Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Westminster United Church
17 May 2006

Simon Streatfeild, conductor
James Ehnes, violin

 

Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Liebeslieder Waltzes, op. 52
— arr. for string orchestra by Friedrich Hermann

Franz Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809)
Concerto no. 2 for violin and strings, in c

1. Allegro moderato
2. Adagio
3. Finale (Presto)

Mr. Ehnes

Intermission
Refreshments are available upstairs in the concert hall.

Michael Kemp TIPPETT (1905-1998)
Little Music for Strings

1. Prelude — Maestoso
2. Fugue — Allegro moderato
3. Air — Andante espressivo
4. Finale — Vivace

Frank BRIDGE (1879-1941)
Suite for strings

1. Prelude
2. Intermezzo
3. Nocturne
4. Finale

Concert co-sponsors / Mann Financial Assurance Limited and Standard Life
Season sponsor / The Great-West Life Assurance Company
Print media sponsor / Winnipeg Free Press
Radio media sponsors / CBC Radio Two 98.3, CBC Radio One 990 and Golden West Radio
Electronic media sponsor / Shaw Cable

 

Simon Streatfeild

Simon Streatfeild was born and educated in England where he studied viola at the Royal College of Music in London. Long before his career as a conductor began, Mr. Streatfeild was numbered among Britain’s finest violists, and in 1956 became principal viola of the London Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for over nine years. Whilst with the orchestra he made frequent solo appearances and recordings. During this period Mr Streatfeild helped to found the celebrated Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, formed in 1959 by several distinguished musicians including Sir Neville Marriner. Mr. Streatfeild initially went to Canada in 1965 as principal viola of the Vancouver Symphony; ultimately he was appointed Associate Conductor, remaining in this position until 1977. He was Music Director and Conductor of the Vancouver Bach Choir from 1969 to 1981.

After three years as Conductor and Music Director of the Regina Symphony, he was appointed in 1983 to a similar position with the Quebec Symphony, where he remained until 1991. From 1982 he was also the Music Director of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, a post he relinquished after eighteen years. Mr. Streatfeild spends much of his time guest-conducting in various parts of the world. In Canada he has directed every major orchestra, and his many appearances overseas have included concerts in Europe and the Orient. For ten years he held the post of Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo, where he was also Professor of Orchestral Conducting. In 1993 he conducted the first of several performances of the complete music for Peer Gynt in Oslo to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Edvard Grieg, and in October, 1996, he performed Messiaen’s final orchestral work, the immense Éclairs sur l’Au-delà, at the Ultima Festival of Contemporary Music in Oslo.

Simon Streatfeild continues to appear with various orchestras in Canada and abroad. His dedication to the development of young musicians has recently involved him in conducting concerts with the Camerata Orchestra of the University of Indiana at Bloomington, and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has fulfilled the role of Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada on many occasions.

Among Simon Streatfeild’s recorded performances are Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, ballet music entitled Hommage à Pavlova, a recording of excerpts from French opera and a miscellaneous programme of Honegger, Messiaen and Nigg, all with the Québec Symphony. His recording of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony and Shostakovitch’s Leningrad Symphony, with the orchestra and chorus of the Norwegian State Academy of Music, were enthusiastically received, and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra’s debut recording for the Swedish company BIS under his conductorship has made a profound impression in musical circles both in Canada and abroad. He also recorded with the MCO a CD of music by Benjamin Britten for CBC records — which was nominated for a Juno Award — and a collection of Gerald Finzi’s works.

In 1987 Simon Streatfeild was awarded the medal of the Canadian Music Council in recognition of his services to Canadian music and his support of Canadian artists.

James Ehnes

“Heifetz, Menuhin, Oistrakh, Stern and Milstein have waited for others to join them in the pantheon of violinists. From all evidence, James Ehnes has made it!” (Repertoire, Paris, 2004)

Brandon-born James Ehnes first played with the MCO in 1992. Already a superb musician and rising star at that time, he has rapidly established a pre-eminent reputation among concert violinists. He has performed with such renowned conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Ivan Fischer, Hans Graf, Paavo Järvi, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Christian Thielemann and Bobby McFerrin, appearing with orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, the US and Canada.

Recitals have taken Mr. Ehnes to major cities including London, Paris, Prague, Washington DC, Tokyo, Osaka, Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver. He has also appeared at numerous international festivals and, as a chamber musician, he often performs in trio with cellist Jan Vogler and pianist Louis Lortie, and has collaborated with such artists as Leif Ove Andsnes and Yo-Yo Ma.

After a busy summer highlighted by performances on tour with the New York Philharmonic and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, James Ehnes’s 2005/06 season will include performances with the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony and several other major symphony orchestras — and the MCO. In Europe, he appears with, amongst other orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic and the Berlin Symphony. He will also perform the Japanese premier of Oliver Knussen’s violin concerto with the NHK symphony orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

James Ehnes’s recording of Bruch’s Concerto for violin no. 2 and Scottish Fantasy with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Mario Bernardi (CBC Records) received the 2003 Juno Award for Best Classical album. The recording is a companion CD to Mr. Ehnes’s critically acclaimed Bruch Concertos nos. 1 and 3 with l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Charles Dutoit (CBC Records) which won the same award in 2002. In 2002 he was named ‘Young Artist of the Year’ at the Cannes Classical Awards for his Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by Bach (Analekta), which was also awarded a Juno Award in 2001.

James Ehnes plays the ‘Ex Marsick’ Stradivarius of 1715 and gratefully acknowledges its extended loan from the Fulton Collection.

Liebeslieder Waltzes, op. 52
Johannes Brahms

In the summer of 1869 Brahms was once more on holiday at Lichtenthal in Austria. Here he worked on several of his string quartets, especially his op. 51. He also completed the Liebeslieder (love song) Waltzes for vocal quartet and piano duet — settings in Viennese waltz-style of simple love songs by Georg Daumier. These spontaneously lyrical waltz-songs, a refined apotheosis of domestic music-making, could well have been the outward expression of his current daydreams about the beautiful Julie Schumann, daughter of Clara Schumann, whom he was seeing every day at her mother’s house. Brahms was undoubtedly attracted to the young Julie and paid her great attention. However, the alleged romance came to naught when Julie became engaged to an Italian nobleman whom she eventually married, much to Brahms’s disappointment.

There are altogether 18 items in the Liebeslieder Waltzes and they have been arranged for string orchestra by Friedrich Hermann. They were an immediate success and soon became one of Brahms’s most popular compositions in a lighter vein.

Concerto no. 2,for violin & strings in C
Joseph Haydn

At one time or another, no fewer than eleven violin concertos have been credited to Haydn, but only four are now thought to have been written by him, and one of these (a concerto in D) has been lost. We know of this piece through catalogues Haydn prepared of his own works. Of the two other concertos listed therein, the A major was also considered lost, until its rediscovery in the late 1940s: it was published in 1951 as the so-called ‘Melker’ concerto. The present work, in C major, represents the remaining entry in the catalogue.

Finally, a G major concerto from 1777 is also almost certainly Haydn’s work, its omission from the composer’s catalogue being a not untypical slip of memory.
The concertos in C and G are scored for strings and harpsichord continuo, whereas the one in A enjoys the addition of pairs of horns and oboes. All three appear to have been written for the Concertmaster Luigi Tomasini, and all date from 1761 and 1765. Although superficially classical in their aspirations, all three remain firmly rooted in the baroque style, not only in terms of their thematic outlines but also in their reliance on sequential patterning and the marked use of dotted rhythms.

Little Music for Strings
Michael Kemp Tippett

British composers in the 20th century have been repeatedly drawn to the rich sonorous medium of the string orchestra. Writing for strings has frequently produced some of their finest and most characteristic achievements.

Michael Tippett’s name had become established with his Concerto for double strings in 1940. His Little Music for Strings is an occasional work that is both short and uncomplicated, composed in 1946 as a relaxed piece after the rigours entailed in completing his First Symphony. The event was the tenth anniversary of the Jacques Orchestra, who premiered the work in 1946 at the Wigmore Hall in London.

The Prelude opens with a bold statement and proceeds with rather angular melodic lines and stark harmony. A Fugue follows; it is lyrical and euphonious, with dancing contrapuntal lines.

The Air provides a kind of link with Purcell, as it is formed over a ground bass heard eight times. Rhythmic athleticism marks the finale, with a momentum similar to the chorus ending of Act I of his next composition, the opera The Midsummer Marriage. Then the coda offers a brilliant flourish of energy, which tapers to a pianissimo and silence. The four sections are played without breaks.

Suite for strings
Frank Bridge

The repertory of English string music in the last hundred or so years, from Elgar through to Tippett, abounds in fine works but not many surpass Frank Bridge’s Suite written in 1909-10. Unaccountably, however, it has been under-performed until the last decade. It has an appeal that is immediate and is not technically too demanding.

Bridge himself was a highly accomplished string player and the Suite is clearly the work of someone who knew exactly what he was doing. It has a technical polish and a depth of feeling which make it one of his most satisfying works. Thematic transformations are deftly achieved and the haunting Nocturne exposes a world of deep intensity. Other sections of the Suite exhibit a charm and vein of wistfulness that were features of Bridge’s earlier music.

The English composer/critic Anthony Payne, in his study of Frank Bridge’s music, describes the Suite for strings as, “one of Bridge’s most elegantly composed works. It brings to an orchestral ensemble the command of purely musical thought which distinguishes his chamber music of the period.”

 

 

Anne Manson / Music Director and Conductor

MCO's 2010/11 season is sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Support has been received from Media sponsors The Winnipeg Free Press, CBC Radio One 990,
CBC Radio 2 98.3, Espace musique 89,9 and Golden West Radio. Heartstrings gala sponsor:
Mann Financial Assurance Limited. Sponsor of open dress rehearsals: Canadian Bridge Federation.
Arts Accessibility Program: Sun Life Financial.

© 2010 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra