Salomon Past Concerts

Tuesday 22nd May 2007 at St John's Smith Square

A concert of 3 works premièred in Paris

Conductor Nicholas Collon Violin Fiona McNaught

Lalo Overture Le Roi d'Ys

Prokofiev Violin Concerto No.1

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

'Last night's Salomon Orchestra concert was up to their usual high standard...Lalo's overture to Le Roi d'Ys was a wonderfully full blooded way to start the evening and the work's climax was such that you longed to find out how the opera continued.'

'Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique...climaxes were so shattering...the earlier movements were equally entrancing with some fine cor anglais playing in the 3rd movement.'

Concert Review from Robert Hugill's blogspot.

Why were 3 tubas on stage? See the tuba spot at the bottom of this page.

Édouard Lalo, born in Lille in 1823, went to the Paris Conservertoire at the age of 16 and studied with Habaneck (conductor of Berlioz premières such as Symphonie Fantastique). Although success was slow in coming to Lalo, his opera Le Roi d’Ys, premièred in 1888 at the Opéra Comique, met with immediate and considerable success and led to his becoming an officer in the Legion d’Honneur.

Ys is the legendry Breton town engulfed by the sea which was the inspiration for Debussy's La Cathédrale Engloutie. In Lalo's opera the flood gates are opened after Margared, one of the daughters of the king of Ys, betrays the town through jealousy. In remorse she throws herself into the rising waters which abate beneath a vision of Corentin, patron saint of Ys. The cathedral of Saint-Corentin in Quimper has a statue of the king of Ys looking towards the real location of the drowned city. The overture makes full use use of a Berlioz-size orchestra.

Prokofiev wrote his first violin concerto in Russia in 1917, the same year as the Classical Symphony, but it was first performed in Paris in 1923 to an audience including Szymanowski, Rubenstein, Picasso, Anna Pavlova and Benois. Nadia Boulanger and some of 'Les Six' were also there though primarily to hear Stravinsky's Octet. The work gained popularity after Joseph Szigeti, also in the première's audience, took up the work. Over the years Prokofiev's rival Stravinsky more and more openly demonstrated his liking for this concerto, which is lyrical as well as energetic. This was probably the initial model for Walton's cello concerto which appeared earlier in Salomon's 43rd season.

Fiona McNaught started to learn the violin aged 4, and studied at the Guildhall School of  Music and Drama in London. Since then Fiona has won many awards: from BBC Radio 3 (young artists),  The Tillett Trust, Craxton Memorial Trust, Tunnell Trust, and The Worshipful Company of Musicians which helped launch her career. Fiona has performed extensively as a recitalist with pianist Daniel Tong including several recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room (to much critical acclaim) and most of the major British festivals. Among their projects are performances of the complete Beethoven Sonatas (once in under 24 hours) and founding the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival. Fiona is also an active chamber musician; for two years she was a member of the Allegri string quartet. Fiona enjoys a highly varied life as soloist and chamber musician both in the UK and abroad. She plays on a 1787 Carolus Gagliano violin.

Fiona's parents (Alan and Alison) were both members of the Salomon Orchestra from its earliest days.

Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique was first performed on 5th December 1830 with Francois-Antoine Habeneck conducting and Liszt in the audience - 7 years to the day before the Grand Messe des morts was premièred by the same conductor (until Berlioz had to take over at the Tuba Mirum).

A truly romantic work, it is imagined to be the sensations, emotions and memories of a musician in despair who has taken a overdose of opium because of hopeless love.

The movements are: 1 Rêveries Passions; 2 Un bal; 3 Scène aux champs; 4 Marche au supplice; 5 Songe d'une nuit du Sabbat. The beginning is indefinable longing, followed by a memory of volcanic love. He again meets his love at a ball - in the marvellous waltz movement. The middle of the work - In the Country - starts in tranquility with 2 herders calling to each other: at the end of the movement the answering call is missing, instead we hear the rumbling of thunder in the distance. The 4th movement (March to the Scaffold in which the hero dreams he as killed his loved one and ends up being guillotined) reuses music from Berlioz' unstaged opera Franc Juges, a practice Berlioz used elsewhere (for example using music from his Et Resurrexit from the withdrawn Messe Solenelle for the lively Roman Carnival scene in Benvenuto Cellini). The work finishes wildly with the familiar Dies Irae combined with the dance of witches and monsters at the hero's funeral.

The Salomon Orchestra has played Symphonie Fantastique twice before: in 1970 conducted by Andrew Davis, and 1978 conducted by John Eliot Gardner.

Berlioz' grave in the Cimetiere Montmartre still tended into the 21st century

Tuba spot* - 3 tubas?

The modern symphony orchestra normally has one tuba, so why 3 on show at this concert? In fact there are 2 players needed for Symphonie Fantastique. Originally the scoring was for 2 ophicleides - a bass brass instrument with keys rather than valves - but when Berlioz heard the new valved tuba he stipulated these should be used instead as they had a more focused sound. The French tuba was higher pitched than the modern bass tuba, with multiple valves for lower notes. Fantastique was scored for tubas in C and B flat (the second a tone lower possibly to even out any weaker notes, and the same pitch as the modern tenor tuba or euphonium). The Salomon Fantastique used relatively high pitched bass tubas in F and E flat (a fifth below the original).

Mike warming up on E flat tuba for Symphonie Fantastique

In Russia a deeper tuba sound was called for. Prokofiev used the tuba marvellously, and for the solo in the final movement of the 1st violin concerto we used a German C tuba (centre in the photo above) - an octave below the first tuba envisaged for Symphonie Fantastique.

*This tuba spot brought to you by the Salomon Webmeister, who coincidentally plays the tuba.

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©Salomon Orchestra

2007

President Martyn Brabbins - Vice President Oliver Taylor - Leader Anna Ritchie - Registered Charity No. 256753