Sydney Soloists

Friday, 29 August at 8pm

A twelve-instrument chamber orchestra drawn from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, including many section leaders with Robert Johnson (conductor) and Penelope Mills (soprano)

The Orchestra:
Fiona Ziegler and Emma Hayes (violins), Roger Benedict (viola), Nathan Waks, (‘cello), Kees Boersma (double bass), Emma Scholl (flute, piccolo), Diana Doherty (oboe, cor anglais), Francesco Celata (clarinet), Bernadette Balkus (piano), Clemens Leske (harmonium), Clare Edwardes and Richard Miller (percussion)

Programme

MOZART Quintet in A for clarinet, two violins, viola and ’cello, K 581
MAHLER Symphony no 4 in G (chamber version arranged by Erwin Stein)
[a beautiful, light, lyrical work] Penelope Mills, soprano Robert Johnson, conductor

About the Artists

The Sydney Soloists have performed on a number of occasions at the Sydney
Festival, the Canberra International Chamber Music Festival and, for a number of years, they have had a series of concerts at Government House, Sydney. The ensemble has performed concerts in China as well, and has given live national broadcasts for the ABC on many occasions. We are pleased to welcome them again to the Sydney Mozart Society.

Fiona Ziegler (violin) – Assistant Concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra. Leader of the Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra. Member of Ensemble de la Reine. Former member of the Australian Youth and Australian Chamber Orchestras. Founding member of The Australian Fortepiano Trio, the Trio Pollastri and the baroque trio, Concertato.

Emma West (violin) – Associate Principal Violin in the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra. Winner of the Adelaide Chamber Orchestra Concerto Competition, 1993.
Recipient of the Sydney Symphony Friends Scholarship in 2000 and 2004, which
allowed her to study in Sienna, London and Amsterdam. Tutor for Australian Youth
and Sydney Youth Orchestras.

Roger Benedict (viola) – Principal Viola of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and
Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony Fellowship Program. Formerly Principal
Viola of the Philharmonia Orchestra, London. Tutor to the European Union Youth
Orchestra and former Professor at the Royal Northern College of Music. Plays a fine
Carlo Antonio Testore viola made in Milan in 1753.

Nathan Waks (’cello) – Principal Cello in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
(appointed at the age of 19). Studied with Mstistlav Rostropovich and with Paul
Tortelier. A founding member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Australian Music Centre. Former member of the Sydney String Quartet. Former Director of Music at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Kees Boersma (double bass) – Occupies the Brian and Rosemary White Chair of
Principal Double Bass in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Was a founding member of the Brisbane-based contemporary music group ELISON. Former performer with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and as Principal Bass with the State Orchestra of Victoria and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Emma Sholl (flute, piccolo) – Occupies the Mr Harcourt Gough Chair of Associate
Principal Flute in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Former Second Flute in the SSO,
began learning flute when she was five years old. Former member of the World
Orchestra for Peace. Former winner of the National Orchestral Flute Competition and the National Solo Flute Competition.

Diana Doherty (oboe) – Principal Oboist of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Former Principal Oboe in the Symphony Orchestra of Lucerne. Awards include First
Prizes in the International Lyceum Club Competition, in the International Chamber
Music Competition in Martigny and in the prestigious Prague Spring Festival
Competition (1991), and joint winner of the Young Concert Artists International
Auditions (New York, 1995).

Francesco Celata (clarinet) – Associate Principal Clarinettist of the Sydney
Symphony Orchestra. Former Principal Clarinettist of the Queensland Philharmonic
Orchestra. Founder of the Sydney Soloists. Long-time teacher of clarinet at the Sydney Conservatorium. Has appeared on a number of occasions as guest Principal Clarinettist with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Matthew Wilkie (bassoon) – Principal Bassoonist of the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra. Former Principal Bassoonist of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE) and Principal Bassoonist of the Wind Soloists of the COE. Former soloist with the South West German Chamber and Württemberg Chamber Orchestras. Winner of second prize in the International Music Competition, 1986.

Bernadette Balkus (piano) – A ‘freelance’ pianist. Has played in New Zealand and
all the Australian states for Musica Viva Australia, and has performed with the
Australia Ensemble. Has performed as soloist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
and appeared at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. With her brother, Michael
Kieran Harvey, formed the award-winning Australian Virtuosi Duo. Has a successful
duo partnership with the soprano, Sara Macliver.

Clemens Leske (piano) – Has regularly performed with the Australian String
Quartet, and with the Australian Chamber, Bangkok Symphony and London
Philharmonic Orchestras as well as all of Australia’s symphony orchestras. Studied at the Juilliard School. Winner of numerous prizes and awards, including the ABC Young Performer of the Year, the David Paul Landa Memorial Scholarship (Australia) and the Hattori Award (London).

Claire Edwardes (percussion) – First-class honours graduate and Student of the
Year of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Master of Music with distinction from the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories. Awards include Symphony Australia
Young Performer of the Year, First Prize in the Tromp Percussion Competition (the
Netherlands), First Prize in the Llangollen International Instrumentalist Competition
(Wales) and Winner of the prestigious MCA/Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music.

Richard Miller (percussion) – Principal Timpanist of the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra. Studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and in Los Angeles and
New York. Was in percussion ensemble, Synergy. Is a percussion teacher at the Sydney Conservatorium, where he has taught a new generation of young, high-performing, percussionists.

Penelope Mills (soprano) holds degrees from the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester) and the Sydney Conservatorium. She has performed extensively with the Sydney Philharmonia, Sydney Concert Orchestra, SBS Youth Orchestra, Willoughby Symphony and the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society. Her repertoire includes roles in Orff’s Carmina Burana, Bach’s B Minor Mass and Passions, Poulenc’s Gloria, Händel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 and Choral Fantasia, Fauré’s Requiem, Vaughan Williams’s Pilgrim’s Journey and Dona nobis Pacem, Mozart’s Mass in C and Requiem, CPE Bach’s Magnificat, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and Vivaldi’s Gloria. Equally at home on the operatic stage, Penelope’s roles include Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Euridice in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Venus in Dardanus (all for Pinchgut Opera), Tatyana in Onegin (for Stowe Opera, UK), Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Nedda (I Pagliacci) and Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (all for the Royal Northern College of Music).

Robert Johnson (conductor) holds the position of Principal Horn in the Sydney
Symphony Orchestra. He joined the West Australian Symphony Orchestra as Third
Horn and was appointed Principal Horn in 1977. He appeared as soloist with the
WASO and with the Perth Wind Quintet, which regularly toured Western Australia
and recorded for ABC Radio. Robert joined Sydney Symphony Orchestra as Associate Principal Horn, but left in 1979 for further study in Europe and the USA. He returned to Sydney in 1981 to take up the position of Principal Horn in the Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra and in 1986 returned to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as Principal Horn. Robert Johnson works frequently with the Australia Ensemble and the Sydney Soloists and, in addition, has taught at the Sydney Conservatorium and the Canberra School of Music.

Programme Notes

MOZART Quintet in A for clarinet, two violins, viola and ’cello, K 581
Allegro / Larghetto / Menuetto / Allegretto con variazione

Mozart’s clarinet quintet was composed in 1789 between the first two Prussian
quartets. Even though the clarinet predominates as the first among equals, this work is in no way a concerto. Alfred Einstein suggests that Mozart treated the clarinet as if “he were the first to discover its charm, its ‘soft, sweet breath’, its clear depth, its agility”. Mozart called the work “Stadler’s quintet”, having composed it for performance by his friend and fellow Freemason, Anton Stadler, for whom the later clarinet concerto was written as well.

The version of the quintet which is frequently heard is thought by experts to have
been an arrangement for clarinet and strings of the original work which featured the
basset clarinet, whose lowest note is one octave below middle C.

The development section of the first movement has a concertante air about it, but for all five instruments, and the cantabile character of the second theme is resumed in the larghetto movement, where it is developed more fully. The third movement contains two trios – most unusually for Mozart, except in serenades and divertimenti – the first in a minor key for string quartet alone, and the second a Ländler, in which the clarinet becomes the rustic instrument which it was (and has remained) in South Bavaria and other alpine regions. The finale consists of five wonderful variations on a march-theme, followed by a coda.

MAHLER Symphony no 4 in G (chamber version arranged by Erwin Stein)
Bedächtig. Nicht eilen / In gemächlicher Bewegung. Ohne Hast / Ruhevoll / Sehr behaglich (Das himmlische Leben)

Cautious. Unhurried / In more leisurely motion. Without haste / Quiet / Heaven is hung full of violins (Heavenly life)

The short-lived Society for Private Musical Performance, whose first concert took
place in December 1918, was set up by Arnold Schoenberg so that the members could hear new works in a suitable environment. In the three years of its existence, however, the Society presented well over one hundred concerts of works often arranged for two pianos or small ensembles. Mahler’s fourth symphony was one such work. It was a controversial work, not least because its ending – the child’s version of Heaven – was seen as an outright joke by many people.

The arrangement used this evening was made by Erwin Stein (1885-1958) and first
heard at Schoenberg’s society’s 79th concert in January 1921, with Stein conducting. Following that occasion, the score and parts of the arrangement were lost except for Stein’s annotated copy of the orchestral score, which was kept in the Schoenberg Institute in California. The Britten Estate commissioned Marion Thorpe, Erwin Stein’s daughter, to reconstruct the parts, using this score as a basis. The reconstruct was first performed in 1993, at a concert held to mark the 80th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s birth.

The fourth symphony’s first movement, marked Bedächtig. Nicht eilen (Cautious. Unhurried), opens with, as Carl Rosman writes, “the most genial of all Mahler’s themes, and continues through a dizzying procession of unusually fine melodies. These are kaleidoscopically rearranged (in Erwin Stein’s own words, “shuffled like a pack of cards”) throughout the course of the movement: there is almost no ‘filler’, and an extraordinary momentum.” Listen for the theme played on the flute (four flutes in the original) that re-appears in the third movement’s climax and frequently in the fourth movement.

The second movement, In gemächlicher Bewegung. Ohne Hast (In more leisurely
motion. Without haste), makes use of a striking instrumental gesture: a solo violin tuned up a whole-tone, used to imitate a folk fiddle. According to Carl Rosman, “Mahler had a specific fiddle in mind; that of ‘Freund Hain’, a kind of Pied Piper figure who leads souls dancing away after death”.

This leads aptly into the Ruhevoll (Quiet) of the third movement, in which the
consoling vision of death alternates with music conveying an anguished mood,
gradually building to the symphony’s real climax: the opening of the gates of Heaven in the fourth movement, marked Sehr behaglich (Very peaceful).

The song featured in this final movement, originally entitled Das himmlische Leben
(Heavenly life), was written in 1892, whereas Mahler’s first version (of many) of his
fourth symphony was not completed until 1900. The poem on which Das himmlische Leben is based is entitled Der Himmel hängt voll Geigen (Heaven is hung full of violins), one of Mahler’s Wunderhorn songs which are settings of poems from the Arnim and Bretano anthology (1805-1808).