Proms at ... Salford Quays

Wednesday 2 September, 7.30pm–c9.00pm

Joseph Haydn
Philemon und Baucis – overture 6’

Benjamin Britten
Nocturne 24’

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Hamlet (incidental music) – Entr’acte (Act 4) 7’

Serenade for strings 29’

Allan Clayton tenor
麻豆社 Philharmonic
John Storgårds conductor

Conductor Omer Meir Wellber is no longer able to appear with the 麻豆社 Philharmonic on Wednesday 2 September due to illness. Conductor John Storgårds will now appear with the 麻豆社 Philharmonic and tenor Allan Clayton at Salford Quays in Salford.

This concert is broadcast live by 麻豆社 Radio 3 and live-streamed on 麻豆社 iPlayer. You can listen to any of the 2020 Proms concerts on 麻豆社 Sounds or watch on 麻豆社 iPlayer until Monday 12 October.

Welcome to tonight’s Prom

John Storgårds, the 麻豆社 Philharmonic’s Chief Guest Conductor, conducts tonight’s Prom, broadcast live from the orchestra’s Salford home. The curtain rises with Haydn’s overture to Philemon und Baucis, a puppet play written in 1773 for the Esterházy court where Haydn was employed.

Then we enter a realm of night-time and dreams in Britten’s Nocturne – one of the treasured song-cycles the composer wrote for his partner, the tenor Peter Pears, featuring settings of words by some of Britain’s greatest poets, from Shakespeare to Tennyson. The soloist tonight is leading British tenor and former 麻豆社 Radio 3 New Generation Artist Allan Clayton.

Two works for strings by Tchaikovsky complete the programme: the dramatic and rarely heard Entr’acte from his incidental music to Hamlet, introducing Act 4; and by contrast the often charming, easy-going Serenade, one of the cornerstones of the string-orchestra repertoire.

Welcome to tonight’s Prom

Joseph Haydn ^{_{(1732–1809)}}

Philemon und Baucis ^{₍₁₇₇₃₎} – overture

First performance at the Proms

Allegro con espressione – Andante poco allegro

‘If I want to hear a good opera, I go to Eszterháza,’ the empress Maria Theresa is supposed to have said following a performance there of Haydn’s L’infedeltà delusa (‘Deceit outwitted’). The Habsburg monarch and her retinue of sundry archdukes and duchesses paid their sole visit to the magnificent palace of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy in September 1773, in part out of curiosity to see this ‘Hungarian Versailles’, 90km south-east of Vienna, which had cost the prince an astronomical 13 million gulden upon its completion in 1765.

L’infedeltà delusa was not the only entertainment laid on for the imperial party. The following evening, Nikolaus treated them to the inaugural offering of his marionette theatre, designed like a grotto, with alcoves, water-features and chandeliers reflected in sparkling plasterwork. First came Die Götterrath (‘The Council of the Gods’), a short allegorical pageant glorifying the kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg empire. Then followed Philemon und Baucis, oder Jupiters Reise auf die Erde (‘Philemon and Baucis, or Jupiter’s Journey to Earth’). The story is from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and concerns the impoverished titular couple who offer hospitality to two visitors, not realising they are the gods Jupiter and Mercury. In reward for their kindness, they are blessed with long lives and, upon their deaths, are turned into trees.

The first number of this single-act work is a menacing storm chorus, which is dramatically prefigured by the foreboding D minor overture, dominated by agitated strings and louring horns, but finally giving way to a sunnier, gentler Andante as the tempest subsides.

^{Programme note © David Threasher}
^{David Threasher writes on 18th- and 19th-century music for ‘Gramophone’, ‘The Strad’ and the 麻豆社 Proms, and is currently undertaking doctoral research on Viennese sacred music at the Royal College of Music.}

Benjamin Britten ^_(1913–76)

Nocturne, Op. 60
^{₍₁₉₅₈₎}

1 On a poet’s lips I slept –
2 Below the thunders of the upper deep –
3 Encinctured with a twine of leaves –
4 Midnight’s bell goes ting, ting, ting –
5 But that night when on my bed I lay –
6 She sleeps on soft, last breaths –
7 What is more gentle than a wind in summer? –
8 When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see

Allan Clayton tenor

Benjamin Britten’s magical, haunting Nocturne forms a sort of sequel to the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Op. 31, of 15 years earlier. Both works were composed for the unique voice of the tenor Peter Pears, Britten’s partner, muse and leading interpreter, but while the Serenade featured a prominent part for solo horn, the Nocturne’s eight poems each bring to the fore a different combination of instruments.

Both works also, as their titles suggest, set poetry of the night, but the Nocturne is haunted to a far greater degree by the spectre of death. Sleep is invoked in the first setting, ‘On a poet’s lips I slept’ from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound. Its premonitory string accompaniment, which suffuses the entire work, then yields to an arching bassoon solo characterising Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Kraken’, while a harp attends the ‘beauteous boy’ (perhaps recalling the Pears-dedicated ‘Being Beauteous’ from Britten’s first cycle, Les illuminations) of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Encinctured with a twine of leaves’ (The Wanderings of Cain). A horn evokes Thomas Middleton’s ‘Midnight’s Bell’ (Blurt, master Constable); timpani a passage from William Wordsworth’s The Prelude pondering the ‘September massacres’ of the French Revolution; while Wilfred Owen’s ‘The Kind Ghosts’ sing through the medium of a cor anglais.

The kraken, the monstrous creature of Lord Tennyson’s poem, set by Britten in his *Nocturne* (illustration by John Gibson for *Monsters of the Sea, Legendary and Authentic*, 1890) *(Granger/Bridgeman Images)*
The kraken, the sea creature that surfaces in Britten's *Nocturne* (illustration by John Gibson for *Monsters of the Sea, Legendary and Authentic*, 1890 *(Granger/Bridgeman Images)*

Dawn is glimpsed in John Keats’s ‘Sleep and Poetry’ (‘What is more gentle than a wind in summer?’), the airiest setting of the cycle, with flute and clarinet, which leads into William Shakespeare’s visionary Sonnet No. 43. This final number, for the combined instrumental forces, pays deliberate homage to Mahler, to whose widow Alma, then approaching 80, the Nocturne was dedicated. Nevertheless, its closing lines may equally be seen as Britten's personal tribute to Pears: ‘All days are nights to see till I see thee, / And night’s bright days when dreams do show thee me.’

^{Programme note © David Threasher}

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ^_(1840–93)

Hamlet (incidental music), Op. 67a ^{₍₁₈₉₁₎} – Entr’acte (Act 4)

Tchaikovsky had a long association with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, considering it a suitable subject for a three-part work as early as 1876. That never came to fruition (‘It’s devilishly difficult,’ he wrote to his brother Modest) but at last, in 1888, came the premiere of a ‘fantasy-overture’ on the subject. This was composed for a planned performance of the play by a French troupe in St Petersburg led by the actor Lucien Guitry, although that too never reached the stage, and the overture was instead premiered as a concert work.

Guitry’s troupe finally performed Hamlet in 1891, as the actor’s farewell to the Russian stage. He went back to Tchaikovsky and persuaded him to provide some incidental music, although the composer felt he had said his final word on the subject with the overture: ‘It is such unpleasant work,’ he told Modest. Nevertheless, he swiftly compiled a suite of 16 pieces, some repurposed from earlier music, which he added to a slimmed-down version of the overture.

The Act 4 Entr’acte was adapted from an Elegy composed in 1884 in memory of another actor, Ivan Samarin. In its scoring for strings alone, its chromatic richness and its mournful character – songful outer sections with a brief central outburst of rawer emotion – it forms a touching complement to the larger Serenade, which follows it in tonight’s programme.

^{Programme note © David Threasher}

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ^_(1840–93)

Serenade for strings, Op. 48
^{₍₁₈₈₀₎}

1 Pezzo in forma di sonatina: Andante non troppo – Allegro moderato – Andante non troppo (tempo del comincio)
2 Waltz: Moderato, tempo di valse
3 Elegy: Larghetto elegiaco – Poco più animato – Tempo 1
4 Finale (Tema russo): Andante – Allegro con spirito – Molto meno mosso – Tempo 1

Although Tchaikovsky had his fair share of personal crises – among them the social disgrace arising from his homosexuality and his attempt to compensate by forcing himself into a marriage with a former pupil – these have no bearing on the Serenade. By 1880, when he composed the work, Tchaikovsky was blissfully separated from his wife Antonina, had divested himself of teaching duties at the Moscow Conservatory (which limited his time to compose) and had used his new-gained freedom to travel in Europe.

‘I composed [it] from inner conviction,’ Tchaikovsky wrote of the Serenade. ‘It’s a heartfelt piece and so, I dare to think, is not lacking in real qualities.’ There’s no element of autobiography or confession, no programmatic tale to tell or question to be answered – just a sheer delight in music for its own sake.

The first movement opens with a grand introduction that explores different registers within the range of stringed instruments. The substance of the main movement proper is a melodious waltz with a more playful second theme led by first violins and violas. The music of the introduction returns to close the movement.

Marked dolce e molto grazioso (‘sweetly and very gracefully’), the second-movement Waltz was encored at the Serenade’s first public performance, in St Petersburg on 30 October 1881, the crowd perhaps responding to its graceful elegance, decorative embellishments and teasing pauses.

The third movement begins with an austere introduction and continues to showcase Tchaikovsky’s unrivalled gift for melody. The poignancy of this movement can’t have escaped Balanchine when he decided to choreograph the Serenade in the 1930s.

Two folk songs are heard in the finale. The first, ‘On the Green Meadow’, features wistfully in the introduction; the other, ‘Under the Green Apple Tree’, as the jaunty first theme of the main movement. Tchaikovsky weaves the songs together by playing on their melodic similarities, before drawing in a sweeping return of the first movement’s introduction. This in turn dissolves into a spirited galop to the end.

^{Programme note © Edward Bhesania}^{Edward Bhesania is Editorial Manger, 麻豆社 Proms. He contributes to ‘The Stage’ and ‘The Strad’ and has written for ‘The Observer’, ‘麻豆社 Music Magazine’, ‘International Piano’ and ‘Country Life’, as well as for the London Symphony Orchestra, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Royal College of Music.}

Biographies

John Storgårds conductor

John Storgårds *(Marco Borggreve)*
John Storgårds *(Marco Borggreve)*

Born in Helsinki, John Storgårds studied violin with Chaim Taub and later became Concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen. He subsequently studied conducting with Jorma Panula and Eri Klas and became Artistic Director of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, a post he held for 25 years.

He is currently Chief Guest Conductor of the 麻豆社 Philharmonic and Principal Guest Conductor of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa. He also appears regularly with the Bamberg, Chicago, Melbourne, NHK (Tokyo) and Sydney Symphony orchestras, London and New York Philharmonic orchestras, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and all the major Nordic orchestras, including the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he was Chief Conductor from 2008 to 2015.

Recent highlights include debuts with the Munich and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and Dresden Staatskapelle; a subscription debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; and returns to the Berlin Radio and Vienna Radio Symphony orchestras.

His recordings include works by Kalevi Aho, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Korngold, Per Nørgård, Rautavaara and Schumann and (the Rautavaara disc receiving a GRAMMY nomination and a Gramophone Award), as well as rarities by Vagn Holmboe and Pēteris Vasks in which he features as a soloist. With the 麻豆社 Philharmonic he has recorded cycles of symphonies by Sibelius and Nielsen, as well as works by the American avant-garde composer George Antheil. He received the Finnish State Prize for Music in 2002 and the Pro Finlandia Prize in 2012.

Allan Clayton tenor

Allan Clayton *(Sim Canetty-Clarke)*
Allan Clayton *(Sim Canetty-Clarke)*

Allan Clayton studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, and the Royal Academy of Music. He was a 麻豆社 Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2007 to 2009. He won praise singing the title-role in the world premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet at Glyndebourne in June 2017 and reprised the role at the Adelaide Festival the following year. He returned to Glyndebourne last year to make his role debut in the title-role in Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust.

Recent performances at the 麻豆社 Proms include the title-role in Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex (under Sakari Oramo), the world premiere of Gerald Barry’s Canada, Britten’s War Requiem and, last year, the title-role in Handel’s Jephtha and Berlioz’s The Childhood of Christ.

Other concert appearances include Britten’s Spring Symphony and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the London Symphony Orchestra, under Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Mark Elder respectively. Highlights of the 19–20 season include his debut with La Scala, Milan, in The Childhood of Christ under Sir John Eliot Gardiner; Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings under Esa-Pekka Salonen; the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s song-cycle Refugee in Bucharest and at the Barbican; and performances as part of the Wigmore Hall’s Britten Series. Future plans include the title-role in Britten’s Peter Grimes for the Teatro Real, Madrid, and The Dream of Gerontius with the Berlin Philharmonic under under Rattle.

Among his accolades are a WhatsOnStage Opera Poll Award and the 2018 Royal Philharmonic Society Singer Award.

麻豆社 Philharmonic

The 麻豆社 Philharmonic has its home in Salford and enjoys worldwide recognition. The orchestra’s adventurous approach to programming places new and neglected music in the context of the established classical canon and the orchestra usually performs more than 100 concerts each year for broadcast on 麻豆社 Radio 3.

The orchestra has collaborated with Clean Bandit, The 1975, Jarvis Cocker, Will Young, The Courteeners, Rag’n’Bone Man, Elbow and The xx. The 麻豆社 Philharmonic’s work in partnerships across 麻豆社 networks includes performing at 2017’s 麻豆社 Sports Personality of the Year awards and recording music for the title sequence of the 2017 麻豆社 Proms TV coverage. The orchestra has made more than 250 commercial recordings, selling close to one million albums.

Performing across the North of England and beyond, the 麻豆社 Philharmonic is resident at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and appears annually at the 麻豆社 Proms. It also tours Europe and Asia, has performed in the USA and China, and was touring Japan during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The 麻豆社 Philharmonic is bringing new technology into the concert hall through its 麻豆社 Notes web app, beaming free digital programme notes to smartphones during concerts in an attempt to reimagine the orchestral experience.

First Violins
Yuri Torchinsky Leader
Midori Sugiyama Assistant Leader
Alison Fletcher Principal
Kevin Flynn Sub-Principal
Martin Clark
Clare Dixon
Second Violins
Lisa Obert Principal
Simon Gilks
Lily Whitehurst
Rebecca Mathews
Christina Knox
Claire Sledd
Violas
Steven Burnard Principal
Bernadette Anguige Sub-Principal
Ruth Montgomery
Fiona Dunkley
Cellos
Peter Dixon Principal
Steven Callow Sub-Principal
Melissa Edwards
Marina Vidal Valle
Double Basses
Mark O’Leary Guest Principal
Alice Durrant Sub-Principal
Flute
Alex Jakeman Principal
Oboes
Jennifer Galloway Principal
Kenny Sturgeon
Cor Anglais
Gillian Callow
Clarinet
John Bradbury Principal
Bassoons
Roberto Giaccaglia Principal
Bill Anderson
Horns
Ben Hulme Principal
Phillip Stoker
Timpani
Paul Turner Principal
Harp
Clifford Lantaff
Percussion
Paul Patrick Principal

The list of players was correct at the time of publication

麻豆社

Accessibility links