Ryan Bancroft conducts Brahms, Mozart & Schumann

Johannes Brahms
Tragic Overture, Op. 81  (13’) 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K467  (26’) 

INTERVAL: 20 minutes

Robert Schumann
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 97, ‘Rhenish’  (32’) 

Jonathan Biss piano
Nicola Heywood Thomas presenter

BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Ryan Bancroft conductor

The concert is being recorded by BBC Radio 3 for future broadcast in ‘Radio 3 in Concert’. It will be available to stream or download for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds, where you can also find podcasts and music mixes. Visit bbc.co.uk/now for more information on future performances.

The word ‘tragic’ has shifted in meaning in the 140 years since Brahms wrote his Tragic Overture. Today just about any major distressing event could be described as ‘tragic’, but in Brahms’s time it tended to evoke serious classical drama: a play with a noble but flawed, ultimately doomed hero, emotionally powerful, but at the same time elevated, dignified and governed by long-established formal rules. Brahms may have had a big heart, but he wasn’t inclined to wear it on his sleeve – or at least not in big public works such as this. The Tragic Overture is dark in tone, compelling, sometimes poignant, but – in strong contrast to Gustav Mahler – you never feel that Brahms’s imaginary tragic hero is necessarily himself. 

The overture begins with two stark loud chords, compared by one writer to ‘hammer-blows of fate’. From then onwards the music can be enjoyed as a logical but impassioned symphonic depiction of that ‘fate’ in action. There are contrasts: hushed, sombre, visionary passages, a warmly consoling second theme led by violins and, at the heart of the overture, a kind of ghostly processional at half-speed, all deep shadows and eerie half-lights. But the initial mood of tragic striving always returns, building at last to a grimly emphatic ending in the minor key. We may not know the identity of Brahms’s tragic hero, but we can certainly guess how his or perhaps her story ends.

^{Find out more
Leipzig Gewandhausorchester/ Riccardo Chailly (Decca 4787471)
Master Musicians: Brahms Malcolm MacDonald (OUP)}

1 Allegro maestoso (cadenza: Jonathan Biss)
2 Andante  
3 Allegro vivace assai (cadenza: Dinu Lipatti)

Jonathan Biss piano

In December 1782, three years before he composed this concerto, Mozart sent a revealing letter to his father. Referring to a set of three piano concertos (K413–15) on which he was working at the time, he wrote: ‘These concertos are a happy medium between what’s too difficult and too easy – they are brilliant – pleasing to the ear – natural without becoming vacuous; there are passages here and there that only connoisseurs can fully appreciate – yet the common listener will find them satisfying as well, although without knowing why.’ By the time he came to write the 21st Piano Concerto Mozart’s style had become even more sophisticated, but he never lost that ability to write music in such a way that anyone can sense its secrets, even if they can’t explain them in textbook musical terms. 

One of Mozart’s many outstanding technical skills – one guaranteed to delight the ‘connoisseurs’ – is his ability to develop (to decorate, break down and re-shape) his main themes; but he takes great care to make sure they’re securely planted in our minds before he lets his soloist loose on them. (At the first performances of these concertos that soloist would have been Mozart himself.) In the case of K467, before the pianist enters for the first time, there’s a long orchestral passage in which the leading ideas are presented simply and clearly. The most important of these ideas, heard quietly on strings at the beginning, is presented several times in something like its original form before Mozart really gets to work on it.

The first movement is the longest. It’s followed by a beautiful, exquisitely lyrical slow movement, in which the strings are muted throughout. You can allow yourself simply to be carried along by the airborne loveliness of the violins’ opening melody, or you can play the connoisseur and count along with the music, noting that the phrases of this theme are strikingly irregular, adding to its poignant, halting effect. In the end, though, perhaps it’s best to surrender to the music’s sensuous flow and take any ‘cleverness’ on trust. The finale is sheer sparkling fun, strongly reminiscent of the wonderful comic opera The Marriage of Figaro, which Mozart began the same year. When it comes to the spirit of comedy in music, no-one knew how to handle the ingredients better than Masterchef Mozart.

^{Find out more
Jonathan Biss; Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (Warner Classics 2172702)
Master Musicians: Mozart Julian Rushton (OUP)}

INTERVAL: 20 minutes

1 Lebhaft [Lively]
2 Scherzo: Sehr mässig [Very moderate]
3 Nicht schnell [Not fast]
4 Feierlich [Solemn, ceremonial]
5 Lebhaft

In March 1850 Robert Schumann was offered the post of Music Director in the port of Düsseldorf, on the River Rhine. At first he was anxious: he had doubts (well founded, it turned out) about his abilities as a conductor, and also about the quality of the city’s orchestra. But Schumann’s mood could swing suddenly: later that month a trip to Cologne, just up-river from Düsseldorf, sent his imagination soaring. The magnificent Gothic cathedral thrilled him, and he made a point of returning that autumn to watch the grand procession for the enthronement of the city’s new Archbishop. 

The sights, sounds and general character of the Rhinelands were to be a major influence on the moods and colours of Schumann’s Third Symphony, which he wrote that same year in less than two months. The title ‘Rhenish’ is also a sign of his growing nationalist sympathies – as is his use of German tempo markings instead of the traditional Italian. For the German peoples the River Rhine had long been a potent national symbol, as Wagner understood very well when he made it the hiding place of the elemental treasure in his opera Das Rheingold. But we need to remember that in Schumann’s time ‘Germany’ as a country did not yet exist: instead there was a loose federation of German-speaking dukedoms, principalities and city-states. The notion of a unified German land was still a misty dream, and a long way short of the sinister significance it was to acquire in the 20th century.

The symphony consists of an unconventional five movements and its glorious, forward-surging opening theme is undoubtedly a reflection of the great river itself: there are quieter moments, but the sweeping energy continues to the end. 

The following Scherzo is often described as a Ländler – the country cousin of the sophisticated urban waltz – and the main theme does have a hearty Germanic folksy quality. (The strongly plunging down-beat suggests that it could be a rowing song.) 

After this comes a gentle intermezzo, with more fine watery imagery: the flowing lower strings in the second theme and the running bass figures near the end are suggestive of deep, unseen undercurrents. 

Then the key changes to sombre minor for the fourth movement, as Schumann records his impressions of the ceremony he witnessed in Cologne Cathedral. The three trombones enter for the first time in solemn splendour, imitating the counterpoint of dark-hued choral church singing. 

The final movement bursts into life without any preparation. The effect is like stepping out of a vast, dimly lit cathedral, full of grim reminders of suffering and mortality, into the bright sunlight of a bustling Rhineland market town. In the end, though, it is the powerful current of the great river itself that carries us through to the close.

^{Programme notes © Stephen Johnson
Stephen Johnson is the author of books on Bruckner, Wagner, Mahler and Shostakovich, and a regular contributor to ‘BBC Music Magazine’. For 14 years he was a presenter of BBC Radio 3’s ‘Discovering Music’. He now works both as a freelance writer and as a composer.}

^{Find out more
Dresden Staatskapelle/ Christian Thielemann (Sony Classical 19075943412)
The Cambridge Companion to Schumann ed. Beate Perrey(CUP)}

Biographies

Ryan Bancroft conductor

Ryan Bancroft grew up in Los Angeles and first came to international attention in April 2018, when he won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the prestigious Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen. In September 2019 it was announced that he had been appointed Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. This role began in the 2020–21 season. Following his first visit to work with the Tapiola Sinfonietta he was invited to become its Artist-in-Association from this season.

He has made debuts with leading international orchestras, including the Atlanta, BBC, Cincinnati, City of Birmingham, Danish National, RAI National, Swedish Radio and Toronto Symphony orchestras, the Rotterdam and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic orchestras and Norwegian National Opera Orchestra. Forthcoming debuts include concerts with the Baltimore, Gothenburg and Iceland Symphony orchestras.

He has a passion for contemporary music and has performed with Amsterdam’s Nieuw Ensemble, assisted Pierre Boulez in a performance of his Sur Incises in Los Angeles, premiered works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Cage, Tenney and Anne LeBaron, and has worked closely with improvisers such as Wadada Leo Smith and Charlie Haden.This season he makes his debut with Ensemble Intercontemporain.

He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and in the Netherlands.

Jonathan Biss piano

Jonathan Biss is one of the world’s most sought-after pianists, performing regularly with major orchestras and at leading concert halls and festivals around the globe. He is also renowned as a teacher, writer and musical thinker.

Major projects include an exploration of the late style of a diverse range of composers; a project performing and recording the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, begun in 2011 and completed in time for last year’s anniversary; and Beethoven/5, involving the commissioning of new piano concertos from Timo Andres, Sally Beamish, Salvatore Sciarrino, Caroline Shaw and Brett Dean to go alongside those of Beethoven. This season he gives the UK premiere of Dean’s concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo.

Other highlights this season include concerts with the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Dresden Philharmonic; Schumann songs with tenor Mark Padmore at the Barbican Centre; chamber music at the kamara.hu festival in Hungary; and a piano quartet tour with Liza Ferschtman, Malin Broman and Antoine Lederlin. 

He was the first American to be appointed a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and one of the first recipients of the Borletti–Buitoni Trust Award in 2003; this led to a longstanding relationship with Mitsuko Uchida, with whom he is now Co-Artistic Director of Marlboro Music.