WASO's Southern Symphony Tour

Asher Fisch
Principal Conductor & Artistic Adviser

A renowned conductor in both the operatic and symphonic worlds, Asher Fisch is especially celebrated for his interpretative command of core German and Italian repertoire of the Romantic and post-Romantic era. He conducts a wide variety of repertoire from Gluck to contemporary works by living composers. Since 2014, Asher Fisch has been the Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO). His former posts include Principal Guest Conductor of the Seattle Opera (2007- 2013), Music Director of the New Israeli Opera (1998-2008), and Music Director of the Wiener Volksoper (1995-2000).

After returning to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood and the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival in August, highlights of Asher Fisch’s 2019-20 season include concerts with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologne. Guest opera engagements include Fidelio and Adriana Lecouvrer at the Teatro Comunale di Bologne, Carmen, Die Zauberflöte, and Parsifal at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Ariadne auf Naxos with the Bayerische Staatsoper at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and Pagliacci and Schitz at the Israeli Opera.

Highlights of Asher Fisch’s 2018-19 season included guest engagements with the Düsseldorf Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony and Teatro Massimo Orchestra in Palermo. Guest opera engagements included Il Trovatore, Otello, Die Fliegende Holländer, and Andrea Chénier at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Arabella and Hansel und Gretel at the Semperoper Dresden, Tannhäuser at the Tokyo National Theater, and Cristof Loy’s new production of Capriccio at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

Born in Israel, Fisch began his conducting career as Daniel Barenboim’s assistant and kappellmeister at the Berlin Staatsoper. He has built his versatile repertoire at the major opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and Semperoper Dresden. Fisch is also a regular guest conductor at leading American symphony orchestras including those of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia. In Europe he has appeared at the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Orchestre National de France, among others.

Asher Fisch’s recent recordings include Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, recorded live with WASO and featuring Stuart Skelton and Gun-Brit Barkmin. Widely acclaimed, it won Limelight Magazine’s Opera Recording of the Year in 2019. Fisch’s recording of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole with the Munich Radio Orchestra also won Limelight Magazine’s Opera Recording of the Year in 2017. In 2018 Fisch and WASO recorded Bruckner’s Symphony No.8 for WASOLive! and Stuart Skelton’s first solo album for ABC Classics. In 2015, he recorded the complete Brahms symphonies live with WASO for ABC Classics. Asher Fisch’s recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle with the Seattle Opera was released on the Avie label in 2014 and his first Ring Cycle recording, with the State Opera of South Australia, was released by Melba Recordings.

Asher Fisch appears courtesy of Wesfarmers Arts.

Grace Clifford
Violin

Grace Clifford is widely recognized as one of Australia’s finest young violinists and she is privileged to perform with many of its
leading orchestras.

Grace has enjoyed the frequent opportunity of performing concertos with the Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Melbourne Chamber, Tasmania Symphony, West Australian Symphony, Adelaide
Symphony, and Canberra Symphony Orchestras. Grace was appointed as Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s first ever Emerging Artist in Association from 2018-2020.

Grace graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston earlier this year, studying with Miriam Fried on a Presidential Scholarship. Grace holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Pamela Frank, Ida Kavafian, and the late Joseph Silverstein. She graduated with the Joan Hutton Landis Award for Academic Excellence.

2021 season highlights include returns to the Sydney, Adelaide and West Australian Symphony Orchestras and she looks forward to making her debut with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Photo credit: Anthony Browell

Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924)

Pavane, Op.50

Gabriel Fauré was one of the most distinguished French composers of his time. A consummate craftsman, endowed with exquisite taste and feeling, he exercised great influence as a teacher, and was admired by his contemporaries and pupils (who included Ravel). As a composer he stuck to an individual path – a refinement of the Romantic idiom, guided by a classical sense of form, and an original harmonic language whose daring is not less for being unobtrusive. He once said to one of his aristocratic patrons, ‘I have pushed back the limits of refinement.’

The dance called the Pavane may have originated in Spain, named after the deportment of the peacock (pavo), or in Italy, named for the town of Padua (padovana). It is a measured, ceremonial, processional dance. Fauré composed his Pavane in 1887 for chorus and orchestra. Count Robert de Montesquiou created a text in the style of Verlaine to go with the music – both composer and author were seeking to create an antique, courtly atmosphere.

The poem is a double duet, in which two pairs of imaginary lovers quarrel and are quickly reconciled, not without exchanging barbed comments. The music consists almost entirely of one suave melody, with a very short middle section, corresponding to the quarrel. Fauré incorporated the Pavane, which is often heard in the optional purely orchestral version, in the entertainment Masques et Bergamasques (1919).

© David Garrett

First Performance:
28 April 1888, Paris.

First WASO Performance:
8 May 1948. Henry Krips, conductor.

Most recent WASO performance:
7 August 2015. Simone Young, conductor.

Instrumentation:
two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; two horns and strings.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

Violin Concerto

Allegro moderato – Allegro molto
Adagio di molto
Allegro ma non tanto

By his very nature, Sibelius was not the sort of composer one would expect to compose a concerto. The conception of a concerto as a ‘show-off’ work for the soloist was anathema to Sibelius, who increasingly throughout his compositional career sought to employ the purest, most unselfconscious forms of musical expression. And yet for all that reluctance to indulge in merely ‘gestural’ instrumental effects, Sibelius maintained a love of the violin. As a young man he had harboured ambitions of becoming a virtuoso violinist himself, but a comparatively late start to his training, together with a slightly dodgy technique, meant that this wasn’t a viable career option.

But his frustrated ambitions must have been compensated at least in part by his composition in 1903 of his only concerto of any kind, the Violin Concerto, which is now acknowledged alongside the Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky concertos as indisputably one of the greatest ever written. The Violin Concerto demonstrates just how successfully Sibelius managed to adapt the virtuoso vehicle to his own expressive needs. For the listener, the concerto is not so much the demonstration of the fiendish virtuosity which it is for the performer, but rather an organic musical whole in which every note contributes to the overall expressive intent. In other words, its technical demands emerge from its artistic purpose.

Undoubtedly the concerto had been inspired by Willy Burmester, former leader of the Helsinki Orchestra and a long-time admirer of Sibelius’ music. As early as 1902 Burmester had been enquiring by letter as to the concerto’s progress, and he made various offers of technical assistance and advice.

In September 1903 Sibelius sent Burmester a short score, to which Burmester replied, ‘I can only say one thing: Wonderful! Masterly! Only once before have I spoken in such terms to a composer, and that was when Tchaikovsky showed me his concerto.’

But when Sibelius finished the work, his anxiety to arrange a first performance as soon as possible, and Burmester’s unavailability in the short term, meant that Sibelius actually offered the first performance to Viktor Nováček, an unexceptional Helsinki musician, who premiered the work on 8 February 1904 with Sibelius conducting. It was not a success, despite some favourable reviews.

With Burmester still offering to perform the concerto, Sibelius set about revising it, completely rewriting the first movement and also making significant alterations to the slow movement. The new version was completed in June 1905, and again Burmester was passed over as soloist, despite his availability. Instead, the new version was premiered in Berlin by Karel Halíř, with Richard Strauss conducting.

Amidst the general wrangling and bitterness, Burmester vowed never to perform the concerto, while Joseph Joachim, on hearing the Berlin premiere, damned it. Fortunately the Berlin press was rather more enthusiastic than Joachim, but even so, the work didn’t really establish itself in the repertoire until the 1930s, when Jascha Heifetz began to perform it. Since that time it has been regarded as a yardstick by which violinists are measured.

The opening of the concerto is one of the most unmistakable in all music. Over the murmur of muted violins, the soloist enters immediately with an unforgettable, intense and brooding first subject. This Allegro moderato theme is set against a series of fragmentary figures which emerge out of the depths of the cellos and bassoons. Although the movement doesn’t sit well with standard sonata principles (the development and recapitulation are combined, and the cadenza precedes them both), there is a clear organic structure, with the soloist dominating and the rhythm driving on through a series of orchestral climaxes.

The mood of the Adagio is more restrained, but the characteristic intensity remains, as does the poignancy and sense of regret. The finale is a polonaise in all but name, and a bravura showpiece for the soloist. It begins with a stamping figure low down in the timpani and strings and the solo part then shoots up heavenwards, with amazingly difficult passages of thirds, harmonics, arpeggios, double-stops – indeed all the pyrotechnics available to the soloist, but at the same time without any sense of self-indulgence. The wild dance gathers momentum as it proceeds until a series of majestic flourishes from the violin leads to the final, sharp decisive chords from the full orchestra.

Martin Buzacott

Symphony Australia © 1997

First Performance (original version):
8 February 1904, Helsinki. Composer conducting.

Most recent WASO performance:
15 November 2014. Alina Ibragimova, violin. Marko Letonja, conductor.

Instrumentation:
two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, two trumpets, three trombones; timpani and strings.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68

Un poco sostenuto – Allegro
Andante sostenuto
Un poco allegretto e grazioso
Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo,
ma con brio

The first symphony was a long time coming, largely as a result of Brahms’ paralysing stage-fright when contemplating genres in which the ‘giants’ – especially Beethoven – had produced their masterpieces. That is not to say that Brahms had not wanted to compose symphonies, and in the early 1850s was persuaded by Robert and Clara Schumann to turn a D minor sonata for two pianos into such a work; the results have not survived. It was at this time, though, that he began making sketches for what would, eventually, become the first movement of the First Symphony. In 1862, Clara Schumann was surprised to receive a package from Brahms containing ‘the first movement of a symphony’. She wrote to Joseph Joachim that it was ‘rather strong … but full of wonderful beauties’ and noted that ‘the themes are treated with a mastery that is becoming more and more characteristic of him’. Despite the enthusiasm of such colleagues, however, the movement (at this stage it was only the Allegro section) remained an unfinished torso for well over a decade. The Symphony was only completed and first performed in 1876 – the same year as the first production of the completed Ring cycle.

Its impact was such that conductor Hans von Bülow only half-jokingly referred to it as Beethoven’s Tenth. It is certainly Beethovenian in scale, and follows the blueprint of such works as Beethoven’s Third, Fifth and Ninth Symphonies in tracing an epic journey from a state of turbulent conflict to one of triumphant resolution. Clara Schumann may have found the ideas in the 1862 sketch ‘strong’, but they were immeasurably strengthened when Brahms added the overwhelming slow introduction where, over the implacable pounding of the timpani, the full orchestra sounds a harmony that threatens to come apart under the force of its internal tension. That tension is not resolved by a contrasting chirpy Allegro: the remainder of the movement continues to depict a compelling, but abstract, drama of musical processes in Brahms’ now fully-formed orchestral sound.

The Andante shows an equally Brahmsian, if completely different, sound world. After the confused alarms of the previous movement, the rhetoric is much more subdued, and the scoring lighter, allowing for brief, sylvan wind solos and passages of lush string writing. But the retreat from the Romantic Sturm und Drang of the previous movement is by no means complete, and the music is occasionally taken over in an impassioned outburst. The closing section of the movement, though, is quietly gleaming, with a violin solo and the soft wind chords with which Brahms often concludes a piece. Brahms scholar Karl Geiringer writes that the Allegretto (not a conventional scherzo) ‘seems to smile through its tears’, though it too has moments of frank emotionalism. Conductor Hermann Levi felt that the inner movements were serenade-like, but as such they provide respite between the two, titanic outer movements.

Following the Beethovenian model meant that Brahms had to create a finale that balanced if not outweighed the opening movement. Brahms’ solution was essentially that of Beethoven in the finale of the Ninth
Symphony – though not, of course, using voices: both begin with seemingly unrelated passages that return to a state of uncertainty and move through various musical fields before discovering the thematic centre of the piece. Brahms begins with a sombre Adagio introduction that, like the first movement’s, features harmony that moves almost painfully from chord to nearby chord. This gives rise to fragmentary, more troubled music, which in turn is interrupted by a long horn melody; this tune had personal significance for Brahms, in that he wrote it out, with some home-made verse, on a card sent to Clara Schumann when they were estranged. It is joined by the trombones (making their first appearance in the work), that suggests a sudden view of a spacious landscape. Only now does Brahms bring in his theme, a piece of pure and simple diatonicism.

Brahms, who never suffered fools, would snap at people who noted the similarity of the theme to Beethoven’s ‘Freude’ tune: ‘Any jackass can see that!’ And of course it may be a Beethovenian tune but its scoring, and the development to which it is subjected, are purely and masterfully Brahmsian.

© Gordon Kerry 2015

First Performance:
4 November 1876, Karlsruhe. Otto Dessoff, conductor.

First WASO Performance:
11 August 1944. Ernest J. Roberts, conductor.

Most recent WASO performance:
21 August 2015. Asher Fisch, conductor.

Instrumentation:
two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and contrabassoon; four horns, two trumpets, three trombones; timpani and strings.

Julia Brooke
Horn

How and where did your musical journey begin?
I was fortunate to have been brought up in a very musical household. Both my parents are professional musicians; my dad was Associate Principal Bassoon in the Sydney Symphony and my mum an opera singer and music educator. My sister and I sang in choirs from a very young age, and played recorder, piano and our respective instruments (horn for me, cello for her) at school in various ensembles.

During your WASO career what concert stands out?
There have been so many during my time here. But one that I will always think of fondly was performing Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with Asher and an absolutely incredible cast. It is rare to see Wagner operas performed in Australia, so it felt like a wonderful privilege to perform such a magnificent score whilst sharing a stage with some truly magnificent voices.

Have you played in any other orchestras?
I have been lucky enough to have played with every state symphony and opera orchestra in Australia during various stages of my career. I have also worked with the New Zealand Symphony, which was wonderful and the first time I’d been to NZ. We played 14 concerts over several weeks and travelled the length of the country. It was a wonderful introduction to many marvellous places!

If you could program your own concert what would you play and who would be the conductor?
We could call this concert “Julia’s favourites”, but in honesty there are many. We would start with Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, followed by Britten’s magical Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. The second half would be Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Yannick Nézet-Séguin would conduct us…on tour, so we would perform in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what 3 things would you choose to have with you?
My dog Enid loves the beach so she can come, a striped beach umbrella because one must always be sun-safe and stylish. And my last item would be Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land, because it’s been sitting on my shelf for ages and I’ll have time to get stuck into its 768 pages.

What’s the most played non-classical track on your phone?
Well the second most played is Marvin Gaye’s “Got to give it up”, but in truth I am an incredibly light sleeper…so the most played is actually a sleep soundtrack called “Gentle Rains”. I find going to sleep after concerts particularly difficult, so sleep sounds help me to unwind. They stop phrases of music from that evening’s concert playing on a loop in my head all night!

Education Week+ Wrap Up

An annual tradition at WASO is our Education Week+: a festival for families, students, emerging composers, community musicians and more. A two-week celebration that shines a spotlight on just some of the amazing programs that WASO delivers, these programs reach hundreds of individuals and create opportunities for people of all ages and walks of life to engage with extraordinary music and musicians – stimulating life-long learning and participation in a rewarding cultural life.

2021 Education Week+ saw WASO performing and engaging with over 4,000 individuals from June 1 – 12. Kicking off with a free concert featuring presenter Lee Stanley and the Education Chamber Orchestra in EChO’s Sea Adventures, families and little ones aged 0 – 6 set sail for the high seas to experience a musical extravaganza. Lee Stanley and a quartet of musicians including Rebecca Glorie and Jasmine Middleton (UWA Masters Student) on violin, Alexander Millier on clarinet and John Keene on double bass delivered three creative development workshops for students in Years 5 and 6 at North Parmelia and Medina Primary School as a part of our much-loved Crescendo program. Students were creatively engaged throughout the hour, relishing in the chance to compose and perform a song with their WASO musician to their class.

Other highlights of Education Week+ included Composition Project, WASO’s flagship artist development program. Led by celebrated Australian composer and project Artistic Director James Ledger, five promising and emerging composers premiered new solo works written for WASO musicians. The quality of composition was experimental and impressive, and well received by an audience of composer family, friends, but also members of the general public excited to see something a bit different.

The crowd favourite Rusty Orchestra performed a selection of popular and engaging music to a delighted, sold out audience at Perth Concert Hall. Conducted by Peter Moore, community musicians practiced for months and travelled from all over Perth and the South West to perform side-by-side with WASO musicians. The performance was followed by thunderous applause, with some audience members giving a standing ovation and even tears whilst applauding.

Triple-threat orchestral performer Thea Rossen made her debut with WASO. The percussionist, composer and educator presented three performances of Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, during which young audience members had the opportunity to have their compositions performed live by WASO musicians. Both schools and families loved the performances and getting involved, particularly during the body percussion section and at the bubble machine and origami stations.

“It’s always a privilege for us musicians to be able to take part in these projects, to share our love of music, and to get to see how music can affect people in such powerful and profound ways.
“A privilege indeed!”

- Andrew Nicholson, Principal Flute