RIVERSIDE THEATRES PRESENTS BELVOIR THEATRE SATURDAY 13 MAY AT 3PM

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1 RIVERSIDE THEATRES PRESENTS BELVOIR THEATRE SATURDAY 13 MAY AT 3PM

2 ABOUT THE SIMÓN BOLÍVAR STRING QUARTET Alejandro Carreño, violin Boris Suarez, violin Ismel Campos, viola Aimon Mata, cello Created from within the Fundación Musical Simón Bolívar, the Simón Bolívar String Quartet is made up of principal musicians of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. Each player brings a strong personality and individual musical character to the group, together combining to create a thrilling and multi-faceted ensemble with a unique flair. The Quartet arose from the need of its members to explore chamber music and the wealth of benefits it can offer, not only its musicians but also to the children and young people who make up the Fundacíon, led by José Antonio Abreu. The Simón Bolívar String Quartet has given concerts across Venezuela, throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, performing in concerts as well as taking part in education and community events. Venues at which they have performed include Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, The Lincoln Center s Walter Reader Theater in New York, the Southbank Centre and Wigmore Hal in London, Philharmonie Berlin, Musikverein Vienna, Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon and Palau de la Musica in Barcelona. They have also visited festivals such as the Edinburgh International Festival and Salzburg Festival. This season the Simón Bolívar String Quartet returns to Europe for a residency at the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical in Madrid focusing on the works of Beethoven and Shostakovich, and will also embark on their first ever tour to Australia. The Simón Bolívar String Quartet has worked with such musical personalities as Gustavo Dudamel, Claudio Abbado and Sir Simon Rattle. They have participated in masterclasses with the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Berlin Philharmonic String Quartet, Chilingirian String Quartet, Donald Weilerstein (Cleveland String Quartet), Andras Keller (Keller String Quartet) and Ulyses Ascanio, founding violinist of the Youth and Children s Orchestras of Venezuela. One of the aims of the Simón Bolívar String Quartet is the development of a network of string quartets in Venezuela and South America, with the purpose of propagating chamber music among children and young people in Latin America. The Simón Bolívar String Quartet s records with Deutsche Grammophon, and their first CD, a disc of works by Ginastera, Dvorak and Shostakovich, was released in February HARALD HOFFMANN / DG ABOUT THE SYDNEY YOUTH ORCHESTRA The Sydney Youth Orchestra is SYO s flagship orchestra and features 100 of Sydney s most talented young musicians. Since 1973, it has been the training ground for Australia s future professional musicians, and its alumni can be heard in every major orchestra in Australia; they include Richard Tognetti, Kirsten Williams, Nigel Westlake, Shefali Pryor, Anne-Louise Comerford, Marina Marsden, Philip Arkinstall, Geoff O Reilly, Matthew Coorey, Lyn Williams, Paul Goodchild and many more. Indeed, Australia s professional orchestras simply would not exist without this concentrated training, and Sydney Youth Orchestras is a place to learn the valuable practical skills which transform students into professionals. The Sydney Youth Orchestra provides outstanding and innovative training and performance activities that lead to the continued development of a musician s technical and artistic excellence. Programs are broad ranging, including chamber music, orchestral music from the Classical, Romantic and Contemporary traditions, as well as new works by Australian composers. SYO recently launched the inaugural Western Sydney Youth Orchestra in partnership with Riverside Theatres which is based in Parramatta. If you are or know a young person who is interested in developing their instrumental technique, broadening their repertoire knowledge and meeting new like-minded friends, please contact info@syo.com.au to inquire about their auditions and programs.

3 PROGRAM BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2 INTERVAL TCHAIKOVSKY Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48 PROGRAM NOTES Ludwig van BEETHOVEN ( ) String No. 8 in E minor, Op.59 No.2 Razumovsky Allegro Molto adagio Allegretto Finale: Presto The French Revolution gave rise to rescue opera, a high-minded and noisy genre where Good inevitably broke the bonds of Evil and tyranny was overthrown. A flood of such works was performed in Vienna in the early 1800s. Beethoven s Fidelio is a German version of the form, but much of Beethoven s instrumental music also reflects the influence of new sounds from the Parisian theatre. In the Eroica Symphony, for instance, Beethoven s dynamic amalgam of classical design, baroque counterpoint, and musical gestures from rescue opera enabled him to produce a symphonic work on an unprecedented scale. Beethoven s Opus 59 set appeared in 1806, commissioned by the Russian ambassador, Count Razumovsky. A fine amateur musician, he also patronised the quartet, led by Ignaz Schuppanzigh, that was placed at [Beethoven s] complete disposal. At Razumovsky s request, Beethoven included Russian folk melodies in the first two (and made a fair facsimile in the third). The Eroica Symphony left its mark on the scale and form of the first Razumovsky, but its mannerisms can be found in the second, as in the opening gesture. Two isolated chords followed by a bar of silence leave us none the wiser about the speed or rhythmic character of what follows. We are richly rewarded by the bewildering array of implications drawn from the ideas in the first few bars. The serene second movement unfolds expansively over some fourteen minutes, and according to Beethoven s student Carl Czerny, represents the composer s contemplation of a starry sky and the music of the spheres. A greater contrast with the restless energy of the first movement couldn t be imagined, nor with the dance movement which follows. This is an insistent allegretto, but it is in the central trio that Beethoven a Russian theme the same one sung in the Coronation Scene from Mussorgsky s Boris Godunov. The galloping finale, with its high violin tune and rhythmic accompaniment seems conventional at first, though we soon realise that it has begun in the wrong key C major. This allows the composer to make some dramatic harmonic side-steps, but ultimately serves to underline the fact that every movement of this quartet is in E minor or major. It is unusual in any late classical quartet for all movements to share a key; it is however a preferred strategy of Beethoven when writing in E. Any tonal monotony, however, is completely erased by the piece s immense variety of musical manners. Gordon Kerry 2001 Peter Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY ( ) Serenade for Strings, Op.48 Pezzo in forma di Sonatina (Andante non troppo Allegro moderato ) Moderato, tempo di Valse Elegy (Larghetto elegiaco) Finale, tema russo (Andante Allegro con spirito ) In the years , following his disastrous marriage, Tchaikovsky went into a creative downturn, broken only by two acknowledged masterpieces, the brilliant and extrovert Capriccio italien and the Serenade for Strings. The Serenade s composition came about, according to the composer, entirely by chance he had been sketching something between a symphony and a string quartet. His imagination was seized by a kind of inner compulsion, and on completion he wrote to his publisher, I am violently in love with this work and can t wait for it to be played. Audiences too were delighted with the Serenade, which had its first performance under Napravnik in Anton Rubinstein said of it, It seems to me that this is Tchaikovsky s best thing. The Serenade for Strings is by and large a cheerful, sunny piece, an impression contributed to by the fact that its tunes are in major keys, with only hints and shades of the minor. The writing for strings is outstandingly able and resourceful, yet so easy and economical as not to draw attention to its skill. Often writing in only three or even two parts, with doublings at the octave, Tchaikovsky achieves a transparency and delicacy which is in marked contrast to the thickness and complexity of texture so prevalent in music of the period. The Serenade impresses also by its unity, achieved at the most obvious level by Tchaikovsky s use of a recurring theme, first stated as the slow introduction to the first movement. This device, common in the composer s work, is no doubt suggested partly by Schumann s procedures for tying together his cycles of piano pieces. In the Serenade it is basic to the evolution of the whole piece: this theme, a descending scale, is closely related to the Russian folk tune which begins the Allegro section of the last movement, as Tchaikovsky demonstrates when he puts the two themes side by side towards the end of the movement. The ascending and descending scales of the introduction also turn out to be related to the first subject of the second movement, an elegant waltz, and to the opening of the deeply felt Elegy. The last movement also has a slow introduction: the theme is a Volga hauling song. It leads by an absorbingly poetic process of transformation into the fast Russian first subject of the last movement. The whole Serenade enchants us with a poetic and organic inevitability much soughtafter by Romantic composers. This was achieved by Tchaikovsky more often in his finest ballet music, with which the Serenade has many affinities, than when he was preoccupied with the demands of symphonic form as conceived by the best authorities. David Garrett Symphony Australia Reprinted by permission

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5 SYDNEY YOUTH ORCHESTRAS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER YARMILA ALFONZETTI FINANCE MANAGER SUSAN HART BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER MIA PATOULIOS DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR JENNIFER LAU MARKETING AND DIGITAL COORDINATOR ALEXANDRIA SIEGERS EVENTS COORDINATOR MARITA CRANWELL ORCHESTRAS AND OPERATIONS MANAGER CASEY GREEN OPERATIONS COORDINATOR, SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRAL PROGRAM NICK MUNRO OPERATIONS COORDINATOR, SYO STRINGS PROGRAM KATIE GARMAN OPERATIONS COORDINATOR, WSYO KATH WESTON ARCHIVIST GAIL PRYOR RIVERSIDE THEATRES RIVERSIDE THEATRES DIRECTOR ROBERT LOVE BUSINESS MANAGER PAMELA THORNTON MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER JONATHAN LLEWELLYN OPERATIONS MANAGER LINDA TAYLOR EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, NATIONAL THEATRE OF PARRAMATTA JOANNE KEE OUR S PRINCIPAL (GOVERNMENT) (GOVERNMENT) MAJOR (HOTEL)