and early 40s, WH Auden. He set two of the poems, ‘Being Beauteous’ and ‘Marine’, in March 1939 for the Swiss soprano Sophie Wyss. After he and the tenor Peter Pears began their three-year stay in America he added the rest, and the work was completed in October. The first performance was given by Wyss with the Boyd Neel Orchestra conducted by Boyd Neel in the Aeolian Hall, London, on 30 January 1940. In a number of respects, Les Illuminations represents an important stage in Britten’s self-discovery as both a person and a composer. His discovery of Purcell’s music had been an important factor in developing his approach to setting English texts, and which had already borne fruit in a number of works. Now he felt the need to step back from English for a while in order to find new ways of responding to poetic imagery. Rimbaud’s French gave him what he needed in this respect; as he later put it, “I felt bolder with another language.” That boldness informs his writing for the string orchestra as much as his word-setting. The vivid sound-images that result – such as the trumpet-like figures in the opening, the glistening harmonics (the high-pitched whistling tone produced by just touching the string lightly at certain points instead of pressing it down) that support the voice in ‘Phrase’, and the guitar-like strumming for violas and cellos in ‘Antique’ – all suggest a composer working at an imaginative white heat to match Rimbaud’s own. After ‘Fanfare’ has raised the curtain, the edgy restlessness of ‘Villes’ (Towns) reflects Rimbaud’s own repelled fascination with the endlessly churning activity of city life, to which the quiet, weightless ecstasy of ‘Phrase’ is the perfect response. ‘Antique’ (Antiquity) is the first of the work’s two sensuous hymns to physical beauty, the title suggesting a comparison with a classical Greek or Roman sculpture. Following the playful exuberance of ‘Royauté’ (Royalty) and the brightly-lit, choppy seascape of ‘Marine’, ‘Interlude’ marks the calm, expressive mid- point, as poet and composer quietly remind us who is in command of this parade of images. ‘Being Beauteous’ – the English title was Rimbaud’s own – is dedicated to Peter Pears, and its almost breathless sense of wonder balances that of ‘Antique’. Suddenly we are confronted with the unsavoury characters that inhabit ‘Parade’, a seedy urban landscape to match ‘Villes’, and again Rimbaud and Britten assert their ownership of the key that unlocks the meaning of the phantasmagorical dream-world we have experienced. In ‘Départ’ that key turns to close the door on what we have seen and heard. The sights and sounds have been experience to the full, and we can take our leave, with the pulsing repeated notes of ‘Being Beauteous’ echoing behind the voice as we do so.

Programm

e notes copyright Mike W

heeler 2015

Unauthorised use is prohibited

Chacony in G minor, Z730 Henry Purcell (1659-1695) arranged for string orchestra by Benjamin Britten Of all Purcell’s instrumental pieces, the Chacony is one of the best-known. It forms part of a manuscript collection in Purcell’s own handwriting, headed The work’s of Hen; Purcell Anno Dom. 1680. This includes a number of other fantasias, and may, perhaps, have been intended to form the basis of a published collection similar to his Ten Sonata’s in Four Parts (1680), which also contains a single-movement chaconne. The scholar and performer Peter Holman has put forward the theory that it may have originated either as music for a dance at Charles 2nd’s court or as part of an otherwise lost theatre score. He goes on to suggest that it may have been scored originally for a single violin, two violas and bass, as opposed to the two violins and single viola used in the more modern style of Purcell’s Italian contemporaries. The title ‘Chacony’ (the anglicised form of ‘Chaconne’) indicates that it is a set of continuous variations over a repeated theme in the bass. This is a form which Purcell frequently used, not least in Dido’s “When I am laid in earth”, from the opera Dido and Aeneas. Like much of Purcell’s instrumental chamber music, it draws on the great English fantasia tradition going back to Byrd and Gibbons, and whose last great exponent, John Jenkins (1592-1678), Purcell may well have known personally. At the same time its sturdy rhythms and the twists and turns of its harmonies are as up-to-date as anything Purcell wrote. Britten was a devoted admirer of Purcell’s music throughout his professional life and, among other things, made a number of realisations for piano of the instrumental parts in several of Purcell’s songs (and used the chaconne and related forms in many of his own works). He first made his version of the Chacony, for string quartet or string orchestra, in 1948, and revised it in 1963. Resounding Vaults Duncan Ward (1989- ) The idea for this piece grew from the proposed premiere concert venue of Derby Cathedral - a majestic, resonant space with great potential for the antiphonal placement of instrumental groups. Ever since playing Gabrieli as a young horn player I have been enchanted by the musical possibilities such a setting can create: in Gabrieli's case, brass choirs calling to each other from the opposing balconies of St Mark's, Venice. I therefore leapt at the chance to compose a work showcasing the wind, brass and percussion forces required for Beethoven's Fourth Symphony to counterbalance the strings-only concert opener of Purcell's heavenly Chacony in G minor. In 'Resounding Vaults', bell-like circling harmonic sonorities are juxtaposed with wilder contrapuntal fantasy for duos and trios within the ensemble. Distant choral-like windows in the texture pave way for soaring melody echoing around the space. Les Illuminations, Op.18 Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) 1. Fanfare; 2. Villes; 3a. Phrase; 3b. Antique; 4. Royauté; 5. Marine; 6. Interlude; 7. Being beauteous; 8. Parade; 9. Départ. “I alone hold the key to this wild parade!” proclaims the solo voice three times during the course of Les IIlluminations. The wild parade in question is a bewildering kaleidoscope of images, nightmare visions of modern life jostling ecstatic love-poetry, taken from a collection of poems and prose-poems with the same title by the French writer Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). They were written in his teens in the mid-1870s and published in 1886, and ‘illuminations’, according to Rimbaud’s lover at the time, the poet Paul Verlaine, was meant to suggest a series of coloured photographic plates, or perhaps what we would think of today as a slide-show.

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Sinfonia Viva in association with Derby LIVE, Derby Cathedral

and Orchestras Live present

Debut in Derby

Derby Cathedral

Saturday 10th January 2015, 7.30pm

Purcell arr. Britten Chacony in G minor, Z730

Ward Resounding Vaults

Britten Les Illuminations, Op.18

Beethoven Symphony No.4 in B flat, Op.60

Principal Conductor : Duncan WardPrincipal Guest Conductor : Nicholas KokLeader/Artistic Advisor : Benedict Holland

Choral Advisor : David Lawrence