RLPO Programme Notes Online

Saturday 9 June 2012 7.30pm

arranged by BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976)
The National Anthem
for chorus and orchestra

It is thought that the first performance of the National Anthem, with the melody and words more or
less as they are today, was in 1745. Thomas Arne (1710-78) is given credit for standardising the words
and music at this time, and he is sometimes cited as the composer of the melody. However, the
melody itself draws on elements of earlier tunes, including music by John Bull (1563-1628) and Henry
Purcell (1659-95), while Handel used a variant of the tune in the Sarabande of his Suite No.4 in E
minor, composed before 1720. Other theories about its origin abound, including a widespread 19th-
century belief that an old Scots carol, Remember O Thou Man, was the source of the tune.

The words go back much further: as early as 1545, the phrase God save the King and its response
Long to reign over us were watchwords of the Royal Navy, according to the research of Percy Scholes.
Many variants exist, with verses written to emphasise a particular political standpoint verses were
written in 1745 to rally support both for and against the Jacobite Rising or to commemorate an
event.

Brittens arrangement was written for the 1961 Leeds Festival. He prepared a reduced orchestration
for the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in 1967, though it is the more fully scored
original version that will be performed tonight. Britten conceived it as a single crescendo, building
from pianissimo at the opening to a full-blooded fortissimo.

Ian Stephens 2012

PETER MAXWELL DAVIES (b.1934)
Symphony No.9
for orchestra and brass sextet

World premiere, commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Helsinki
Philharmonic Orchestra. Dedicated to Her Majesty the Queen, on the occasion of her Diamond
Jubilee

The new Symphony was written between December 2011 and March 2012: it was started in Lazio,
Italy, and finished at home in Orkney.

I was in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, and realised the potential of the musical
equivalent of a central nave with side chapels, where the nave is of one consistent style, and the
chapels have other styles, often of a clashing later period, yet still maintaining, because of symmetrical
relationships, some kind of strained unity. (This is not particular to Italian churches - one only has to
think of Westminster Abbey!)

The work is in one continuous, quite concise movement, divided into two parts.

The first part starts with a slow introduction, which presents the basic thematic material of the whole
Symphony, and where the extra brass players, placed to one side of the orchestra, have fanfare
flourishes, which I hope are appropriate in a work dedicated to Her Majesty the Queen.

There follows an allegro proper, with the ghost of traditional sonata form, with an exposition, then a
development section where material is systematically transformed by interval and rhythmic unit
bending, rather than by the usual modulatory Austro-Germanic processes suitable to a more
traditionally tonal work. (The work is tonal, but with modal inflections reminiscent of early music
for instance, there are substitute dominants, as in medieval plainsong, and the harmony does not
always work from the bass upwards through the texture, but often above and below a tenor or
holding part, in any register, as in the 13th-century polyphony.)

The brass sextet interrupts the allegro with strident military-style marches (in my mind the
equivalent of the church side chapels) with scant respect for its style. This bears no disrespect for
military music or bands as such which, as Master of the Queens Music, I have come to know well
and love but it presented an opportunity to bear witness, in purely musical terms, to what I can only
consider, at the deepest and most heartfelt level, our disastrous interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan
comparable only to the folly of the medieval crusades and the Crimean War. (Having been bombed
in the 1941 blitz, and witnessed people on fire running up the street, and having seen bodies dug out of
the rubble, I feel that such treatment should not be unleashed on any population without the most
compelling reasons, nor on our own military forces; while being not pacifist as such, it must be at least
a part of a composers task to bear witness, as honestly as possible.)

In the second, slow half of the work, the brass sextet integrates more into the orchestral texture, and
the chapel interruptions, while still contrasting, particularly in terms of speed, are ever more
reconciliatory.

Very concerned that the Symphony should not end negatively, as so often I looked to Joseph Haydn
for inspiration and guidance. I remembered his String Quartet Op.54 No.2, particularly relevant with,
like this work, a slow movement finale, anticipating Tchaikovsky and Mahler. Fragments of this
quartet begin to appear, one of the side chapels even consisting of a reworking of the Trio of Haydns
third movement, and the mood changes to a cautious optimism.

While I feel it would be somehow morally indefensible to give this work a triumphant tonal ending,
what happens is as positive as I could make it: the slow introduction returns, with even more ebullient
fanfares, and all the diverse elements come together in a full-throated imploration for peace,
reconciliation and a true democracy, even in quite difficult circumstances.

I am delighted the Symphony is receiving its first performance in Liverpool by the Philharmonic; I
have always loved and admired Liverpool, and have fond memories of concerts conducted by Hugo
Rignold in my student years, and, more recently, by Sir Charles Groves.

Peter Maxwell Davies 2012

ABOUT THE COMPOSER PETER MAXWELL DAVIES

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time.
His charismatic and versatile musical personality, coupled with the worldwide spread of
performances, has meant that he reaches an unusually large and varied public.

As the critic in the Wiener Zeitung wrote following a concert of all Maxwell Davies works at the
Musikverein in Vienna: A great and significant occasion on the Vienna concert scene and the public
took full advantage of it: the Musikverein was almost fully booked and scarcely anyone left in the
interval. I know of no other living composer who could bring that off with a programme consisting
entirely of his own works.

His theatrical works include his operas Taverner, Resurrection and The Doctor of Myddfai, chamber
operas The Lighthouse (which has received over 100 different productions worldwide since its
premiere in 1980) and The Martyrdom of St Magnus, his full-length ballets Salome and Caroline
Mathilde, and five music-theatre works including Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss
Donnithornes Maggot, both of which have become contemporary classics.

His orchestral works include eight symphonies, which The Times has called the most important
symphonic cycle since Shostakovich, the most recent of which before the premiere of No.9 tonight
was the Antarctic Symphony, for which he visited the Antarctic in 1997. He has written concertos for
violin, trumpet, piano, horn and piccolo, and the ten Strathclyde Concertos (written for the principal
players of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra), as well as some lighter orchestral works, such as An
Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (the most performed piece of contemporary music), Mavis in Las
Vegas and Swinton Jig.

Major works for chorus, soloists and orchestra include The Three Kings, Job and The Jacobite Rising.

Maxwell Davies is also active as a conductor and has recently finished ten years as
Composer/Conductor of both the BBC Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras; he is
Composer Laureate with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has also conducted many orchestras in
Europe and North America, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, San Francisco
Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Russian National Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic and Philharmonia.

Maxwell Davies has been recently concentrating his compositional efforts on chamber music,
including the cycle of ten string quartets which were commissioned by Naxos and are called the Naxos
Quartets. These were performed in their entirety at the Wigmore Hall in London by the Maggini
Quartet over a period of five years between 2002 and 2007, and have all been recorded for release on
Naxos.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was appointed Master of the Queens Music in March 2004.
www.maxopus.com

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Symphony No.9 in D minor, Op.125 Choral

Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
Scherzo: molto vivace presto
Adagio molto e cantabile
Presto


The sung text in German, with English translation, is available in the printed programme.


Has there ever been a more famous symphony than Beethovens Ninth, his Choral? With its
celebrated Ode to Joy finale adopted as a musical emblem of freedom, fairness and justice, the
symphonys finale is the most commonly played piece at major state and sporting events across many
borders and throughout many cultures. It has been shamelessly hijacked for use on numerous
commercial adverts and film soundtracks, in pop music and as a mobile ringtone. Yet its integrity has
survived even the most demeaning of uses to which this extraordinary music has been put, including
performances by order to honour Hitlers birthday. Lasting more than an hour, and making great
demands on instrumentalists and solo and choral singers, the Ninth Symphony holds a special
position in classical music.

Sir Charles Mackerras recorded Beethovens Ninth as the first work in his EMI cycle of the Beethoven
symphonies with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir in 1991. (The soloists
included Bryn Terfel and the version was also distinctive in being among the first to incorporate many
of Jonathan Del Mars editorial amendments.) In 1831 Richard Wagner completed a piano
arrangement of the work and many composers from Liszt, Bruckner and Mahler to Michael Tippett
as well as artists working in other artforms have been hugely influenced and inspired by Beethovens
last symphony. In it the composer achieved what Goethe described as the fulfilment of beautiful
possibilities.

The scope, ambition and significance of the Ninth Symphony struck the changing and newly Romantic
world of Western music (from the middle of the 19th century) with tremendous force and Beethoven
became regarded as the forefather of Romantic music. His Ninth Symphony was to prove ground-
breaking in its specific form and unprecedented length, and for smashing the Classical symphonic
mould. It incorporates part of An die Freude (Ode to Joy, joy changed to freedom by Leonard
Bernstein), a poem with a humanistic message written by Schiller in 1785, set alongside some of the
composers own words, with the text sung by soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists and chorus in the
finale of the last movement of the symphony. It is the first example of a major composer putting the
human voice on a par with instruments in a symphony.

The Philharmonic Society of London (now the Royal Philharmonic Society) commissioned the
symphony in 1817. Beethoven started work on it in 1818 and finished it early in 1824. What happened
at its premiere in that year, in Vienna, has become blurred by anecdotes. We do know, however, that
both work and composer were acclaimed by the packed house in five standing ovations, waving
handkerchiefs, hats thrown in the air, and cheering although Beethoven, who was by now
completely deaf, had to be turned around to see and acknowledge the audiences enthusiastic response
to his monumental achievement. The reviews of that first performance were mixed, however. The
necessary differentiation of light and dark, security of intonation, fine shading, and nuanced execution
were all lacking, wrote one critic but another, more perceptively, described the effect of the work as
indescribably great and magnificent.

The works famous pianissimo opening sixteen bars with no secure sense of key or rhythm does
not so much depict a journey from darkness to light, or even from chaos to order, as the birth of sound
itself, the very creation of a musical idea. It is as if the struggle of Beethovens daily existence,
composing sounds he could hear only in his head, struggling to communicate and frustrated by the
memory of what it had been like to hear has been summed up in a single page of music. This first
movement, rooted in but roving far from sombre D minor surprises the listener by finally
returning to the opening material and presenting it in the brighter key of D major.

Unusually, the Scherzo comes next, with the Adagio placed immediately before the finale for
maximum effect. Both central movements are spacious in design with the Adagio taking the form of a
magnificent set of serene and noble variations. The hymnlike, stepwise theme of the variations bears
some resemblance to the main theme of the Ode to Joy and an unexpected disruption in the final
bars of the third movement its calm quiet disturbed by two fanfares for trumpets and drums
suggests that something unusual lies ahead.

The uneasy peace is shattered with what has been described as a fanfare of terror: an eruption that is
actually a clash of two triads B flat major (the key of the Adagio) and D minor (the key of the
symphony as a whole). What follows is a carefully staged drama in which cellos and basses imitate
operatic recitative; the music of the three previous movements is briefly reviewed and dismissed; and
a new theme is suggested, which, when it finally emerges, is a songlike melody over whose
composition despite its apparent simplicity Beethoven apparently laboured long and hard.

And then, controversially and brilliantly, Beethoven introduces the human voice into the symphony.
The earlier recitative returns, now sung to words by Beethoven, after which the composers songlike
theme is set to words. And from there Beethoven creates a new kind of movement, a kind of symphony
within a symphony, combining elements of symphony and concerto (including a virtuosic cadenza for
the four soloists), Classical variations, Turkish marches (complete with cymbals, triangle and bass
drum), majestic slow meditations, and, finally, a gigantic double fugue. Here was the music of the
future. It still comes across today in as shattering and fresh a manner as at its unveiling nearly two
centuries ago.

Miki Swann 2012

As programmes can change at the last minute, the online text may vary slightly from that of the printed version. You may print
these programme notes for your personal use without seeking permission, but they may not be reprinted or circulated in any
form without the writer's consent. To obtain permission please contact ian.stephens@liverpoolphil.com.