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Noriko Ogawa
Piano
Timothy Redmond
Conductor
Steve Bingham
Leader
Cambridge Philharmonic Society
Saturday 6 November 2010 � West Road Concert Hall Cambridge
Noriko Ogawa
Piano
Timothy Redmond
Conductor
Steve Bingham
Leader
Janáèek Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 Shostakovich Symphony No. 10
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Programme
JANÁÈEK Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 5
Interval
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 10
Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to the first concert of our 2010/11 season.
Works by two of the 20th century�s greatest composers frame Beethoven�s masterwork, the Emperor Concerto, in a programme which spans music at once philosophical, inspiring and gripping.
We are thrilled to welcome Noriko Ogawa, a pianist whose many recordings, broadcasts and international performances are testament to her standing as a truly world-class musician. Having opened our last season with Beethoven�s Eroica, I am delighted that Noriko has chosen to play the Emperor with us, for the two works have much in common.
Shostakovich has long been a favourite composer of mine. I have been fortunate enough to study and collaborate with two of the world�s leading Shostakovich scholars, David Fanning and Gerard McBurney. And, like Martin West, my predecessor here at the Phil, I studied for a time under the inimitable Russian maestro, Ilya Musin who was a fellow student with Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatoire in the 1920s.
We begin with music from The Cunning Little Vixen, Janáèek�s captivating and life-affirming opera. If ever there was a score to charm, to move and to enthral an audience, this is it!
Tim Redmond
Principal Conductor Cambridge Philharmonic
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Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen Leo� Janáèek
(1854-1928) With the production in Prague in 1916 of his by then 12-year-old opera Jenùfa, Janáèek was transformed in his 62nd year from a composer, folklorist and music director of limited reputation outside his provincial Moravian homeland to a figure of international renown. The twelve years left to him were to produce an astonishing late efflorescence of masterpieces of paradoxically youthful originality, amongst which operas were in the forefront. While Jenùfa itself dealt with standard operatic themes of love, jealousy and domestic tragedy, the sources of his later operas were decidedly idiosyncratic. Time travel, a trip to the moon, life and death in a Siberian prison camp and the tribulations of a 300-year-old woman were amongst the unconventional themes, and the work he completed in March 1923 was no exception. Always known in the English-speaking world as The Cunning Little Vixen, although a literal translation of the Czech title would be The Adventures of the Vixen Sharp-ears, this opera was inspired by an illustrated comic serial in a Brno newspaper which was drawn to the composer�s attention by a family servant who knew his fondness for transcribing birdsong and other natural sounds. The result was a work which put wildlife on the stage in a trenchantly unsentimental fashion, with humans interacting primarily to take captives and kill, except for the more ambiguous figure of the Forester, who comes to a realisation of man�s interdependence with the natural world. The orchestral suite was created by the conductor Václav Talich and is not a pot-pourri of themes and episodes but rather a transcription of almost the entire first act, replacing the voices with instruments. In doing so, he also toned down Janáèek�s original orchestration and, in Sir Charles Mackerras�s words, �rather emasculates the very acid sounds produced for the insects� but the result nonetheless conveys the narrative with graphic vividness. In the first of two �scenes�, insects and other creatures dance around the Forester who is woken from a tipsy sleep by a jumping frog who has been frightened by the arrival of the young vixen. She is caught by the Forester who takes her as a pet for his children. In the second, the captive vixen discusses love with the Forester�s dog but repulses his advances when he is inflamed by this. She is teased by the children until she bites one of them. After a night tied up in the yard, she is provoked by a chauvinistic cockerel and tries to incite the hens to rise up against him. Infuriated by their subservience she entices all the fowl to approach her by hiding in a dung heap and then leaps out and slaughters them all. She then manages to bite through her leash and escapes into the forest. The suite ends here, but in the rest of the opera Janáèek goes on to depict the vixen�s tricking of a badger out of his home and her courtship by and marriage to a male fox. Going beyond his source, he portrays the vixen�s death at the hands of a poacher. He ends with the Forester�s encounter with one of her daughters and a grandchild of the original frog, in a celebration of the cyclical renewals of nature.
Stephen Hills
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Piano Concerto No. 5 Ludwig van Beethoven in E flat, Op. 73 (Emperor) (1770-1827) Allegro � Adagio un poco mosso � Rondo, allegro In common with many musical nicknames, the title �Emperor� was not the composer�s. Given Beethoven�s famously furious reaction when Napoleon assumed the same title (and the fact that the artillery of that particular emperor was assaulting both Vienna and the composer�s precarious hearing during 1809 when the work was being completed), he would have been unlikely to have approved of it. The sobriquet is usually attributed to J.B. Cramer, the London-based pianist and publisher, and slipped into currency in English-speaking countries during the nineteenth century. Beethoven�s own intentions were unambiguous. He wrote to his publishers, �The concerto � is to be entitled merely �Grand Concerto dedicated to His Imperial Highness the Archduke Rudolph of etc.�� We should by rights, therefore, have an Archduke Concerto to join the Archduke Trio, a rank of nobility that Beethoven was prepared to tolerate. The grandeur mentioned in the composer�s title and implied by Cramer�s is undeniably a major facet of this work. While it expands the limits of its form less radically than the Eroica symphony in the same key (the fifth piano concerto is the culmination of a series of individually original works rather than an early, self-defining, bombshell), its dimensions are unprecedented and the solo writing testifies to the rapid technical development of the piano through Beethoven�s career. The six-octave, triple-strung instruments of this period allowed him to set soloist against full orchestra in the expectation of a fair, if strenuous, contest. Unlike his earlier concertos, this was not to be played in public by the composer (not because, as a report of the first London performance alleged, �his slovenly habits of execution were unequal to the task�, but because of his advancing deafness) and the solo part is fully notated with no opportunities for improvised cadenzas. Any temptation to relate the martial rhythms and heroic dignity of the first movement too directly to the external events of 1809 has to contend with the contrast of the following movements. The events of that year included not only bombardment but also a sordid quarrel with Beethoven�s patroness the Countess Erdody, immortalised by bitter comments on the sketches of the concerto. These, however, leave no mark on the serenity of the slow movement or the witty exuberance of the finale into which it leads without a break but with breath-catching hesitation. The timpani make an unforgettable contribution to the very end of the work, not by importing the horrors of the battlefield as in Haydn�s Paukenmesse but as a sotto voce rhythmic spur to the soloist�s final triumphant scales.
Stephen Hills
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Symphony No. 10 in E minor Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Moderato � Allegro � Allegretto � Andante-Allegro Even in a life and an oeuvre so steeped in ambiguity and paradox as Shostakovich�s, this symphony stands out for its embodiment of those qualities. It has been almost universally recognised as a masterpiece since its première in December 1953 (except by some early Soviet critics to whom it betrayed an unacceptably negative outlook) but still continues to yield its secrets gradually. The confident assertion, for example, that it was written between July and October 1953 and was thus a work of the period immediately following Stalin�s death on 5th May has been undermined by the pianist Tatiana Nikolaeva�s recollection of Shostakovich playing the exposition of the first movement to her in early 1951. The situation is further complicated by manuscript sketches for a violin sonata of 1946 which has a similar first and an identical second theme to those of that movement. There is a general conviction that the work encodes subversive tendencies, but less agreement on their identification. There is the famous DSCH motto (German nomenclature for D, E flat, C, B representing the German transliteration of his initials) which is prominent in this work as in many others and given added point here by a quotation in the first movement from Shostakovich�s setting in his Four monologues to words by Pushkin of the text �What does my name mean to you?�. But musical cryptanalysts have also deciphered the persistent horn call in the third movement as, in mixed French and German nomenclature, E, La, Mi, Re, A (the notes English-speakers would call E, A, E, D, A), a reference to Elmira Nazirova, briefly a pupil and, for rather longer, an obsession of the composer. The long-suspected socio-political subtext of the symphony is thus enmeshed with a private emotional one. The extent to which music can or should convey such messages and the very possibility of irony in music (beyond the level of Shostakovich�s remark to the conductor Kurt Sanderling, �If it smiles don�t trust it�) are contentious matters. It is hard to believe, however, that even the most blinkered apparatchik could have taken at their face value the composer�s own public comments such as (on the Allegretto) �It is a bit long here and there; however there are places that are a bit short�. If one looks to Volkov�s book Testimony for a revelation of Shostakovich�s more genuine thoughts (and there are many who would consider it unwise to do so!), the only insight it offers into the Tenth is that the second movement represents Stalin. The first movement forms an enormous arch. The tentative opening phrases on lower strings develop into a crotchet motif from which emerges a sombre theme on clarinet. This passes round the orchestra and is subjected to changes of dynamics and emphasis before a new theme is introduced on flute. Duetting bassoons lead towards the relentlessly extended climax which interweaves all these motifs, a process which continues through the protracted subsidence into bleak wind solos which end with the piccolo.
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The Scherzo erupts brutally into this ethereal aftermath with four minutes of strident music in the rhythm of a gopak (a dance from Stalin�s birthplace of Georgia). The following Allegretto, long recognised as the central enigma of the work, offers immediate contrast. In an idiom reminiscent of Mahler, it takes a theme from the scherzo of Shostakovich�s first violin concerto, slows it down to a spectral march and interweaves it with a glum waltz. It then introduces the DSCH and Elmira mottos, the latter always heard on the horn, maintaining a dignified consistency, while the former ranges from impassioned protest to apparent resignation. The Finale opens in a mood recalling the beginning of the symphony. A more sprightly motif is taken up by the strings and becomes the basis of an energetic E major Allegro. The celebrations develop an undercurrent of hysteria, however, and threaten to metamorphose into the brutal Scherzo but horns and then trombones retaliate with mighty repetitions of DSCH. Momentum picks up and the work cavorts to a triumphal conclusion. But � �If it smiles don�t trust it�?
Stephen Hills
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NORIKO OGAWA Piano
Noriko Ogawa has achieved considerable renown throughout the world since her success at the 1987 Leeds International Piano Competition. Ogawa�s �ravishingly poetic playing� (Telegraph) sets her apart from her contemporaries and acclaim for her complete Debussy series with BIS Records confirms her as a fine Debussy specialist.
Ogawa appears with all the major UK, European, Japanese and US orchestras. With
her wonderful dynamic range and colour palate, Ogawa�s particular affinities range from the works of Takemitsu, through the larger Romantic composers such as Prokofiev and Rachmaninov, to contemporary concerti commissioned from Graham Fitkin and Dai Fujikura. Amongst the leading conductors she has worked with are Dutoit, Vanska, Vonk, Lazarev, de Roo, Brabbins, Pesek, Slatkin, Fischer, Herbig, Otaka, Rozhdestvensky and Tortelier.
Ogawa is also renowned as a recitalist and chamber musician. In February 2008, Ogawa made her recital debut at Suntory Hall, Japan for her 20th anniversary concert. Notable chamber projects include a tour of Japan with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Ensemble and the leader of the Vienna Philharmonic, Rainer Honeck. In 2001 Ogawa and Kathryn Stott launched their piano duo and have since toured in Japan and given premieres of Graham Fitkin�s double piano concerto Circuit, including the world premiere at Bridgewater Hall. Ogawa has also collaborated with Steven Isserlis, Isabelle van Keulen, Martin Roscoe, Michael Collins and Peter Donohoe.
An advocate of commissioning, Ogawa has been involved in numerous premieres. Ogawa has toured in Japan with Evelyn Glennie, premiering an exciting new commission for two pianos and percussion by Yoshihiro Kanno. In February 2009, Ogawa performed the premiere of Dai Fujikura�s Ampere for piano and toy piano, with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins. Ogawa�s current ongoing commission is a ground-breaking series of four recital pieces from Kanno which feature the piano alongside various traditional Japanese instruments or sounds; the first for Nambu bell and piano Hikari no Ryushi (A Particle of Light) will be followed by Mizu no Ryushi (A Particle of Water) for metal chopsticks and piano.
Since 1997, Noriko Ogawa has been an exclusive recording artist for BIS Records. In addition to her Gramophone Editor�s Choice award winning complete Debussy series (shortly to be completed with the Fantasie for piano and orchestra), her recordings for the label include Toru Takemitsu Riverrun (also Gramophone Magazine Editor�s Choice) and Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (BBC Music Magazine Critics� Choice). Ogawa�s discography also includes Rachmaninov, Tcherepnin, Saint-Saens, Grieg, Delius and Graham Fitkin�s double concerto Circuit with duo partner Kathryn Stott.
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Alongside performing and recording, Ogawa is sought after for presenting both on the radio and on television, recently appearing on BBC Worldwide in �Visionaries� as an advocate for Takemitsu and in programmes for NHK and Nippon Television. As an adjudicator, Ogawa regularly judges the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition, Honens International Piano Competition and the Scottish International Piano Competition. In Japan, Ogawa acts as artistic advisor to the MUZA Kawasaki Symphony Hall in her hometown. In 1999, the Japanese Ministry of Education awarded Ogawa their Art Prize in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the cultural profile of Japan throughout the world and she has also been awarded the Okura Prize for her outstanding contribution to music in Japan. As a writer, Ogawa has completed her first book (published in Japan) and is a regular columnist for the music press both in the UK and in Japan.
Noriko lives with her partner Philip and their cat Tama. When not practising she enjoys writing and cooking for friends. For more information see www.norikoogawa.com.
TIMOTHY REDMOND Conductor
Timothy Redmond has been principal conductor of the Cambridge Philharmonic since 2006. He recently made his debut at St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre, conducting the Russian premiere of Thomas Adès' Powder Her Face. The production was filmed for Russian TV and he was immediately re-engaged to conduct the opera in Valery Gergiev�s Stars of the White Nights festival. He conducted the same work in Carlos Wagner�s new production for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2008 and 2010.
His 2010/11 season opens with a return to the Wexford Festival for the European premiere of The Golden Ticket, Peter Ash and Donald Sturrock�s new opera based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which he premiered for Opera Theatre of St Louis last season. Other highlights this season include a series of concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Hallé, return engagements with orchestras in Finland, Macedonia and Slovenia and his debut with Italy�s Filarmonico Arturo Toscanini.
Timothy Redmond is a regular guest conductor with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, both in the recording studio and the concert hall and he has conducted the Manchester Camerata every season since 1997. He has conducted many of the UK's other leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Ulster and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras, the Orchestra of Opera North, Northern Sinfonia and the Philharmonia. He has recorded several discs for EMI, Type Records and Harmonia Mundi and his recent CD, Dreams, with the French cellist Ophèlie Gaillard and the RPO is shortly to be released in the UK, having reached number one in the French classical charts.
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In the opera house he has conducted productions for Opera North (Don Giovanni), English Touring Opera (Daughter of the Regiment, The Magic Flute, Carmen), Tenerife Opera (Gianni Schicchi, The Miserly Knight, Carmen) and the Wexford Festival (Weill�s Die Silbersee). His particular interest in contemporary music has led him to give premieres in Bregenz (Richard Ayres� The Cricket Recovers) for Almeida Opera/Aldeburgh Festival (Raymond Yiu�s The Original Chinese Conjuror), at English National Opera (Will Todd�s Damned and Divine) and for Opera Theatre Europe at the ROH Linbury (Tobias Picker�s Thérèse Raquin). He has also conducted for Glyndebourne, Garsington, Strasbourg, De Vlaamse Opera, at the UKLA Festival in Los Angeles and for New York�s American Lyric Theater.
Timothy Redmond read music at Manchester University and studied the oboe at the Royal Northern College of Music. He later held the RNCM's Junior Fellowship in Conducting and furthered his studies in masterclasses with Yan Pascal Tortelier, Ilya Musin, George Hurst and Pierre Boulez.
STEVE BINGHAM Leader
Steve Bingham studied violin with Emmanuel Hurwitz, Sidney Griller and the Amadeus Quartet at the Royal Academy of Music from 1981 to 1985, where he won prizes for orchestral leading and string quartet playing. In 1985 he formed the Bingham String Quartet, an ensemble which has become one of the foremost in the UK, with an enviable reputation for both classical and contemporary repertoire. The Quartet has recorded numerous CDs and has worked for radio and television both in the UK and as far afield as Australia. The Quartet has worked with distinguished musicians such as Jack Brymer, Raphael Wallfisch, Michael Collins and David Campbell.
Steve has appeared as guest leader with many orchestras including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English National Ballet and English Sinfonia. He has given solo recitals both in the UK and America and his concerto performances include works by Bach, Vivaldi, Bruch, Prokofiev, Mendelssohn and Sibelius, given in venues as prestigious as St John�s, Smith Square and the Royal Albert Hall. Steve is also Artistic Director of Ely Sinfonia.
In recent years Steve has developed his interest in improvisation, electronics and World music, collaborating with several notable musicians including guitarist Jason Carter and players such as Sanju Vishnu Sahai (tabla), Baluji Shivastrav (sitar) and Abdullah Ibrahim (piano). Steve�s debut solo CD Duplicity was released in November 2005, and has been played on several radio stations including BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM. The Independent gave it a 4-star review. Steve released his second solo CD, Ascension, in November 2008. You can find out more about Steve on his web site at www.stevebingham.co.uk.
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ORCHESTRA
1st Violins Steve Bingham (leader) Kate Clow (co leader) Graham Bush Ros Chalmers Hilary Crooks Naomi Hilton Sean Rock Merial Rhodes John Richards Sarah Ridley Nichola Roe Debbie Saunders Pat Welch Gerry Wimpenny
2nd Violins Emma Lawrence Jenny Barna Joanna Baxter Vincent Bourret Fiona Cunningham Rebecca Forster Jeanette Langford Leticia Marquez Viktoria Stelzhammer Ariane Stoop John Mascall Anne McCleer Edna Murphy Theresa Traynor
Violas Ruth Donnelly Gavin Alexander Liz Andrews Alex Cook Jeremy Harmer Robert Heap Jo Holland Maureen Magnay Emma McCaughan Janet O�Boyle Robyn Sorenson
Cellos Vivian Williams Sarah Bendall Angela Bennett Helen Davies Melissa Fu Clare Gilmour Helen Hills Richard Merriam Katharine Mitchell Lucy Mitchell Amy Shipley Alex Sicola
Double Bass Sarah Sharrock Stephen Beaumont Elspeth Cape Joel Humann Susan Sparrow
Flute Cynthia Lalli
Flute/Piccolo Samantha Fryer Sally Landymore Lyn Welland
Oboe Rachel Broadbent Rachel Dunlop
Cor Anglais Gareth Stainer
Clarinet Sarah Whitworth Frances Richmond Graham Dolby
Eb/Bass Clarinet Graham Dolby
Bassoon Neil Greenham Jenny Warburton
Horn Carole Lewis Andrew Castle Martin Childs Steven Orriss
Trumpet Andy Powlson Mike Ball Naomi Wrycroft
Trombones Denise Hayles Gary Davison
Bass Trombone Rob Brooks
Tuba Alan Sugars
Timps Dave Ellis
Percussion Derek Scurll Zoe-Laura Bridel James Shires
Harp Lizzie Scorah
Celeste Frank Dudbridge
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Cambridge Philharmonic Society 2010 � 2011 Season Programme
4 December 2010 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge �Christmas on Broadway�, including music from Berlin,
Bernstein�s West Side Story, Hamlish, Kander & Ebb, Loesser, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Schönberg & Boublil�s Les Misérables, Williams� Home Alone with soprano Rebecca Bottone and bass-baritone Nicholas Garrett
29 January 2011 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge �Family Concert� including Robert Kapilow Green Eggs and
Ham, Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre, Stravinsky music from The Firebird, Badelt Pirates of the Caribbean
26 March 2011 King� College Chapel, Cambridge 3 April 2011 Concertgebouw, Amsterdam Verdi Requiem Joint Choral Concert with the Amersfoort Choral Society With soprano Tinuke Olafimihan, mezzo-soprano Anna
Burford, tenor Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts and bass Piotr Lempa Conductors Tim Redmond (Cambridge) and Peter den Ouden
(Amsterdam)
7 May 2011 Emmanuel United Reform Church, Cambridge �Mozart 1791�, including La Clemenza di Tito (Overture),
Horn Concerto in D, Piano Concerto in Bb, Clarinet Concerto in A, The Magic Flute (concert performance), Requiem (come & sing) with soprano Natasha Marsh, tenor Nicky Spence and horn Guy Llewellyn
9 July 2011 Ely Cathedral Bruckner Ave Maria, Pange Lingua, Chritus factus est, Strauss Also
Sprach Zarathustra, Walton Belshazzar�s Feast with bass Stephen Richardson
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