JOURNEY THROUGH MUSIC

Saturday 1 April, 7.30pm

John Harbison Remembering Gatsby (7 mins)

Samuel Barber Violin Concerto (23 mins)

Interval: 20 mins

Sergey Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2 (55 mins)

BBC PhilharmonicJames Feddeck conductorJames Ehnes violin

ARE YOU READY TO BEGIN YOUR MUSICAL JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY?

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Our Journey Through Music scheme at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall is an affordable and enjoyable introduction to the world of concert-going and classical music. For young people and children from the age of 8, our special scheme is aimed at making our concerts easily accessible for families and anybody who wants to discover orchestral music or to explore it further.

Ready to begin?Join us on this musical journey and discover the unforgettable world of classical music. Three performances will feature a pre-concert session suitable for all ages – but every concert in the 2016/17 season is available at a special family-ticket price. Plus – choose your seat anywhere in the house for the same price:• £7 for children aged 16 and under• £12 for accompanying adults• £35 family ticket, for 4 people (maximum of 2 adults)These prices include a £2 booking fee so you know there’s no extra costs when you book – just be sure to book in advance as these are not available on the day.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ORCHESTRA

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WHAT IS AN ORCHESTRA?An orchestra is a group of instrumental players who perform together, usually led by a conductor.

The modern symphony orchestra usually has somewhere between 60 and 90 players: around 30 violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos, eight double basses; two or three each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, a harp and an assortment of percussion instruments. You can find out more about the instruments, and where they sit, on the next two pages after this.

THE CONDUCTORThe person in charge is usually the conductor, who stands at the front and directs the orchestra from a podium, keeping time either by waving a short stick, called a baton, or sometimes just with his or her hands. One of the earliest conductors, the Italian-born Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–87), kept his orchestra together by banging a big stick on the floor, but one day he accidentally stabbed his foot and soon afterwards died of gangrene. It’s not as dangerous these days!

Part of the conductor’s job is to show the beat (or pulse) of the music so that all the musicians play together in time. He or she also signals when individual musicians or groups have to start or stop playing. All the time conductors are listening to the overall sound-balance, and altering it, to make sure that the important instruments don’t get drowned out by less important ones. Otherwise, like lots of people talking loudly at the same time, the result would be chaos!

But there’s more to it than this. The conductor can also help to reveal the changing moods of the music. If they can create a strong musical image for the listener, the effect can make us feel all sorts of emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, pride and everything in between. The music might energise you, or it might make you feel you’ve fallen into a dream.

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THE ORCHESTRA ON STAGEMost orchestras have a similar seating plan, with the strings at the front, the woodwind behind them and the brass and percussion further back still.

WOODWINDThe woodwind section sits behind the strings, often in two rows. There are four different instruments, usually in pairs, but in bigger orchestras there can be up to three or four players of each instrument. The metal flutes produce a high, bright, silvery sound. The piccolo is like a small flute and plays very high up. Oboes are black wooden instruments with a detachable reed, which gives them a distinctive sharp-edged sound. Before a concert starts, the whole orchestra tunes up to the note ‘A’ sounded by the Principal Oboe. A bigger, lower version of the oboe is the cor anglais, or ‘English horn’. Clarinets have a more hollow, woody sound. The lowest-sounding member of its family is the bass clarinet. The lowest woodwind instrument is the bassoon, which is long and heavy and has to be supported by a sling round the player’s neck. The contra-bassoon is so long that it’s bent double. Occasionally a piece will need extra instruments, such as the saxophone, which is more usually found in a jazz band.

BRASSLike the strings and woodwind, the brass family has four groups. There are French horns (usually four), instruments once associated with hunting, while the trumpets came from military bands, and often have fanfare-like parts. Trombones are played with a movable slide but, in spite of their size, they can play amazingly fast notes; and finally the enormous tuba makes the deepest notes of all.

PERCUSSIONThe percussion section sits at the back of the orchestra and centres around the timpani, or kettledrums – between two and four copper drums. They have pedals, which alter their pitch (or notes). The bass drum is hit with just one stick; while the metal cymbals are clashed together, often when the music gets very loud. The side-drum is a small military drum that can play very quietly or very loudly indeed. Sometimes composers ask for a variety of other percussion instruments, such as the xylophone, the marimba or even whistles, whips and sirens.

STRINGSString players sit at the front in a semi-circle, usually with the violins on the left and the cellos on the right. Each of the string sections (and also the woodwind, brass and percussion sections) has a principal, who leads the section. The strings divide into four sections: violins, violas, cellos and double basses. The violins are subdivided into first violins and second violins, with the Firsts generally having a slightly more difficult and brilliant part. Violas are bigger than violins, with a deeper, mellower sound. The cellos have a rounded, bass sound. The huge double basses (which are played standing up, or perched on a high stool) add depth to the string sound. The harp is played with fingers instead of a bow, and it has a series of complicated pedals that change its pitch (or notes).

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TONIGHT'S MUSIC

John Harbison (born 1938)Remembering Gatsby (1986)

Have you ever read F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel The Great Gatsby? It’s set in America in the 1920s, where Jay Gatsby has it all. He’s young, handsome, a millionaire and owns a luxurious house where he throws amazing parties, with cocktails and jazz bands (jazz was the music everyone danced to in the 1920s). But there’s something mysterious about him, too. It’s a fabulous, fascinating story, and the American composer John Harbison turned it into an opera in 1999.

While he was planning the opera, though, Harbison had lots of different musical ideas – and this is one of them, from 1986. He called it a ‘foxtrot for orchestra’ (the foxtrot was a hugely popular dance in the 1920s – you might have seen people doing them on Strictly Come Dancing) and it’s a bit like a dance at one of Gatsby’s parties. But it’s also a portrait of a mysterious man. That’s the great thing about music – like Gatsby himself, it can be two things at once!

What to listen for• Mystery: at first, the music is stormy and passionate and

the whole orchestra plays. It’s hard to forget – like a dark shadow over the whole piece.

• Let’s Dance: OK, so this looks like an orchestra – but it sounds as if Harbison has hidden a whole 1920s dance band among the players. Listen out for a smooth foxtrot tune, played by the soprano saxophone and the shimmering, sizzling sound of the suspended cymbal. And if you find your feet tapping, that’s great!

• Surprises: not everything’s quite right – weird sounds keep appearing. Harbison said he wanted the orchestra to sound like old-fashioned telephones and car horns, and there’s something else too, a funny wobbling sound. That’s the flexatone – played by one of the percussion section.

What else could I listen to?American composers love travelling back in time to the 1920s! Try another ‘foxtrot for orchestra’ – The Chairman Dances by John Adams.

TONIGHT'S MUSIC

Samuel Barber (1910–81)Violin Concerto (1939)

1 Allegro (Fast)2 Andante (Slow)3 Presto in moto perpetuo (Very fast and constantly

moving)

James Ehnes violin

John Harbison imagined a glittering 1920s world of millionaires and jazz bands, but Samuel Barber actually lived in it! When he was 10, he told his parents that he didn’t want to play football, because he was going to be a composer instead. In 1939 a millionaire who’d made his fortune selling soap powder offered Barber $1,000 –a huge sum of money at that time – to write a piece for his adopted son: a fabulously talented young violinist called Iso Briselli.

This is the piece that Barber wrote for him. A concerto is a piece in which one (‘solo’) player performs in front of an orchestra. It’s usually made up of three separate but related pieces (called ‘movements’). Briselli actually complained that Barber’s concerto was too difficult – but that’s no problem for James Ehnes, our soloist today!

What to listen for1 Allegro (Fast) • One thing the violin does really well is play long, beautiful

tunes – almost as if it’s singing. So that’s how Barber begins. Listen to how the orchestra provides a soft, velvety background for the solo violin – and then adds touches of musical colour, like an artist dabbing on little bits of paint. But before long the orchestra starts to get bolder.

2 Andante (Slow) • This time the orchestra begins and the oboe plays a sad,

sweet tune. The mood is warm and still, maybe a bit like a summer night. When will the violin join in? And what will it do with the music, once it does?

3 Presto in moto perpetuo (Very fast and constantly moving)• Now it’s time for some action! There’s a quiet rumble of

timpani (the copper-coloured drums at the back of the orchestra) and the violin goes charging off almost as fast as it can play. Watch James’s fingers fly (it’s not as easy as he makes it look so no wonder it scared young Iso Briselli). Will the orchestra catch up? Like a firework, it’s all over in a flash.

What else could I listen to?Barber’s best known piece is his Adagio for Strings and his First Symphony is great, too. But if you liked the sound of the violin, why not try the Violin Concerto that the Austrian composer Erich Korngold wrote not long afterwards, in Hollywood, which is a similar mix of beautiful tunes and pure drama.

Interval: 20 minutes (time for an ice-cream!)

TONIGHT'S MUSIC

Sergey Rachmaninov (1873–1943)Symphony No. 2 in E minor (1906–7)

1 Largo – Allegro moderato (Very slow – Moderately fast)2 Allegro molto (Very fast)3 Adagio (Slow)4 Allegro vivace (Fast and lively)

Sergey Rachmaninov was Russian, and he was one of the most amazing musicians who ever lived. He was a great composer, a talented conductor and possibly the best piano player of all time. Like a modern pop star, he had armies of fans – one lady used to send him a bunch of white flowers before every concert. But like many artists, he had a sad side too. He was tall, and often seemed gloomy – a friend once called him ‘a six-and-a-half foot scowl’. One reason for that was that he suffered from terrible nerves.

When he was just out of college he wrote a symphony. In classical music that’s a big deal: a symphony is the longest and most ambitious type of music you can write for an orchestra. It’s a musical story in which tunes (‘themes’) take the place of characters and the action unfolds over several (usually four) different movements. Rachmaninov’s First Symphony didn’t go well, and people mocked him. It took 11 years before he was confident enough to write a Second Symphony – and he went to Germany to write it, so no-one back home in Russia would know!

This Second Symphony is the one we hear tonight and like Rachmaninov himself (and Russia) it’s big; really big. The secret is to let the music draw you in, so Rachmaninov can tell you his story at his own speed. Don’t worry – when something important is about to happen, he’ll make sure you know!

What to listen for1 Largo – Allegro moderato (Very slow – Moderately fast) • The deepest, darkest-sounding string instruments (the

cellos and basses) play a slow, sombre tune. Slowly, the whole orchestra joins in – it’s a bit like a huge snowy Russian landscape, gradually awakening from a dark winter. It becomes really passionate and sad, dies away, and then, with a shiver, the real adventure starts. The violins play a long, singing tune, things get stormy, and then the woodwind instruments and cellos call softly to each other. Sounds Romantic? These are Rachmaninov’s musical characters – and hold tight, because there’s a really huge storm ahead …

2 Allegro molto (Very fast)• Now for some light. The violins play a galloping rhythm,

the horns shout out a tune, and the glockenspiel (in the percussion section) makes the music seem to glitter. There’s another Romantic tune, a bustling procession, and then Rachmaninov goes back to the start. At the very end, the brass instruments play the sombre tune from the very beginning of the symphony – something’s going on here.

3 Adagio (Slow)• You should be able to guess the mood of this movement!

Remember the Romantic bits from earlier on? Now Rachmaninov pours it all out – and the clarinet plays a sweet, quiet tune that seems to go on forever. It sounds blissful, but in the middle of the movement the oboe and cor anglais have some anxious questions to ask …

TONIGHT'S MUSIC

4 Allegro vivace (Fast and lively)• Feel the energy? With a pounding rhythm and a great

‘whoosh’, Rachmaninov begins his last chapter. After a sudden pause, a fanfare and a gigantic crash of cymbals (look out for the percussion players, at the back of the orchestra), it’s time for romance all over again: a huge, sweet, sweeping tune for the full orchestra. But we’re not quite home yet. You’ll know about it when we are – and you’ll hear that huge tune again, sounding even more fabulous. When you do, the brass instruments also play the sombre theme from the very beginning – but it’s not gloomy any more: it’s magnificent. And then Rachmaninov seems to run, cheering, for the finish. If you feel like cheering too, don’t hold back – we love that!

What else could I listen to?Like his Second Symphony, Rachmaninov’s Second and Third Piano Concertos are full of Romantic themes and passion.

Notes © Richard Bratby

bbc.co.uk/journeythroughmusic

JOURNEY THROUGH MUSIC PRE-CONCERT SESSION

#MyJTM

We have a special pre-concert introduction at this upcoming concert. Join us a bit earlier on the concert night to discover more about the orchestra and the music being performed.

Friday 26 May 2017Concert Fantastique

Music by Arvo Pärt, Berlioz & DutilleuxPre-concert session, 6.30pm