Queensland Symphony orchestra presents

6-9 NoVEMBER 2014 QPAC Concert Hall

Music and science merge in a world premiere orchestral event, exclusive to Brisbane

Journey through the Cosmos is supported by Arts Queensland through the Super Star Fund, a Queensland Government program that delivers super star performances exclusive to the state.

Presenter Professor Brian CoxConductor Johannes Fritzsch

Voyager Violin Concerto Dario Marianelli (born 1963)

World Premiere, QSO Commission

Violin Jack Liebeck

The Planets Suite Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

Mars, the Bringer of WarVenus, the Bringer of Peace

Mercury, the Winged MessengerJupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

Saturn, the Bringer of Old AgeUranus, the MagicianNeptune, the Mystic

Choir The Australian Voices Artistic Director Gordon Hamilton

Chorus Master Amber Evans

6 NoV 8PM*7 NoV 8PM

8 NoV 2.30PM8 NoV 8PM*

*Pre-concert talk at 7pm

CoNCERT

Journey through the Cosmos is supported by Arts Queensland through the Super Star Fund, a Queensland Government program

that delivers super star performances exclusive to the state.

EDUCATIoN CoNCERTFRI 7 NoV 11AM

Gustav Holst (1874-1934)The Planets Suite

Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus

LIVE SIMULCAST

Saturday 8 November to venues in Ayr, Bundaberg, Ipswich,

Rockhampton, Toowoomba and

Townsville. Delayed simulcast to Cairns,

Charters Towers and the Gold Coast.

More details at qso.com.au

WELCoME

When Holst began writing The Planets in 1914, he knew very little about the worlds beyond Earth. A century later, we have landed on Mars, Venus and Saturn’s moon Titan. The moons of Jupiter

and Saturn have been revealed to be active worlds with subsurface oceans and volcanoes – possible harbors for life beyond Earth. Even Neptune’s Ice Moon Triton, visited just once by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989, is an active world with geysers erupting though the frigid surface. The Solar System is more wonderful than Holst could have imagined, and hearing his music set against the beautiful reality revealed by a century of exploration brings new meaning to the work.

Professor Brian Cox oBE Particle Physicist

“The Sun intones, in ancient tourney with brother-spheres, a rival song.”

Johann Wolfgang Goethe opens his mammoth drama Faust with the ancient image of the sounding universe, taking on the

Pythagorean concept of the music of the spheres.

These concerts bring the music of the planets alive, with music written by Gustav Holst 100 years ago, accompanied by the brand-new violin concerto Voyager by Dario Marianelli, depicting the tiny man-made companion to the stars. On board reside some of mankind’s highest achievements, including a golden disc of music by Bach.

What an exciting event! I am thrilled to be part of it.

Maestro Johannes Fritzsch QSO Chief Conductor

Queensland is reaching for the stars as the nation’s arts leader with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s production of Journey through the Cosmos.

This is a fitting project to receive investment support from the Queensland Government’s Super Star Fund, which is all about giving Queensland audiences world-class arts productions as well as unique opportunities for our Queensland artists to learn from the best.

Super Star projects leave a lasting legacy for our entire community: they grow Queensland’s reputation as an arts destination and attract cultural tourism dollars into the state. They also enable our own artists to work beside the best there is, be it in music, theatre, drama or dance.

Journey through the Cosmos, featuring international super star physicist Professor Brian Cox OBE, promises to be an unforgettable experience. I hope you enjoy this super star musical moment for Queensland.

Ian Walker Minister for Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts

Einstein’s Universe links Einstein’s favourite instrument, the violin, with many of the concepts of modern physics. The performance begins with an introduction to Einstein’s life and involvement with music and how his ideas have shaped our concepts of space, time and the evolution of the Universe.

The lecture outlines Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and features some of his favourite music. Einstein was also a founding father of quantum physics and Brian discusses the discovery of radioactivity and how that led to the foundation of quantum mechanics. The lecture also examines how this process led to the development of the atomic bomb and Einstein’s part in it. Brian outlines some of our modern ideas that build on the structures of Einstein and define the so-called “Standard Model” of particle physics.

At several points in the lecture Jack uses his violin to illustrate by analogy some of the ideas discussed by Brian.

In the second half of the lecture, Brian discusses the new generation of “atom smashers”, the Large Hadron Collider. This machine, is the largest experiment ever built and is a technological marvel. The story of its construction and of the experiments that observe the particles colliding within it is a testimony to human ingenuity. Almost all the technology and the physics analysis are based directly on Einstein’s work. The lecture ends with a duet for two violins by Mozart in which lecturer and soloist join forces, paying tribute to Einstein’s lifelong love of chamber music.

Presenter Professor Brian Foster Violin Jack Liebeck

J.S. Bach Sarabande from Partita No.2 in D Minor J.S. Bach Gavotte en Rondeau from Partita No.3 in E Major Kreisler Scherzo-Caprice, Op.6 J.S. Bach Praeludio from Partita No.3 in E Major Mozart Rondo from Sonata in C. Major, K296, arranged for 2 violins

EINSTEIN’S UNIVERSEFRI 7 NoV 6PM

I often found myself looking for some ways to rationalise my last 20 years of composing for films in some neat rules, which would help me along when I start a new project. Perhaps I have found the golden rule, one that works every single time. It’s very simple and here it is: “there are no rules”.

Film composers deal in “ideas”: not sharps and flats and quarter notes and time signatures (well, those too). Ideas can come from anywhere: from a hidden aspect of the story, an unspoken side of a character’s character, the speed of editing, a sound buried in the characters’ world, the way a character walks; a sense that something unsaid needs a sound, an abstraction needs a voice, an invisible principle guiding the characters’ destiny needs a tangible presence.

There probably are many sensible reasons why music shouldn’t work in film. When everything we see on screen, from slamming doors to footsteps to passing trains, rain, helicopters, you name it, makes a sound which we’d miss if it wasn’t there, how are we able to suspend our disbelief when hearing an orchestra playing hidden in the wings, invisible, contending with the same auditory space occupied by those slamming doors and footsteps and passing trains and all the rest? It’s a sleight of hand: film is as much the heir of 19th century opera —the orchestra hidden away in the pit — as it is of stage magic. Out of sight, however, is not at all out of mind, when it comes down to the “moving” part of “motion” picture.

Somehow the inner identity of a character, or of an abstract idea, or an aspiration which hasn’t been spelled out, once they have found their embodiment in a tune or a sound, have the ability to become characters themselves. As characters, newly created by music and interacting with their visible counterparts on the screen, musical ideas have the ability to transform themselves through the course of the story, to gather “experience”, to grow on us, take roots, blossom, sometime explode, in the deepest part of our psyche, to move us to laughter and tears. How unlikely, and how fortunate...

COMPOSING FOR HOLLYWOODSUN 9 NoV 2.30PM

Presenters Dario Marianelli and Stephen Johnson

Program notes by Brian Foster (Einstein’s Universe), Dario Marianelli (Composing for Hollywood), Gordon Kerry (The Physics of Time).

Messiaen’s most famous work was first performed to an audience of Allied prisoners of war at Stalag VIII A, in Görlitz, Germany, in the depths of winter in 1941. Messiaen had begun by writing the Interlude movement for three of his fellow prisoners, notwithstanding the parlous state of their instruments, but when a battered upright piano (with a number of non-functioning keys) was found, he completed the work’s seven other movements. The eight movements reflect the Biblical seven days of creation.

In 1941, of course, he was also writing in the face of death, so much of the Quartet’s musical ‘imagery’ refers explicitly to that of the Apocalypse. Messiaen cites the following passage from the Book of Revelation as the work’s core inspiration:

I saw a mighty angel descend from heaven, clad in mist; and a rainbow was upon his head. His face was like the sun, his feet like pillars of fire. He set his right foot on the sea, his left foot on the earth, and standing thus on sea and earth he lifted his hand to heaven and swore by Him who liveth for ever and ever, saying: There shall be time no longer; but on the day of the trumpet of the seventh angel, the mystery of God shall be finished.

Presenter Professor Brian Cox Violin Jack Liebeck Clarinet Paul Dean Cello Li-Wei Qin Piano Zubin Kanga

Messiaen (1908-1992) Quartet for the End of Time (Quator pour la fin du Temps)

I Crystal LiturgyII Vocalise, for the Angel who Announces the End of TimeIII Abyss of the BirdsIV InterludeV Praise to the Eternity of Jesus VI Dance of Fury, for the Seven Trumpets VII Tangle of Rainbows for the Angel who Announces the End of TimeVIII Praise to the Immortality of Jesus

THE PHYSICS OF TIMESUN 9 NoV 7PM

CoNTINUE YoUR CoSMIC ADVENTURE

SATELLITE EVENTS

BooK NoW! qso.com.au

Voyager Violin ConcertoAt some point in the late Sixties, when more than a few kids like me — inspired by the Moon Landing — would want to become astronauts, some very bright people realized that the outer planets were about to line up nicely: something that wouldn’t happen for another 176 years. In a few amazing years, a Grand Tour of the Solar System was planned, 10,000 different possible paths were studied in detail, to choose the best ones onto which to launch two identical probes equipped with eyes and “ears”, to go find out what really was out there. Two of those paths were chosen — they became the trajectories of Voyager 1 and 2 — but I see them as one path, really, one of the power of imagination to go on a journey of discovery and excitement.

My concerto is conceived as one continuous movement, although it is internally divided in several sections. I find the scope of the original vision breathtaking in itself, and in the first part of the piece I was inspired to translate into music the excitement of those early days of preparation and the flurry of human endeavour, with different groups of people deciding how to equip the probes, then building them.

One of the most inspired and inspiring ideas that went into building the Voyagers was to equip them with a message from us, humans, to any intelligent species that might one day come across it, in some distant place and time. The story of the making of the Voyager Golden Record, an identical copy of which is attached to each probe, is in itself a journey. Of the many images, sounds and music contained in the record one is particularly powerful, for me. It is a recording of Bach’s Gavotte en Rondeau, from the 3rd Partita for violin solo. I chose this piece to represent the human spirit, travelling through space in wonder, reminding us that it is us, travelling. I took Bach’s Gavotte as a theme for a number of variations, now and again interrupting the flow of the journey with more introspective or personal moments.

“I tried to give a sound, a personal musical echo, to some of the things we discovered for the first time...” The list of encounters made by the Voyagers on their tour is way too long to be compressed in one piece, and I chose some of the moments I found personally most striking, turning them into musical events in the violin’s own journey through the concerto. I tried to give a sound, a personal musical echo, to some of the things we discovered for the first time: as the Voyagers journeyed through, we found that Jupiter has massive centuries-old lightning storms, that its moon Europa has warm liquid oceans under its icy crust, where life might exist; we saw the beautiful intricacy of Saturn rings.

While Voyager 2 continues the journey towards Uranus and Neptune, Voyager 1 was the first to leave the solar system: the music follows it slinging above Saturn’s moon Titan, and shooting off at an angle, above the ecliptic. From that vantage point, high above the plane on which all planets circle the Sun, the camera on board Voyager 1 took the most breathtaking family portrait of the Solar System — including Earth, now just “a pale blue dot” in the immortal words of Carl Sagan, some four billion miles away.

“...I see them as one path, really, one of the power of imagination to go on a journey of discovery and excitement.”The concerto ends with two more short episodes: first the approach and crossing of the termination shock, beyond which the solar wind slows down suddenly, and the true journey towards the stars begins: then the music accompanies the Voyagers to the edge of the Solar System, and to the beginning of the Interstellar Mission. The two Voyagers will stop transmitting back to Earth in a few years, but will carry us with them to the stars: they carry our aspiration to reach out, they bring our music: in so many important ways they are us.

The Planets SuiteThe Planets must be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century. Russell Crowe and his cohorts in Gladiator seemed that bit more craggily determined thanks to a score that reminded us of Mars. At the opening of Uranus, you could be forgiven for expecting Darth Vader to rip off his headgear and reveal the clown beneath. At the close of Neptune, Holst invents the fade-out. The iridescent opening of Jupiter foreshadows the work of John Adams, and for many years Anglicans have sung its big central tune as the patriotic hymn, ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’. An Australian newspaper columnist once suggested that the same tune should be our new national anthem, as it kind of fits the words of Dorothea Mackellar’s My Country.

“...this was very radical music for its time.”As a repository of orchestral special effects and memorable tunes, The Planets has certainly earned its pop status, but we need to make an effort to hear the work with fresh ears – and to remind ourselves that this was very radical music for its time. Moreover, we should note that it is atypical of its composer. An artist of great integrity, Holst refused to imitate the piece to ensure his own status, so that we sadly hear little of his other work, even though much of it is of the same quality as The Planets.

Planned in 1913 and composed between 1914 and 1917, the seven movements of The Planets are less about depicting large balls of gas and rock than about each planet’s astrological significance. Given the outbreak of the First World War at the time, it is hard not to see Mars as grimly prophetic of the carnage of the first hi-tech war. Where a composer like Mahler uses military music for an ambiguously thrilling effect, Holst takes pains to make his music simply inhuman: the opening three note theme traces the tritone, an unstable interval often called ‘the devil in music’. The relentlessly repeated rhythm, or ostinato, is no simple march, having five beats to a bar. The harmony is bitonal, that is, it superimposes chords of two different keys to give it its sense of unrelieved dissonance, especially at the shattering climax.

Venus, the Bringer of Peace of course offers a complete contrast: the orchestration is sweet and languorous and the harmony, while still frequently bitonal, uses chords which avoid direct clashes of adjacent notes, creating subtle voluptuousness. Framed by slow sections, the piece moves through a slightly faster section and a contrasting animato. Mercury on the other hand is rather like a symphonic scherzo: short, fast and orchestrated with the utmost delicacy.

At the heart of the suite, Jupiter is an orchestral tour de force. The glittering fast music with which it opens is busy but crystal clear; its theme, like that of Mars, is based on a three-note motive, but here it is completely and solidly diatonic. The Planets was first planned during a holiday in Spain, so we shouldn’t be surprised to hear certain Iberian sounds and rhythms in the dance music which follows. This is interrupted by a fanfare of repeated chords, which ushers in the quiet statement of the celebrated maestoso theme. The quintessentially British tune may seem out of place in a celebration of the Bringer of Jollity – it is hardly thigh-slappingly funny. Curiously, too, it doesn’t reach a full close: what should be the second-last chord sets off an echo of the shimmering sounds of the opening. The tune does, however, stride through tumultuous last pages of the movement.

If Jupiter’s big tune was a reminder that joy is fleeting, Saturn makes this very clear in its portentous, death-ward tread and ever more disturbing brass chords. Uranus, however, casts a spell (after ripping off the Darth Vader mask) in music as innocent as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Tasking his cue from Debussy’s Sirènes, Holst imbues Neptune with the mystery of wordless, offstage female voices. With its translucent scoring and the hypnotic use of repeated chord patterns, the work ends as perhaps no other had before, fading imperceptibly into night and silence.

Program notes by Dario Marianelli (Voyager Violin

Concerto), Gordon Kerry (The Planets Suite).

6 NoV 8PM*7 NoV 8PM

8 NoV 2.30PM8 NoV 8PM*

*Pre-concert talk at 7pm

CoNCERT

PRoGRAM NoTES

BIoGRAPHIESProfessor Brian Cox oBE Brian Edward Cox OBE is an English physicist and former musician, professor, a Royal Society university research fellow, PPARC advanced fellow

in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. Cox is best known to the public as the presenter of a number of science programs for the BBC, boosting the popularity of subjects such as astronomy and physics. He has been described as the natural successor for BBC’s scientific programming by both David Attenborough and the late Patrick Moore. He also had some fame in the 1990s as the keyboard player for the pop band D:Ream.

Brian Foster UK born Brian Foster has a strong commitment to the popularisation of physics, including the Superstrings and Einstein’s Universe lectures,

which he presents with the virtuoso violinist Jack Liebeck and the Accelerate! lecture, intended for younger children. He led the particle physics group at Bristol University from 1992-2003, subsequently becoming Professor of Experimental Physics at Oxford University and a Fellow of Balliol College, positions that he still holds. He was head of Particle Physics in Oxford from 2004-2011. He is also Humboldt Professor at the University of Hamburg & DESY and currently European Director of the Linear Collider Consortium.

Stephen Johnson Stephen Johnson is a renowned music journalist. He has broadcast frequently for BBC Radio 3, 4 and World Service, with major projects including

14 programs about Bruckner, and has written regularly for The Independent, The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone. During 1998-99, he was Chief Music Critic for The Scotsman. From 2003-5 he lectured at Exeter University. He is also the author of Bruckner Remembered (Faber 1998) and books on Mahler and Wagner (Naxos 2006 & 2007). In 2003, Johnson was voted Amazon.com Classical Music Writer of the Year and in 2009 his documentary Vaughan Williams: Valiant for Truth won a Sony Gold Award.

Li-Wei QinLi-Wei Qin has appeared all over the world as a soloist and as a chamber musician. He has enjoyed successful artistic collaborations with

leading orchestras including the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, London Philharmonic, Prague Symphony, BBC Symphony and Sydney Symphony. Li-Wei is a regular guest at the Wigmore Hall, the BBC Proms and the City of London, Jerusalem, Rheingau and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Music Festivals. Recent appearances include with the Adelaide, Melbourne and Singapore Symphony Orchestras, as well as guest artist for the Lincoln Centre Chamber Music Society (NY) and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. Li-Wei has also recently recorded the Elgar Cello Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Paul Dean Brisbane born and bred clarinettist Paul Dean, has made a name for himself as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and artistic director.

Paul is the founder and Artistic Laureate of the chamber ensemble Southern Cross Soloists, the Bangalow Music Festival, SunWater and the Stanwell Winter Music School and has commissioned and premiered over 100 works, including his brother Brett’s clarinet concerto Ariel’s Music and Andrew Schultz’s Clarinet Quintet. Between 1987 and 2000, he was Principal Clarinet with the QSO. A passionate supporter of youth and regional music education, Paul’s extensive work throughout Australia has left a lasting imprint on many budding musicians.

Jack Liebeck London violinist Jack Liebeck made his concerto debut aged fifteen. Now established as one of the most compelling young violinists he has performed with

many of the world’s leading orchestras and has appeared at major festivals including the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. Since a hugely successful recording debut on the Quartz label, Jack has recorded two critically acclaimed discs for Sony Classical (Dvorák, awarded a 2010 Classical BRIT Award). Jack is featured as soloist on the soundtrack of Jane Eyre (2011), written by Oscar winning composer Dario Marianelli. He is Artistic Director of Oxford May Music Festival, a festival of music, science and the arts.

Dario Marianelli In 1997, after winning the Benjamin Britten international composition prize, Dario Marianelli graduated in Film Music from the National

Film and Television School in London. Marianelli has written music for the concert hall, contemporary ballet, theatre, film and television; he has worked with BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Shakespeare Company and several chamber groups. Marianelli’s iconic film scores have provided the soundtrack to celebrated British movies including Atonement, for which he won an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and Pride and Prejudice, which was Oscar-nominated. His work on Anna Karenina gained him Oscar, and Golden Globe nominations and an Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Score.

Johannes Fritzsch German born Johannes Fritzsch received his first musical tuition in piano and organ from his father. In 1982 Fritzsch was appointed 2nd

Kapellmeister (Conductor) at the Volkstheater in Rostock. In 1987 he accepted the position of Kapellmeister with the Staatsoper Dresden, Semperoper, where he conducted more than 350 opera and ballet performances within five years. Fritzsch has directed many orchestras internationally and in Australia. His opera company work includes Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper Berlin, Opera Bastille Paris, the Royal Opera Stockholm and Opera Australia. Fritzsch recently held the position of Chief Conductor of the Grazer Oper and Grazer Philharmonisches Orchester, Austria; he is currently Chief Conductor of the QSO.

The Australian Voices It is with a distinctive, fresh sound and high artistic energy that The Australian Voices (TAV) perform and

record the music of Australian composers. Since 1993, the ensemble has championed an astonishing flourish of new Australian vocal music, having commissioned hundreds of new works. Gordon Hamilton has been Artistic Director since 2009 and is considered one of Australia’s most exciting young conductors and composers. The ensemble tours internationally every year and has been awarded some of the highest honours in choral music. Recently, TAV has helped create new works specifically intended for “performance” on YouTube. In 2014, TAV collaborated with QSO on Hamilton’s work Ghosts in the Orchestra.

Queensland Symphony orchestra The Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO) is Queensland’s largest

performing arts company and the State’s only professional symphony orchestra. Since 1947, the QSO has been at the centre of music-making in Queensland, presenting over 150 live performances each year. The company operates from its base at South Bank, Brisbane, and welcomes distinguished international and Australian artists to Queensland each year. The Orchestra’s popular annual concert season features great orchestral works and contemporary compositions. The QSO is also flexing its entrepreneurial muscle in the ‘big arena’ world of the blockbuster with popular musical experiences such as the 2014 Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular and Star Trek Live in Concert coming in February 2015.

Zubin KangaLondon-based Australian pianist, Zubin Kanga has performed at festivals across Europe and Australia including the BBC Proms,

Aldeburgh Festival, London 2012, Borealis Festival, Metropolis New Music Festival, BIFEM and ISCM World New Music Days, as well as appearing as soloist with the London Sinfonietta and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He collaborates with many of the world’s leading composers and is a member of Ensemble Offspring, one of Australia’s leading contemporary music ensembles. Zubin has won the Art Music Award for Performance of the Year (NSW), the Michael Kieran Harvey Scholarship and the ABC Limelight Award for Best Newcomer, and holds a PhD from the Royal Academy of Music, London.

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QUEENSLAND SYMPHoNY oRCHESTRA PRESENTS

Don’t miss this intergalactic concert event: J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek™ in high definition on the big screen with Academy Award®-winning composer

Michael Giacchino’s score performed live by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Royal International Convention Centre, Brisbane

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Journey through the Cosmos is supported by Arts Queensland through the Super Star Fund, a Queensland Government program that delivers super star performances exclusive to the state.

All programs, repertoire and artists correct at time of printing and subject to change without notice. Full terms and conditions available at qso.com.au.

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