Preview - What's The Score?
This is a page which will be previewing forthcoming concerts, giving a bit more background to the works being performed, presenting the latest information on the performers involved.
The new season in Sheffield (2007-2008)
Whilst it doesn't appear that there are to be any works premiered in Sheffield this season, there will be two new works which promise to be exciting for concert goers.
The first of these comes from the Hallam Sinfonia who in their 24th November Concert, give us the Stephen McNeff work Heiligenstadt. This work is two years old and Beethoven scholars will notice the title. Heiligenstadt is written for a Beethoven sized orchestra and is on a programme which includes two other works by Beethoven. I've seen the opening to the piece and it is marked "Quietly and dreamlike". The piece was written by the composer as part of his Bournemouth residency specifically as a companion piece for Beethoven 5.
It's definitely nothing to be scared of!
In January we can look forward to what will be only the second performance of a new concerto for cello by John McCabe to be performed by Truls Mork and the Hallé under Mark Elder.
Michael Kennedy described John McCabe (on the composer's website ) as
"... an all-round musician, feet on the ground but taking his music, like Elgar, from the air all around him. There is much more music to come from him and no one can foretell in which direction it may go except that it will come from the heart and be crafted by a wise and cool head."
The Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra under their new conductor, Ewa Strusinska, will be performing some rarities in their new season. At their Christmas concert, one piece is by Moniuszko - A Fairy Tale. (This is not the first time this composer will have been heard in Sheffield - at their concert a few years back, the Warsaw Philharmonic performed the Mazurka from Halka as an encore.)
For the final concert of the season, they will be performing Canzona di Barocco by Henryk Czyz. For those who may find this name unfamiliar, he was a Polish composer, conductor and academic who lived from 1923 to 2003. This Canzona dates from 1983 and was one of his last works.
A customer has pointed out that of the four amateur orchestras in Sheffield, the SSO is the only one now whose conductor is a) English, b) male!
Harry Malpass is retiring from the position with the SCO and they are auditioning for the position.
Local Orchestras and conductors
| Orchestra | Conductor | Website
|
|---|
| Hallam Sinfonia | Natalia Luis-Bassa | website
| | Sheffield Chamber Orchestra | Harry Malpass (retiring) | website
| | Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra | Ewa Strusinska | website
| | Sheffield Symphony Orchestra | John Longstaff | website
| |
This does not include the Endcliffe Orchestra, for whom, from what I've heard, their conductor Martin Lightowler is doing a terrific job.
Sheffield City Hall
It’s a season of dualities and anniversaries. Take the Elgar work, the Music Makers to be performed as the final work in the season. It seems that Elgar was not the only composer to set this text, Zoltan Kodaly did so in 1964.
A work in the opening concert, Beethoven’s Coriolan overture, immediately suggests Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, but Beethoven was writing for a play by Von Collins. The first performance took place in 1807. Another Beethoven piece “Ode to Joy” taken from his Ninth Symphony has been used as the European Anthem since 1985 although this is without the words. This arrangement was adapted by the conductor Herbert von Karajan who was born in 1908. Beethoven himself changed some of the words of Schiller’s original. “All persons become brothers” was originally "Beggars become princes' brothers.”
This year is also the centenary of the first performance of “A Village Romeo and Juliet” by Yorkshire’s most famous composer Frederick Delius. An interlude in this opera is the popular “Walk to the Paradise Garden” (which gets a performance this coming season). Like many operatic interludes, it was written to give the scene shifters more time between scenes. (The Paradise Garden was the name of the local inn).
Another anniversary noted late in the season is the 100th anniversary of the first performance in 1908 of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony . Rachmaninov himself appeared at the City Hall as both pianist and conductor during the 1936 Sheffield Festival. In the space of three days, the Festival Chorus performed in four concerts (eight works in total). For more information on the 1936 Festival, check out the Festival Report
I presume they sang from books; I recall one memorable concert (Beethoven 9th again) when the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus sang from memory – it was under Nicholas Kraemer who’s returning to conduct the Bach St John Passion.
That will be from books, won’t it?
Eastern Influences
Towards the end of the 19th Century and during the early years of the 20th, there were several works with what can be described as "Oriental Influences". Probably the most famous in Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly which was based on a play by David Belasco, in turn based on a short story. This basic storyline was also used by the French composer Andreé Messager in his ballet Madame Chrysantheme.
Even before this there had been The Geisha - A story of a tea house, A Japanese Musical Play by Sidney Jones with a
Libretto by Owen Hall and Lyrics by Harry Greenbank.
One of the most serious of works was the setting by Gustav Mahler of Chinese Poems to create his "Song of the Earth" (Das Lied von der Erde) - a symphony in all but name. For some this is Mahler's crowning achievement in music, surpassing the excesses of the 8th Symphony.
It is 'the most Mahleresque of his works’, according to his friend and disciple, the conductor Bruno Walter. As Mahler himself wrote to Walter when the draft score was finished, ‘I believe it is the most personal thing I have yet created.
For me, the final movement The Farewell is Mahler at his most evocative.
He even included a few lines of his own at the very end.
The dear earth everywhere
Blossoms in spring, and grows green anew.
Everywhere and forever, forever
Blue lights the horizon.
Forever... forever...
There is a CD coming out on the BIS Label which uses Daniel Ng's reconstruction of the original Chinese poems. An interesting idea, but I doubt that the performance in Sheffield will be in anything but German.
A glut of Sibelius
Besides the chance to hear the Violin Concerto, there will be rare opportunity to hear successively numbered symphonies on successive nights next April. On Friday 18th April the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will play the Fifth Symphony at the City Hall and the following evening the Sixth Symphony will be played by the Sheffield Symphony Orchestra at St Mark's Broomhill. This latter performance is a change to the schedule.
Also worth a mention is the performance in May of the First Symphony to be given by the Hallam Sinfonia at Ecclesall Church.
Home