Program Book / October 10, 2022 / CAMA Presents the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Mirga Gražinytė‑Tyla and Sheku Kanneh‑Mason
The Board of Directors of Community Arts Music Association dedicate this concert to the memory of Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II and of Her Majesty's 70 years of service to the people of the United Kingdom, the Realms, and the Commonwealth. MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2022, 7:30PM City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Mirga Gražinytė‑Tyla, Music Director Sheku Kanneh‑Mason, cello The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is the flagship of musical life in Birmingham—and one of the world’s great orchestras. The tradition began with their very first concert back in 1920—conducted by Sir Edward Elgar. The CBSO became internationally famous when conductor Simon Rattle took the helm in 1980. In 2016, the CBSO welcomed the appointment of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, a native of Vilnius, Lithuania, as its Music Director, following her time with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as a Dudamel Fellow, Assistant Conductor, and Associate Conductor. British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason became a household name in 2018 after performing at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle, watched by nearly two billion people globally. Sheku’s album Elgar on the Decca Classical label made him the first cellist in history to reach the UK Top 10. PROGRAM: RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis SIR EDWARD ELGAR: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op.85 MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG: “Jewish Rhapsody,” from Festive Scenes, Op.36 CLAUDE DEBUSSY: La Mer PRE-CONCERT LECTURE: Jennifer Kloetzel, Professor, Cello and Head of Strings, UCSB Department of Music Sullivan Goss Art Gallery, 11 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara Doors open 5:45PM ⫽ Lecture 6:00–6:40PM Presented by the CAMA Women’s Board •
The Board of Directors of Community Arts Music Association dedicate this concert to the memory of
Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II and of Her Majesty's 70 years of service to the people of the
United Kingdom, the Realms, and the Commonwealth.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2022, 7:30PM
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Mirga Gražinytė‑Tyla, Music Director
Sheku Kanneh‑Mason, cello
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is the flagship of musical life in Birmingham—and one of the world’s great orchestras. The tradition began with their very first concert back in 1920—conducted by Sir Edward Elgar. The CBSO became internationally famous when conductor Simon Rattle took the helm in 1980. In 2016, the CBSO welcomed the appointment of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, a native of Vilnius, Lithuania, as its Music Director, following her time with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as a Dudamel Fellow, Assistant Conductor, and Associate Conductor. British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason became a household name in 2018 after performing at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle, watched by nearly two billion people globally. Sheku’s album Elgar on the Decca Classical label made him the first cellist in history to reach the UK Top 10.
PROGRAM:
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
SIR EDWARD ELGAR: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op.85
MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG: “Jewish Rhapsody,” from Festive Scenes, Op.36
CLAUDE DEBUSSY: La Mer
PRE-CONCERT LECTURE:
Jennifer Kloetzel, Professor, Cello and Head of Strings, UCSB Department of Music
Sullivan Goss Art Gallery, 11 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara
Doors open 5:45PM ⫽ Lecture 6:00–6:40PM
Presented by the CAMA Women’s Board
•
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Sir Edward Elgar
taking shape. By June 5, it was concrete
enough that Elgar had the cellist Felix Salmond
try out some of the solo passages.
Salmond played the premiere on October
27 with the London Symphony. It was
a train wreck. The Concerto was the only
work on the program that Elgar conducted,
and the conductor of the other items
on the program, Albert Coates, hogged
the rehearsal time. Reviewing the concert,
the eminent critic Ernest Newman wrote,
“There have been rumours about during the
week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever
the explanation, the sad fact remains that
never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra
made so lamentable an exhibition
of itself.” He went on to say, “The work itself
is lovely stuff, very simple – that pregnant
simplicity that has come upon Elgar's
music in the last couple of years – but with
a profound wisdom and beauty underlying
its simplicity.”
The concerto’s unforgettable moments
come early: the outcry of the solo cello at
the very beginning, and the rolling theme
that daughter Clarice called, with more
insight than literal accuracy, the opening
theme (nearly everyone has followed suit
ever since). At once noble and deeply anguished,
it was the perfect theme for the
post-war world, and still speaks to the present
one. It makes short reappearances in
the second and fourth movements. During
his last illness in 1933, Elgar hummed it
to a friend and said, “If ever after I'm dead
you hear someone whistling this tune on
the Malvern Hills, don't be alarmed. It's
only me.”
Elgar laid the concerto out like a symphony,
with a scherzo second movement
and a slow third movement, and an energetic
finale in which themes from the slow
movement recur, along with a last reference
to the opening solo, and that main theme
one more time, as if Elgar is whistling in the
Malvern Hills.
The Concerto now holds an exalted
position in the repertoire, but such was not
the case for a generation or two after its
premiere. In the 1960’s recordings by the
dynamic young British cellist Jacqueline
DuPre made the concerto both a staple and
CAMA AT THE GRANADA THEATRE • CITY OF BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
17
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