QSO PLAYS FRI 6 NOV 11AM & 7.30PM SAT 7 NOV 7.30PM QPAC Concert Hall Supported by
QSO PLAYS BOLERO Conductor Fabien Gabel Piano Beatrice Rana Beethoven Symphony No.8 Ravel Rapsodie espagnole* Chopin Piano Concerto No.1 Ravel Bolero Ravel Alborada del gracioso* *Performed only on 7 NOV PROGRAM NOTES Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Symphony No.8 in F Major, op.93 In 1811, a witty columnist observed that Beethoven s music often harboured both doves and crocodiles. His music can seem happy and healthful one moment, bizarre and bellicose the next. But other comparisons might also come to mind. Up to then, the obvious crocodiles among Beethoven s symphonies were the Third, Fifth, and Sixth, all radical, revolutionary works that, in one way or another, effectively broke the Classical mould that he had inherited from Haydn and Mozart. The doves might be identified as the First, Second and Fourth symphonies, works that still conform to Classical outlines, but are filled with new, distinctively Beethovenian materials. These early doves have their successors in the Seventh and Eighth, a pair of accessible and popular late symphonies, still conventional in pattern, premiered just two months apart. Beethoven began composing the Eighth (while finishing the Seventh) on a recuperative visit to the Czech spa resort of Teplitz in summer 1812. While there, he also met for the first time a fellow invalid, Goethe, whose initial impression of the composer was vivid and disturbing: His talent astounded me. But he is completely uncontrollable. He is not entirely wrong in believing the world to be detestable, but he does not make it any easier for himself or others by his attitude. Although because of his loss of hearing he can be excused as it is, he is naturally laconic, doubly so because of his misfortune. Goethe s view might seem to fit uncomfortably with the creator of so amiable a work as the Eighth. But it is a reminder that the Beethoven Goethe saw matching closely the popular image of the turbulent personality responsible for the Fifth and Ninth symphonies was still capable of, still actually wanted to write, music that simply entertained and pleased. Some said that, in doing so here, Beethoven regressed to the style of his earliest symphonies; that from an increasingly uncertain mid-career, he took a nostalgic backward step to recapture a lost world. Others saw the Eighth as a sort of takingof-stock, a necessary comfort stop on the road to the apocalyptic Ninth. Haydn had died only three years earlier in 1809. But his spirit, and Mozart s not least their sense of humour comes alive again, perhaps authentically for the last time, in the Eighth Symphony. All four movements are in major keys, perfectly proportioned music, untouched by any distorting influence of melancholy. Distortion, where it occurs, comes in the form of musical teases, such as in the syncopations of the first movement s second theme, and toward the end the quirky echo of an orchestral climax by a single bassoon. A more direct musical joke can be found in the clockwork repeated wind chords in the second movement which, according to Beethoven s self-appointed secretary Schindler, mimicked the
metronome, recently invented by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, who also made Beethoven s ear trumpets. Beethoven reverts in the third movement, if not all the way back to an old-fashioned ballroom minuet as such, then to music he described as being in the tempo of a minuet and that adds an almost carnivalesque note. Another constant tease is the intrusive fortissimo wrong note that continually interrupts the last movement s main theme. Graeme Skinner 2014 Maurice Ravel Rapsodie espagnole Rapsodie espagnole dates from 1907 a year in which the composer also began setting his opera L heure espagnole. Though born only a short distance from the Spanish border, in a little south-western town in France s Basque territory, Ravel lived almost all of his life in Paris. His ability to sound more Spanish than the Spanish astonished even the Andalusian composer Manuel de Falla, who finally ascribed Ravel s ability to an idealised Spain represented by his Basque mother, undoubtedly the strongest emotional tie of his life. Marie Ravel s singing of Spanish folksongs had been among Ravel s earliest memories. The first movement of Rapsodie espagnole sets a static nocturnal mood, with a descending four-note motif, which recurs throughout the work, set against a threein-a-bar time-signature. In the Malagueña, subtle similarities in tone-colour and rhythm echo the preceding movement. The lively opening tempo slows down as the cor anglais enters for a brief solo, more an arabesque than a fully stated melody. There is the briefest glimpse of the four-note descending figure and the spectacularly brief movement ends, almost by sleight of hand, with an upward flourish. The Habanera is virtually a transcription of a piano piece of Ravel s from 1895. The Hispanic was in Ravel s blood, and habaneras were an early passion. The final Feria, with its carnival associations, is the longest and most festive movement. Symphony Australia Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) Piano Concerto No.1 in E minor, op.11 Despite the number, this was not actually Chopin s first piano concerto; he had completed one in F minor less than twelve months earlier, but due to a delay in copying the orchestral parts, the E minor concerto came to be published first. Both are very early works, written at the end of his student years while still in Warsaw, but already showing the originality of his approach to the piano. In his hands, the virtuosic arpeggios and runs typical of keyboard writing at the time took on genuinely expressive qualities and subtly contributed to the sonorities and underlying harmonies of the music. Less dramatic than those of Mozart or Beethoven, Chopin s two concertos are founded not on opposition of keys or confrontation between orchestra and soloist, but on a lyricism that invites the listener to delight in the beauty of details in the melody and harmony. The composer was the soloist in the first public performance of the work, at the National Theatre in Warsaw on 11 October 1830. His piano playing was famous for the same quality of intimacy as his compositions display; it is reported that he never played louder than forte, creating an astounding range of dynamic subtleties more by subtle variations of touch than by the use of force. Symphony Australia 2003
Maurice Ravel Bolero Maurice Ravel Alborada del gracioso Poor Ravel. He was joking when he described Bolero as a masterpiece without any music in it, so was very annoyed when the piece became one of his best-known works. In fact it came about when he was asked by the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein in 1928 to orchestrate parts of Albéniz s Iberia for a ballet with a Spanish character. As it turned out, the rights to Albéniz s music were not available, so Ravel composed his Bolero, based on an 18thcentury Spanish dance-form which is characterised by a moderate tempo and three beats to a bar. It has no music in that a simple theme is reiterated over and over again, embodied in different orchestral colours each time, including that marvellous moment where it appears in three keys simultaneously. The work has been used and abused in various films but it remains a masterpiece after all, its inexorable tread building massive tension which is released explosively in the final bars. The music s erotic charge of constraint and release mirrors the scenario for Rubinstein s ballet, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska (Nijinsky s sister). Ravel had, by no means idly, suggested Bolero could accompany a story where passion is contrasted by the mechanised environment of a factory. Nijinska, however, had the dancer in an empty café, dancing alone on a table as the room gradually fills with men overcome, as Michael J. Puri notes, by their lust for her which they express through ever more frenetic dance. Alborada del gracioso was originally written for piano, as part of a set entitled Miroirs which appeared in 1905. Several of Ravel s orchestral works are transcribed from piano pieces; such is his genius as an orchestrator, however, that the orchestral and piano versions both have the status of originals. Each version is so perfectly conceived for its scoring that it seems impossible to imagine it in any other medium. Alborada is particularly interesting, in that its whole harmonic and rhythmic fabric is a powerful evocation of a guitar, being played by a virtuoso in the Spanish tradition an original version, which does not exist and yet appears to predate the other two! The timbres featured in Ravel s orchestration (made in 1918) make the guitar references explicit, with much use of harp, and string pizzicato and harmonics, as well as an extensive percussion section (with particularly prominent parts for side drum and castanets). There are a number of specific genres in Spanish folk music which bear the name Alborada (literally dawn song ), but Ravel was perhaps thinking more of the romantic medieval idea of a farewell serenade sung by a lover, as he rides away from his beloved at dawn. The complete title, Morning Song of the Jester, aptly suggests the music s volatile nature, by turns melancholy, playful and extravagant. Symphony Australia Gordon Kerry 2007/12
BIOGRAPHIES Fabien Gabel Conductor Recognised internationally as one of the stars of the new generation, Fabien Gabel is a regular guest of major orchestras internationally including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, NDR SinfonieOrchester, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Staatskappelle Dresden and Seoul Philharmonic. He is also Music Director of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra since 2013. Fabien first attracted international attention in 2004, winning the Donatella Flick competition in London, which subsequently led to his appointment as Sir Colin Davis and Bernard Haitink s assistant at the London Symphony Orchestra. Later he became Kurt Masur s assistant at the Orchestre National de France. Born in Paris, Fabien Gabel began studying trumpet at the age of six, honing his skills at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, and later at the Karlsruhe Musik Hochschule. Fabien studied with David Zinman, Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis and Paavo Jarvi. Beatrice Rana Piano Beatrice possesses an old soul that belies her twenty years, and more than a touch of genius. Gramophone, January 2014 Twenty-two year old Beatrice Rana has shaken the international classical music world with admiration and interest from concert presenters, conductors, critics and audiences internationally. In June 2013, she won Silver and the Audience Award at the Van Cliburn competition, bringing her to yet a new level in her already very promising career. Beatrice is invited to concert series and festivals throughout the world and is a guest of several orchestras internationally including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Accademia di Santa-Cecilia, Philadelphia Orchestra, London Philharmonic. Beatrice recorded Chopin s Preludes on the Atma label in 2012, together with Scriabine s 2nd Sonata, and received international acclaim for this first CD. She is now an exclusive Warner Classics artist and her first CD for the label featuring Prokofiev s Second concerto and Tchaikovsky s First with M Antonio Pappano and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in 2015 will be released in November 2015.