Lilian Mina Memorial Concertperformed by the Hallé Orchestra

ProgrammeSunday 3rd May 2009

Lilian Mina Memorial Concert

performed by the

Hallé Orchestra

conducted by

Sir Mark Elder CBE

with

Howard Shelley (piano)

It is now almost exactly a year since the Royal Hall re-opened to the public. Since then, the building has proved to be extremely popular with users and audiences alike. It has already been used for purposes as diverse as concerts (both classical and pop), ballet, local and national touring shows, theatrical performances, exhibitions, fashion shows, school speech days, wrestling matches, dancing and even a bar mitzvah! In addition, the Royal Hall continues to serve as a Heritage and Visitor centre for the town and district, and the popularity of open days and group tours is testament to the interest shown in Harrogate’s historic kursaal by local people and visitors alike.

None of this would have been possible without the efforts of one woman – Lilian Mina. As Chairman of the Royal Hall Restoration Trust, Lilian was instrumental in first saving and then helping restore this iconic building. She fought long and hard to keep the restoration project alive at a time when the Royal Hall seemed to be doomed to closure and eventual dereliction. She then went on to lead the Trust in its fund-raising efforts and managed to raise the amazing total of £2.7 million in 18 months.

Lilian’s elegance and charm, coupled with a steely determination to succeed, were crucial to the Trust’s success. Under her inspiring leadership, the Trust’s contribution made possible the complete restoration of the Royal Hall – a feat few thought possible when the project first started. Lilian’s efforts were all the more remarkable because for the latter part of the project she was suffering from cancer. Thankfully, she was able to escort the Trust’s Patron, HRH

The Prince of Wales, when he officially opened the Royal Hall in January 2008, but tragically, she died three months later – just a few days before the public re-opening with a Gala Concert by the Hallé Orchestra. It is particularly appropriate therefore that tonight’s concert in her honour is performed by that same orchestra.

Lilian was a remarkable woman. I count myself privileged to have been able to call her my friend.

Edward FoxHonorary President

Programme

This concerto is the only surviving one by Bach for two solo violins. The challenge of writing for two identical solo instruments is something later composers rejected in favour of a contrasting pair (Mozart’s well-known double concerto, the Sinfonie concertante, is scored for violin and viola; Brahms chose the violin and cello). Baroque composers, however, loved symmetry, and Bach takes full advantage of having twin solos by writing lines that crisscross, mirror, echo each other, and toss phrases back and forth, like questions and answers.

One can hardly imagine two violinists fighting over these parts, for they are equally expressive, melodic, and demanding. What Bach writes for one violin he quickly offers the other, and the solo writing throughout the concerto becomes a model of subtle negotiation and considerate give and take. In the middle movement, the second violin appears to be the leader, although the first violin temporarily gains the upper hand by coming in on a higher pitch.

There are three movements in the traditional fast-slow-fast pattern. The first and last are designed according to the ritornello principle, whereby music for the full ensemble recurs throughout, setting off the music for the soloists. The central slow movement is a spacious aria for two. The soloists behave like two friends who, eager to tell the same lovely story, keep interrupting each other, repeating one another’s favourite lines, and urging the tale seamlessly forward. They speak together only at the end.

Bach (1685-1750) Concerto for two violins in D minor (BWV 1043)

Lyn Fletcher and Catherine Yates - violin

Apart from the music cognoscenti, very few people knew the name of Beethoven when he arrived in Vienna in 1792. Matters changed dramatically three years later, when he introduced his Piano Concerto in B-flat. In 1795, he was asked to compose and perform a concerto for the annual charity concert for Widows and Orphans of the Society of Musicians. He procrastinated until faced with a two day deadline to complete the final movement. Suffering from colic and attended by a doctor who administered painkillers, Beethoven frantically wrote out the score. Four copyists stood by in his apartment snatching pages from him as he completed them and rushed to make orchestral parts.

An amusing anecdote surrounds the first rehearsal. Apparently, Beethoven had thrashed his piano so badly that it was a half-tone below its normal pitch. In rehearsal, he transposed the solo part a half-step up by sight, playing in B natural.

The premiere, on March 29, 1775, was a great success. Czech composer and pianist Vaclav Tomasek was in the audience for the performance and was so overcome he did not touch a piano for days afterward. What so devastated Tomasek was the work’s severe contrast, its emotional transparency, its unshakeable discipline. We may accept such compositional innovations without question, but at the time, these were “daring deviations.” Tomasek’s chaos has become our conventionality.

Beethoven was not entirely happy with the work as it stood, however, and revised it considerably. The premiere of the final version – the one we hear today – was first heard in 1798.

The concerto, most likely the first orchestral work of Beethoven’s to be performed, is listed as his second piano concerto, but it is second in name only. It was composed first, published second, and is actually his third essay in the genre. He wrote a concerto in E-flat at age 14, of which only the solo part and piano reductions of the preludes and interludes survives, and he also composed a concerto in D minor, of which the first movement survives. Beethoven postponed publication of the concerto until 1801 to reserve the work for personal use. He even delayed writing out the solo part until the engraver needed it. In structure, the work shares many commonalities with Mozart’s piano concertos. Even the purpose of the work (a showcase for pianist and composer) recall Mozart. In style, however, the “daring deviations” are unquestionably Beethoven.

Beethoven (1770– 1827)Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat Op 19

I. Allegro con brio

II. Adagio

III. Molto allegro

Howard Shelley - piano

Interval

Mendelssohn (1809-1847)Symphony No 3 in A minor (Scottish) Op 36

I. Andante con moto

II. Vivace non troppo

III. Adagio

IV. Allegro vivacissimo

A young 19th-century man of means could expect a “grand tour” of Europe as part of his education. Mendelssohn had already visited several countries when his father, a wealthy banker, sent him off on a further three-year expedition in April 1829. England was the first stop. After giving concerts in London and receiving much acclaim in society circles, he headed north to Scotland.

A visit to the ruined chapel of Holyrood Castle near Edinburgh sparked his imagination strongly. “This evening in the deep twilight,” he wrote home on July 30, “we went to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved; there is a small room with a winding staircase leading up to it. The adjacent chapel has lost its roof; grass and ivy grow thickly within; and on the broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything there is in ruins and ramshackle, open to the blue sky. I think I have today found the opening of my Scottish Symphony.” He made sketches for it that very day.

The tour continued to Italy in May 1830. Mendelssohn continued to work on the symphony, but gradually the sunny Mediterranean climate dissipated the call of his Celtic muse. “The loveliest time of the year in Italy is the period from April 15 to May 15,” he wrote home from Rome in 1831. “Who then can blame me for not being able to return to the mists of Scotland? I have therefore laid aside the symphony for the present.”

“The present” turned out to be 10 years, resulting in the “Scottish” Symphony becoming a more polished

and mature work than it would have been had he brought it to term quickly. He completed it in Berlin on January 20, 1842, and conducted the first performance in Leipzig six weeks later. The success of a performance in London the following June led to his receiving permission to dedicate it to one of his deepest admirers, Queen Victoria.

Seeking to enhance its flow and continuity, Mendelssohn directed that the four movements be played as a continuous whole. It opens with a quiet, plaintive, darkly coloured introduction based upon the “Holyrood Castle” theme; this leads to a highly active and dramatic first movement proper.

Mendelssohn offers only token relaxation through a sad, sighing second theme. A stormy climax dissolves into a return of the theme of the introduction; this in turn leads into the second movement, a jaunty, featherweight Scherzo, first cousin to a similar piece in his music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is here that the influence of Scottish folk music is felt most strongly.

The third movement is a slow, almost mournful processional which grows increasingly forceful. The warlike Finale is highly rhythmic, with materials passed about rapidly between the sections of the orchestra. As in the first movement, the tumult dies down to a whisper. But this time the music does not expire; it rises up in glory through a majestic, hymn-like transformation of the “Holyrood Castle” theme. This spreads rapidly throughout the orchestra, setting upon the symphony an uplifting seal of triumph.

Howard Shelley won the premier prize at the Royal College of Music, at the end of his first year and his professional career began with a successful recital and a televised Promenade concert with the London Symphony Orchestra in the same season. Since then he has performed regularly throughout the UK, Europe, Scandinavia, North America, Russia, Australia and the Far East. He has also made over seventy-five commercial recordings.

As pianist he has performed, broadcast and recorded around the world with leading orchestras and conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pierre Boulez, Sir Adrian Boult, Colin Davis, Mariss Jansons, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and Kurt Sanderling. During the fortieth anniversary of Rachmaninov’s he became the first pianist ever to perform the composer’s complete solo piano works in concert. The five London recitals, in London’s Wigmore Hall, were broadcast in their entirety by the BBC.

To mark the fiftieth BBC anniversary of Rachmaninov’s death, Howard Shelley gave many concerts including a recital in the Leipzig Gewand haus on the death-day itself and a recital at Rachmaninov’s villa in Lucerne at the invitation of the composer’s grandson. He has given complete cycles of Rachmaninov concertos with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Beethoven concertos with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and a Mozart concerto series with the London Mozart Players, Camerata Salzburg and Munich Symphony Orchestra. Howard Shelley also featured in a documentary of Rachmaninov’s life shown on BBC television.

In 1994, an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Music was conferred on him by HRH The Prince of Wales. Shelley was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours List.

Sir Mark Elder CBE has been Music Director of the Hallé since September 2008 during which time the orchestra’s considerable achievements have been recognised in awards, an enhanced international profile and popular and critical acclaim. He appears regularly with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic; Chicago Symphony; Boston Symphony and Munich Philharmonic. In the UK, he enjoys close relationships with both the London Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and last year returned to the London Symphony Orchestra. Sir Mark has appeared annually at the BBC Proms for many years, including, in 1987 and 2006, at the globally televised Last Night of the Proms and from 2003, in concerts with the Hallé.

He was Music Director of English National Opera (1979-93), Principal Guest Conductor. Of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1992-95) and Music Director of the Rochester Symphony Orchestra in the USA (1989-94). Sir Mark’s work in opera frequently takes him to the world’s major houses and, during his time at ENO, he brought acclaim to the company for its work in London, as well as leading tours to the USA (including the Metroplotan Opera, New York) and Russia (including the Bolshoi in Moscow and Mariinsky in St Petersburg. He has made recordings with a range of orchestras including, since 2003, a series of highly-praised releases on the Hallés own CD label works by Elgar, Richard Strauss, Debussy, Colin Matthews, Nielsen and Wagner. A Spanish tour with the Hallé comes in late-May and Sir Mark finishes his 2008/09 season with the Chicago Symphony in a three week festival devoted to Dvorak.

Sir Mark was awarded the CBE in 1989 and knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 1989. He won an Olivier Award in 1991 for his outstanding work at ENO and in 2006 he was named Conductor of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society.

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